Tag: Las Vegas New Mexico

BOOK REVIEW: Wildest of the Wild West

BOOK REVIEW: Wildest of the Wild West

Howard Bryan’s Wildest of the Wild Westis one of the first books I read when I began to explore the possibility of turning pieces of New Mexico’s history into fiction. While Bryan’s book about the town of Las Vegas is nonfiction, it reads like a story. Certainly, some of the events he retells could be lifted straight from a traditional Western novel.

We find an Italian hermit living in a cave above the Spanish-speaking town and revered as a holy man and miracle worker, Jesse James and Billy the Kid soaking in the nearby hot springs, Doc Holliday opening his final dental practice only to abandon it for a saloon and gambling hall, and Hoodoo Brown, formal justice of the peace and informal protection racketeer. Then there’s the actress/singer/poet/faro dealer known as Monte Verde who was actually the famous Confederate spy Belle Siddons. And the enigmatic “Mysterious Dave” Mather, who seems to have robbed a train while serving as Las Vegas Town Marshal.

The stories of these various characters is woven into a coherent narrative of Las Vegas’s history which Bryan tells with humor and verve. If you like nonfiction that reads like a novel, I highly recommend Wildest of the Wild West.

Ten Americans Killed At Wagon Mound, New Mexico Territory!

Ten Americans Killed At Wagon Mound, New Mexico Territory!

In early May 1850, three men headed across the plains toward Santa Fe with the U.S. mail. Seven other men had joined them for safety’s sake. It wasn’t enough. Around May 7, a band of Jicarilla Apache and Mouache Ute led by a man named White Wolf struck near Wagon Mound.  When the ensuing running fight was over, the entire party of Americans lay dead on the greening grass. The bodies were found by other travellers on Sunday, May 19.

The number of men killed made this incident even worse than the one the previous October when Mrs. White died and her slave woman and daughter were captured. At a glance, it appeared that the Apache and Utes had gone on a senseless killing spree.  

But there was a reason for these deaths. In August 1849, a band of Jicarilla had visited Las Vegas, New Mexico discuss a possible peace treaty. Not much discussion seems to have taken place. Instead, the Jicarillas were attacked by armed men who killed fourteen of them and captured White Wolf’s daughter.

Wagon Mound, New Mexico. Courtesy: Cultural Atlas of New Mexico

After the White party deaths two months later, White Wolf’s daughter was pulled out of jail and taken along on a mission to find the survivors. The idea was to use her as an interpreter/negotiator as well as a bargaining chip. En route, she decided to take matters into her own hands and escape. In the process, she shot two men and did her best to stampede the group’s mules herd but was herself shot and killed.

So no one should have been at all surprised that the mail carriers and their companions died at the hands of White Wolf and his fellow warriors. What else had the men of Las Vegas expected?

Sources: Howard Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West, Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishing, 1988; Leo E. Oliva, Fort Union and the Frontier Army in the Southwest, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, National Park Service, Santa Fe, 1993; Morris F. Taylor, First Mail West, Albuquerque: UNM Press, 2000.

Las Vegas Hot Springs Lodging Available!

In late April 1854, W. W. Donaldson of Las Vegas, New Mexico announced that he’d made “ample arrangements” for accommodating “invalids and others” with board and lodging at the celebrated Las Vegas hot springs.

April 22 illustration

Donaldson wasn’t the first to take advantage of the healing mineral-filled springs six miles northwest of today’s Las Vegas. The Springs had been used for centuries by the Native Americans in the region, reputedly to heal battle wounds and other ailments.

And Donaldson wouldn’t be the last. The board and lodging. He offered were considerably upgraded in 1886. That year, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company built the 90,000 square foot Montezuma Castle as a destination hotel.  The castle capitalized on the hot springs as well as the trout fishing in nearby Gallinas Creek and hosted guests as diverse as Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Jesse James, Theodore Roosevelt, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

The hot springs and the hotel, which is now the home of an international high school, are currently owned by the United World College, which still allows public access to the springs. Board and lodging is available in nearby Las Vegas.

Sources: Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, April 22, 1854, front page; http://www.visitlasvegasnm.com/montezuma-castle  Accessed 3/6/19; http://www.visitlasvegasnm.com/montezuma-hot-springs  Accessed 3/6/19.

