Mormon Settlement in Arizona | Page 8

by First Lieut. A.
J. Smith of the First Dragoons, who proved unpopular, animus
probably starting through his military severity and the desire of the
Battalion that Captain Hunt should succeed to the command. The first
division arrived at Santa Fe October 9, and was received by Colonel
Doniphan, commander of the post, with a salute of 100 guns. Colonel
Doniphan was an old friend. He had been a lawyer and militia
commander in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith was tried by
court martial at Far West in 1838 and had succeeded in changing a
judgment of death passed by the mob. On the contrary, Col. Sterling
Price, the brigade commander, was considered an active enemy of the
Mormons.
At Santa Fe, Capt. P. St. George Cooke, an officer of dragoons,
succeeded to the command, as lieutenant-colonel, under appointment of
General Kearny, who already had started westward. Capt. James Brown
was ordered to take command of a party of about eighty men, together
with about two-score women and children, and with them winter at
Pueblo, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River. Fifty-five more men
were sent to Pueblo from the Rio Grande when found unable to travel.
Colonel Cooke made a rather discouraging report on the character of
the command. He said:
"It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old, some feeble,
and some too young; it was embarrassed by too many women; it was
undisciplined; it was much worn by travel on foot and marching from
Nauvoo, Illinois; clothing was very scant; there was no money to pay
them or clothing to issue; their mules were utterly broken down; the
quartermaster department was without funds and its credit bad; animals
scarce and inferior and deteriorating every hour for lack of forage. So
every preparation must be pushed--hurried."
The March Through the Southwest
After the men had sent their pay checks back to their families, the
expedition started from Santa Fe, 448 strong. It had rations for only
sixty days. The commander wrote on November 19 that he was

determined to take along his wagons, though the mules were nearly
broken down at the outset, and added a delicate criticism of Fremont's
self-centered character, "The only good mules were taken for the
express for Fremont's mail, the General's order requiring the 21 best in,
Santa Fe."
Colonel Cooke soon proved an officer who would enforce discipline.
He had secured an able quartermaster in Lieut. George Stoneman, First
Dragoons. Lieutenant Smith took office as acting commissary. Three
mounted dragoons were taken along, one a trumpeter. An additional
mounted company of New Mexican volunteers, planned at Santa Fe,
could not be raised.
Before the command got out of the Rio Grande Valley, the condition of
the commissary best is to be illustrated by the following extract from
verses written by Levi Hancock:
"We sometimes now lack for bread, Are less than quarter rations fed,
And soon expect, for all of meat, Nought less than broke-down mules
to eat."
The trip over the Continental Divide was one of hardship, at places
tracks for the wagons being made by marching files of men ahead, to
tramp down ruts wherein the wheels might run. The command for 48
hours at one time was without water. From the top of the Divide the
wagons had to be taken down by hand, with men behind with ropes, the
horses driven below.
Finally a more level country was reached, December 2, at the old,
ruined ranch of San Bernardino, near the south-eastern corner of the
present Arizona. The principal interest of the trip, till the Mexican
forces at Tucson were encountered, then lay in an attack upon the
marching column by a number of wild bulls in the San Pedro Valley. It
had been assumed that Cooke would follow down the San Pedro to the
Gila, but, on learning that the better and shorter route was by way of
Tucson, he determined upon a more southerly course.
Capture of the Pueblo of Tucson

Tucson was garrisoned by about 200 Mexican soldiers, with two small
brass fieldpieces, a concentration of the garrisons of Tubac, Santa Cruz
and Fronteras. After some brief parley, the Mexican commander,
Captain Comaduron, refusing to surrender, left the village, compelling
most of its inhabitants to accompany him. No resistance whatever was
made. When the Battalion marched in, the Colonel took pains to assure
the populace that all would be treated with kindness. He sent the
Mexican commander a courteous letter for the Governor of Sonora,
Don Manuel Gandara, who was reported "disgusted and disaffected to
the imbecile central government." Little food was found for the men,
but several thousand bushels of grain had been left and were drawn
upon. On December 17, the day after the arrival of the command, the
Colonel