By Al Bates
This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.
The next stage of the cross-country trip for Governor John Goodwin’s party of Arizona territorial officials took them quickly from Fort Union to Santa Fe where they began to encounter a series of delays. And then on to Albuquerque to experience yet more delays. It was not until December 8, 1863, that they were finally on the way to Fort Wingate, the last lonely outpost of civilization before reaching Fort Whipple—if it would exist and if they could find it, both events expected but not guaranteed.
In all, they had over three weeks in delays, some unavoidable, some not. Much of the unavoidable delay came from the need to find replacement animals for those that had taken them this far.
Judge Joseph Allyn wrote while en route to Albuquerque, “If there is any country where one needs and learns patience it is New Mexico, and if there is any particular thing in which it is more required than in any other it is in the movements of trains, especially if they be government ones. Yet when one gets accustomed to the slow, deliberate way of doing things here, and falls in with it, it is not so unpleasant as you would think it. There is something in the climate that makes mere living so pleasant that persons get over looking for their pleasure in the results of things done.”
They had expected to leave Santa Fe on a Monday, Allyn wrote, “but obstinate and lazy blacksmiths and carpenters combined to make it impossible to start on Monday, and six inches of snow that morning rendered it exceedingly undesirable, so Wednesday was agreed upon as the final day. … Entertainment following entertainment demonstrated that the hospitality of the good people here was as untiring as it was lavish, and days slipped rapidly away. It was quite late on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, when we finally started southward.”
Those nightly entertainments had consisted chiefly of the bailé or fandango dances (quadrilles and slow waltzes) and Allyn left a detailed but chaste account of his late night experiences among Santa Fe’s demi-monde. He found the nightly dances they attended while at Albuquerque to be more sedate and elegant. At each New Mexican town or village along the way they were feted with nightly dances that they welcomed after “50 days of isolation”.
At Fort Union two of the Missouri cavalry companies of their escort had returned east; the third continued on, the escort now to be under command of Lt. Col. J. F. Chavez of the First Regiment, New Mexico Volunteers. At Albuquerque the escort was joined by Captain Rafael Chacón and 29 troopers of New Mexico volunteer cavalry. The presence of the New Mexicans with their experience fighting the Navajos was welcome since there were fears of stock loss to Navajo raiders.
Manuelito was a prominent Navajo war chief in the early 1860s (Photo Courtesy of Author).
The Army’s campaign against the Navajos was in full swing, but many of the warriors refused to surrender and be forced onto a reservation, this despite desperate conditions for themselves and families. Allyn again, “As the winter approaches, the suffering of these Indians increase. They dare not build large fires, they are out of food and clothing, so that we may reasonably expect that large numbers will follow the example of these and come in; while on the part of those that remain, the war will be prosecuted with an increased vigor from [sic] their very suffering. It will require at the hands of our escort the utmost vigilance to prevent the successful raiding of our large train.”
On December 13, 1863, six days after leaving Albuquerque, they reached Fort Wingate and “… were welcomed as only one can be at a frontier post. Shut out and isolated as a soldier is, the arrival of a stranger is a godsend. Your horse goes to corn and you to a lunch in less time than it takes to describe it. Oyster and champagne form the bill of fare.
Next, after a brief stop at the Zuni Pueblo, the party and escort would be beyond any sort of support while crossing some of the worst terrain of Northern Arizona, including Canyon Diablo and Hell Canyon.
(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.)