The Battle of Glorieta Pass

On Saturday, March 22, 1862, Colorado Militia Colonel John Potts Slough led his troops out of Fort Union to meet the Texan Confederate army that had seized Santa Fe twelve days earlier—the same day Slough and his Colorado Militia, or Pike’s Peakers, had arrived at Fort Union. The irascible and rather arrogant Slough, who’d virtually seized command of the Fort when he arrived, had about 1500 men at his disposal, a combination of Pike’s Peakers, New Mexico Militia, and Army infantry and cavalry.

On Sunday, Slough’s Union forces camped overnight at Las Vegas, then on Monday swung west  toward Santa Fe. Tuesday was another day of slowly moving forward and into the mountains. Santa Fe must have seemed a long way away, especially to the Colorado militiamen, who’d already trekked over 300 miles from Denver to Fort Union.

But then on Wednesday, Union scouts clashed with a small Confederate force in Apache Canyon, at the west end of Glorieta Pass and less than twenty miles from Santa Fe.

Both sides pulled back. The Confederates—about 200 men under Major Charles L. Pyron—headed to Johnson’s Ranch at Canoncito, where they were joined by the main Confederate force, which had just arrived via a trail through the mountains north east of Albuquerque.

march 26 illustration

The Union men moved to Kozlowski’s ranch, at the eastern end of the Pass. When the rest of Slough’s forces joined them on Friday morning, everything went into high gear.

Most of Slough’s men headed on into the Pass. But Colonel Manuel Antonio Chaves, of the New Mexico First Infantry, led Major John M. Chivington and 530 men (New Mexico Militia, two Pike’s Peakers infantry columns, and a detachment of Third U.S. Cavalry) into the mountains south of the Pass. Their goal was to circle south and west around the Confederates and hit them from behind while the main body met the Texans head on.

And the Union and Confederate troops did meet head on, at Pigeon’s Ranch, a trail hostelry in the middle of the Pass owned by Frenchman Alexander Valle. It was a hard-fought, all-day battle between evenly-matched combatants. When the fighting ground to a halt late in the day, the two sides agreed to a truce so they could tend their wounded and dying. But both sides saw the break in fighting as temporary. They were confident they’d ultimately win the Battle of Glorieta Pass.

Until that evening, when news arrived from the western end of the Pass.

Instead of Confederate troops, Colonel Chavez and Major Chivington had found a weakly-defended supply train. Chivington ordered his men down from the bluffs above the camp and set them to attacking, pillaging, and then burning the Texan wagons and everything they contained: food, clothing, equipment, ammunition, and medical supplies.

The Confederates had stationed the majority of their horses and mules with the train—as many of 500 animals. Chivington ordered his men to destroy them, as well. It’s not clear what actually happened to all the animals in question, though. At least some were driven off into the mountains and presumably into the hands of citizens for whom they were more useful alive than dead.

Wherever the Confederate livestock ended up, they certainly weren’t going to help the Texans. With their supplies, wagons, and animals gone, Sibley’s men forfeited the Battle of Glorieta Pass and beat a retreat for Santa Fe and, ultimately, Texas.

Most of the Coloradans headed home, too, although at least one of them returned a few years later. In 1865, John Potts Slough was named chief justice of the New Mexico Territorial Court.

Although Slough was an able judge—he would announce the 1867 legal decision that declared Pueblo Indians to be United States citizens—Slough was still as thin-skinned and greedy for honor and position as he’d been five years before. His furious response to New Mexico legislative political intrigues and Capt. William L. Rynerson’s role in them culminated in a December 1867 shootout in what is now Santa Fe’s La Fonda Hotel. Slough died as a result.

At the ensuing trial, Rynerson was found to have drawn his gun in self-defense.

It’s likely Slough would have insisted on a different opinion.

