THE BIRDS OF LIBERTY BETOKEN VICTORY
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE PET LAMBS, STILL SHAKING THEIR HEADS AND GRUMBLING OVER THE CON-frontation between Slough and Company I, broke camp and continued south. A soldier reported, “We passed through Colorado City this morning, marching down Main Street in open order. . . . Five o’clock P.M., our camp is pitched at Camp Cobb, four miles below Colorado City.” The regiment continued relentlessly on, pausing to tent at Camp Wynkoop on March 2 and at Camp Anthony the following night. The same soldier wrote,
At last we are on the Arkansas [River]; we have marched eighteen miles today and passed through the streets of Pueblo. . . . Colonel Slough received a dispatch tonight making it necessary to cross the Sangre de Cristo [mountains] with all possible haste, leaving wagons and dispensable baggage, and packing over on mules and horses; for this purpose, he will gather up all the animals fit for packing in the country.1
For four more days, the regiment, with its unmilitary mixture of weapons, civilian wagons, and struggling mules and horses, headed south, ever south, spurred on by periodic dispatches from Canby at Fort Craig. The most alarming dispatch said that Captain Dodd’s company from Cañon City had been all but wiped out at Valverde. This news, exaggerated though it was, deepened the resolve of every man to avenge the deaths of their fellow Coloradans.2 The march of the Texans was also fraught with difficulties. On February 24, Lieutenant Colonel Sutton died of his wounds received at Valverde. The following day, the Texans marched about ten miles and made camp in a wide valley where firewood was scarce and there was little forage for the horses. A number of men were sick.3
The next day, the Fourth Texas reached Socorro. Many of the wounded, too weak to continue the campaign, were left in the town under the care of their surgeon and a few men who volunteered to remain behind.4 As the Texans briefly rested, other problems surfaced. Alfred Peticolas wrote in his diary: “Our provisions have grown short, too; we have been a day without bread, and there is no more bread stuff in the train. Scurry says that if we don’t take government stores to supply us at Albikirque [sic] that we will have to press stores into service. We hear nothing more of the enemy at [Fort] Craig. . . . Another report says that 3000 yankee volunteers from in and around Pike’s Peak are ahead of us.”5
At each farmhouse and village along the way, the desperate Texans confiscated every bag of flour and cornmeal, and every chicken, hog, cow, sheep, egg, tortilla, and scrap of food they could lay their hands on—no matter whether the owners were pro-North or pro-South.6
Albuquerque was a town in panic at the approach of the rebels. Captain Richard Charles Deus’s wife and children were living in Albuquerque but fled as the Texans neared the town. Deus recalled: “She had a few necessaries loaded into a Government wagon and abandoned the city with a great many other families. They were pursued by the Texans and two balls from the Texans were shot into the wagon in which she was escaping.” The frightened driver abandoned the wagon, compelling Mrs. Deus to take her children and escape to the fields, where they succeeded in eluding the Texans. Deus also reported that Sibley’s men stole the wagon and other goods worth about $4,000.7
Defending Albuquerque from the Texans was futile; only a handful of Union soldiers were left to garrison the town. Captain Herbert M. Enos, assistant departmental quartermaster at Albuquerque, knew he could not allow the Federal stores to fall into Confederate hands, nor could he and his men take everything with them to Santa Fé. Consequently, Enos and twelve of his soldiers cleared the storehouses of everything of value, loaded the supplies into their few remaining wagons, put a torch to the warehouses that held whatever could not be carted off, and set out for the territorial capital. Even this operation was not without its problems, for deserters from the militia attacked the train and made off with three wagons and some of the mules.8
On March 4, Sibley’s Brigade neared Peralta, about twenty miles south of Albuquerque, where the Texans were forced to cross the frigid river again. Near Albuquerque, Judge Spruce M. Baird, a staunch Confederate, rode into the rebel camp to inform everyone that the Federals had decided not to make a stand at Albuquerque and had burned all their stores, including enough hay to last Sibley’s Brigade six months.9 It was true. As Pyron’s advance party crested the low hills on the southern approach to Albuquerque, they saw columns of smoke rising from the Federal storehouses that had been their goal.10
The hearts of the Texans sank—and their stomachs growled—at seeing the Union supplies going up in smoke just a few miles away. Some food was confiscated from local merchants and residents but it was not nearly enough to feed the more than 2,000 famished men. Fortunately, a cache of supplies was found at a Union depot at Cubero, some sixty miles west of Albuquerque. At Carnuel Pass, about fifteen miles east of Albuquerque, the rebels also captured a Union wagon train loaded with supplies destined for Fort Union. All told, it was estimated that the two hauls were sufficient to last the rebels forty days.11
With Albuquerque now in rebel hands and the Texans fast closing in from the south, Major James L. Donaldson, commanding the Santa Fé District, decided on March 4 to abandon the capital and remove the supplies to Fort Union. He even had the flagpole at Fort Marcy cut down so the Texans could not use it to raise the rebel flag. He reported: “Santa Fé was not defensible, being commanded on all sides by hills, and the safety of the train, composed of 120 wagons loaded with the most valuable stores in the department, required a strong escort. Its value could not have been less than a quarter of a million dollars, and its safety was a matter of paramount importance.”12
In addition to the supplies, Donaldson also brought with him to Fort Union Captain Dodd’s Company A of the Second Colorado Volunteers, Captain William H. Lewis’s company of the Fifth Infantry, Lieutenant Sidney Banks’s Company E of the Third Cavalry, and two howitzers commanded by Lieutenant Charles J. Walker. Lieutenant Colonel Manuel A. Chávez also accompanied the train but except for him and a few of his officers, many of the New Mexicans deserted en route. Many others, their periods of enlistment having expired, simply went home.13
