To the female imagination, the war with Mexico must have been clothed with peculiar hardships and dangers. The length of the marches, the vast distance from home, the torrid heats, fell diseases that prevailed in that clime, and the nature of the half-civilized enemy, all conspired to warn the gentler sex against taking part in that conflict. And yet all these appalling difficulties and perils could not damp the martial ardor of Mrs. Coolidge. She was born in Missouri, where, at St. Louis, she married her husband, who was a Mexican trader. Accompanying him on one of his yearly journeys to Santa Fe, she had the misfortune to see him meet his death, at the hands of a Mexican bravo, in the outskirts of that city.
Her life had been a stirring one from her early girlhood, and, when war broke out with Mexico, she attired herself in manly garments, and by her stature and rather masculine appearance readily passed muster with the recruiting officer. Under the name of James Brown, she was duly entered on the rolls of a Missouri company, which soon after took steamboat for Fort Leavenworth, the rendezvous. From this point, on the 16th of June, 1846, a force of sixteen hundred and fifty-eight men, including our heroine (or hero), took up their line of march to Santa Fé.
Most of this little army were mounted men, and of this number was Mrs.
Coolidge, who was an admirable horsewoman. Their course lay over the almost
boundless plains that stretch westward to the foothills of the Rocky
Mountains, a distance of nearly one thousand miles.
In fifty days they reached Santa Fe, of which they took possession without opposition. The soldierly bearing and quick intelligence of Mrs. Coolidge soon attracted the attention of Col. Kearney, the commanding officer, and she was selected by him to be one of the bearers of dispatches to the war department.
A picked mustang, of extraordinary mettle and endurance, was placed at her disposal; a strong and fleet horse of the messenger stock, crossed with the mustang, was selected for her guide, a sturdy Scotchman, formerly in the Santa Fé trade; and one bright day, early in September, they set out on their long and perilous journey for Leavenworth. The first sixteen miles, over a broken and hilly country, was void of incident. They had passed through Arroyo Hondo and reached the Cañon, (El Boca del Cañon,) one of the gateways to Santa Fé; as they were threading this narrow pass, they saw, on turning a short angle of the precipice that towered three hundred feet above them, four mounted Mexicans, armed to the teeth and prepared to dispute their passage. One of them dismounted, and, advancing towards our couriers, waved a white handkerchief, and demanded in Spanish and in broken English their surrender. The guide replied in very concise English, telling him to go to a place unmentionable to polite ears. The envoy immediately rejoined his companions and mounted his horse; the party then turned and trotted forward a few paces as if they were about to give Mrs. Coolidge and the guide a free passage, when they suddenly wheeled their horses, and, discharging their pieces, seized their lances and dashed down full tilt upon our heroine and her guide. A shot from the guide's rifle hurled one of the Mexicans out of his saddle, like a stone from a sling. Mrs. Coolidge was less fortunate in her aim; missing the rider, her bullet struck a horse full in the forehead, but such was the speed with which it was approaching, that it was carried within twenty paces of the spot where she stood before it fell; the rider, uninjured, quickly extricated himself, and, seizing from his holster a horse-pistol, shot Mrs. Coolidge's horse, which nevertheless still kept his legs, and, as her assailant rushed towards her with his machete, or large knife, she leveled a pistol and sent a ball through one of his legs, breaking it and bringing him to the ground. Dismounting from her horse, which was reeling and staggering with loss of blood, she held her other pistol to the head of the prostrate guerrilla, who surrendered at discretion.
Meanwhile, the guide had dispatched one of the two remaining Mexicans, and, though he had a shot in the fleshy part of his leg, he had succeeded in compelling the other to surrender by shooting his horse.
Mrs. Coolidge now, for the first time, discovered blood dripping from a wound made by a musket-ball in her bridle-arm. Hastily winding her scarf about it, she bound the arms of her prisoner with a piece of rope, and broke his lance and the locks of his pistols and carbine. The other prisoner was served in the same fashion. The arms of the two dead Mexicans were also broken or disabled. The fleetest and best of the two remaining horses was taken by Mrs. Coolidge in lieu of her own gallant little mustang, which was now gasping out his life on the rocky bottom of the pass. Our gallant couriers then paroled the two prisoners, and galloped rapidly down the cañon, taking the other mustang with them, and leaving the guerrillas to find their way home as they best might. As they mounted their horses, the guide remarked to Mrs. Coolidge that he had heretofore entertained the suspicion that she might be a woman, but that now he knew she was a man.
A swift ride brought them to old Pecos, a distance of ten miles, where they supped and passed the night. Their wounds were mere scratches and did not necessitate any delay, and the next day, after a long, slow gallop, they reached Los Vegas. Then, keeping their course to the northwest and pushing rapidly forward, they passed the present site of Fort Union, and, having secured a large supply of dried buffalo meat, crossed the wonderful mesa or table-land west of the Canadian River, and encamped for a night and day on the east bank of that stream.
The next stretch for two hundred miles lay through a country infested with Utah and Apache Indians. Three or four days of swift riding would carry them through this dangerous region to a place of security on the Arkansas River. If they should meet a hostile band, it was agreed that they would trust for safety in the swiftness of their steeds, which had already proved themselves capable of both speed and endurance.
They had crossed Rabbit ear Creek and reached the Cimarron, without seeing even the sign of a foe, when, early one morning, the guide, looking eastward over the vast sandy plain, from the camp where they had passed the night, saw far away a body of fifty mounted Indians, whom, after examining with his glass, he pronounced to be Utahs coming rapidly towards them. There was no escape, and, in accordance with their programme, they mounted their horses and rode slowly to meet them.