 

Sources: Howard Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West, Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishing, 1988; David L. Caffey, Chasing the Santa Fe Ring, Albuquerque: UNM Press, 2014; Jacqueline D. Meketa, Louis Felsenthal, Citizen-Soldier of Territorial New Mexico, Albuquerque: UNM Press, 1982; David Grant Noble, Pueblos, Villages, Forts & Trails: A guide to New Mexico’s past. Albuquerque: UNM Press, 1994; Jerry D. Thompson, A Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers and Militia¸ Albuquerque: UNM Press, 2015; Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Leading Facts of New Mexico History, Vol. II. Cedar Rapid: Torch Press, 1912; https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=125 Accessed 1/10/19

Mixed Experiences for Wool Ranchers on the Santa Fe Trail

In early May 1868, Hispanic sheep ranchers from across Northeast New Mexico headed east on the Santa Fe Trail from Las Vegas. Five hundred men were taking 200 ox-drawn wagons filled with wool to the Eastern markets. The ranchers had no sacks for theit wool, but that didn’t stop them. They piled their cargo into their wagons, tramped it down, covered it with sheets, and moved out.

The ranchers’ caravan included at least 3200 oxen and over 500 horses and mules. To protect the animals not actually pulling cargo, the wagons traveled in two parallel columns, with the horses and extra oxen between them. About 100 men rode in front to watch for hostile Indians.

May 4 blog illustration
Source: http://www.oregontrailcenter.org/HistoricalTrails/MulesOrOxen.htm

 

The Arkansas River was in flood when they reached it, and the caravan rested on the south bank for three days and waited for the water to subside. The crossing itself took another six days. The wagons full of wool were so heavy that 14 pairs of oxen were needed to get each one safely to the other shore.

Once everyone was across, relays of escorts from the newly established Santa Fe trail military forts accompanied the train to its destination. All in all, it seems to have been a good experience and the ranchers returned to New Mexico with a satisfactory financial outcome.

Their experience was a good deal more positive than Charles Blanchard’s later that year.  Blanchard, a French-Canadian who’d settled in Las Vegas a few years before, also hauled loose wool east on the Trail that summer. He and 12 other men took their cargo to Ellsworth, Kansas, the then-terminal end of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. They reached Ellsworth in July and Blanchard sold his wool and traded his ox team and $2000 in cash for 66 mules and 10 wagons.

So far so good. But shortly after Blanchard and his friends headed towards home, they were attacked by Indians, who ran off all the caravan’s animals, including Blanchard’s new mules. The 13 men took refuge at Fort Dodge, where they remained until October, when the trail was deemed to be again safe for traffic.

Clearly, the lesson here for men looking for new wool markets in the late 1860’s was to go early in the Summer, and well armed with vecinos.

Source: Howard Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West, 1988, Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe

By the Judge in His Sternness

On Thursday, March 28, 1861, in Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, Judge Kirby Benedict sentenced Sapello resident Paula Angel to hang for murdering her lover Juan Miguel Martin after he broke off the relationship. Inexplicably, Judge Benedict granted Angel’s lawyer, Spruce M. Baird, permission to appeal the verdict, but then ordered that the appeal could not be used as to delay her execution. In addition, Benedict ordered Angel to pay the cost for her trial and hanging.

While this sounds unfair, territorial law called for cost to be “recovered” from a convicted defendant. It was common for the property of convicted defendants to be auctioned off and the proceeds used to pay court costs. The Territory paid a convicted defendants prosecution costs only if the Sheriff certified that they weren’t able to pay and had no salable property.

March 28.Kirby Benedict.Twitchell Leading Facts Vol II
Source: Leading Facts of New Mexico History,
R. E. Twitchell

Paula Angel was hanged on April 26, 1861. She is believed to be the only woman hanged in New Mexico Territory. But she hasn’t been forgotten partly because popular poet, and her cousin, Juan Angel wrote a long folk ballad about her crime and death. Here are a few of the lines.

To Las Vegas I was taken

by the judge in his sternness;

in the jail. I was placed,

surrounded by a thousand fears,

like a disgraced woman

in the town of Sorrows.

The jurors judged me

according to my crime;

to death. They sentenced me

because I killed Miguelitio. . .

Goodbye, pious women,

those of you who know how to feel;

look closely, do not become entangled,

do not allow yourself to be seduced.

Open your eyes, do not desire

a death like mine.

Sources: Howard Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West, Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, 1991; Aurelio M. Espinosa, The Folklore of Spain in the American Southwest, U of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1985; Robert J. Torrez, Myth of the Hanging Tree, U of NM Press, Albuquerque, 2008.