The vanguard of the rebel force reached Santa Fé on March 10.14 Led by Captain John G. Phillips, this band of brigands went on a rampage. After witnessing the Texans’ wanton pillage through town, Mother Magdalen Hayden, the Mother Superior of Santa Fé’s Loretto Academy, wrote,
Our poor and distant territory has not been spared. The Texans, without any provocation, have sacked and almost ruined the richest portions and have forced the most respectable families to flee from their homes, not precisely by bad treatment, but by obliging them to deliver to them huge sums of money. . . . You can imagine better than I can describe what I felt on seeing all our [Union] troops, and that banner under whose shadow I had been raised, leave. . . . The terror which I felt is inexpressible.15
While the Texans continued their march into Santa Fé, the weather conditions rapidly deteriorated and several inches of snow fell.16
In war a commander must know when to hurry his men and when to rest them. For two weeks, the Texans rested in Santa Fé—gambling, drinking, growing fat on their captured provisions, and generally terrorizing the small population that remained—perhaps thinking that Fort Union could wait, that they had all the time in the world to continue their victorious march toward Colorado. The two-week respite, however, would prove to be a terrible mistake, for the opportunity to attack Fort Union before reinforcements from Colorado arrived was being frittered away.17
Meanwhile, on March 1, an expressman from Camp Weld galloped into Fort Wise on the Arkansas with exciting news: the three companies temporarily stationed there under Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Tappan were to immediately prepare to move out and join Slough and the rest of the regiment on the march. The news was greeted by the men with great elation, and by the dependents less so. Molly Sanford, the wife of Lieutenant Sanford at Fort Wise, entered in her diary:
Our whole regiment is ordered to go [to Fort Union] at once on forced marches. The news came at four o’clock in the afternoon while the companies were on dress parade. By seven in the morning, they will be on their way. It will be a long, rough march over plains of sand and cactus—maybe on to certain death, for the rebel forces outnumber ours two to one. Our companies are to meet the regiment from Denver at Hull’s Ranche [also known as Gray’s Ranch stage station, near present-day Trinidad, Colorado], forty miles from [Pueblo] City on the Arkansas River, where they [are to] cross and go south. The women of the company will be sent to Denver. I have no time to write more. Farewell, old fort. May I never see you again as the wife of a soldier.18
Ovando Hollister, a trooper with Company F at Fort Wise, noted on the same day:
Just at dusk an express came in from the south, reporting an engagement on the 21st of February near Fort Craig, N.M., between our forces and the Texans, in which, says rumor, they captured at an immense cost of blood, the field battery consisting of six pieces of various calibre, commanded by Capt. McRae, though not till he and nearly all his men were killed or disabled. Capt. Dodd’s company of volunteers, enlisted at Cañon City, all killed but two. Texans to the number of three thousand had passed the Post and were coming up the country. . . . Marching orders were immediately published, and gave universal joy.19
Lieutenant Byron and Molly Sanford. (Colorado Historical Society)
It took another day and a half, however, before the three companies actually departed Fort Wise. Supplies needed to be inventoried and packed, ammunition drawn, wagons loaded, tack repaired, horses re-shod for the journey, and all the other last-minute details checked and double checked. On the night of their first encampment since leaving the post, Tappan’s men were engulfed in a howling snowstorm. “Poets have sung the beauties of storms and tempests,” wrote Hollister, who was on guard duty that night. “Viewed from a station beyond their influence, they may be superlatively charming, for all I know, but watching a camp through the long, sullen hours of darkness, when the cold wet snow is driven in one’s face almost to smothering, is no place to appreciate their beauties.”20
The following day, with the storm having blown out, Tappan’s command continued westward along the Santa Fé Trail until, on March 4, the men camped beside the charred ruins of Bent’s old fort, where they were met by an officer from Fort Union, urging the Coloradans to hurry.21
As Slough’s contingent neared Hull’s Ranche, where their rendezvous with the three companies from Fort Wise was prearranged to take place, the evergreen-studded mountains just to the west of the road became more rugged and impressive, and the grade progressively steeper. The regiment had found little water or forage along the way, but the patches of snow on the ground at least provided enough moisture for a man to scoop up in his cup and deposit into his canteen. On the morning of March 7, one of Slough’s men noted, “The importance of the dispatches received yesterday are such that the Colonel has been astir ever since one o’clock this morning. Our march from now on will be a severe one. I have no more time to write.”22
That day, in one of the most extraordinary feats of movement in U.S. military annals, the men covered more than forty hard miles through difficult country, falling into Camp Sanborn, not far from the foot of Ratón Pass, at ten o’clock that night, exhausted, blistered, and half frozen. Slough’s men pitched their tents, lit their campfires, and waited for Tappan’s three companies to arrive. Although nearly worn out, each man was fiercely proud of his effort that day. Each heart beat a little faster, for they knew that each step took them closer to New Mexico and a showdown with the enemy.23
One of Slough’s soldiers wrote,
We have made today the greatest march on record, have marched 42 miles on foot, without water for 26 miles of that distance. . . . Tomorrow we cross the Ratoon [sic] Mountains and will be at [Fort] Union in five days. God grant that we reach there ahead of the rebels. . . . We are all anxious to get at them, and will give them such a fight as they never dreamed of, providing we reach Fort Union in time to arm and equip ourselves. The snow on the Ratoon will not hinder us much. . . .
We are receiving daily dispatches from Santa Fé, Fort Union, and Albuquerque, all urging us forward with all possible dispatch. Albuquerque has already fallen into the hands of the enemy, and probably by this time, Santa Fé has also fallen. The [Confederate] army is pressing forward to Fort Union with all possible speed—so are we. It is only a question of time as to who shall reach there first.
The anonymous writer noted that he had been
reading all the dispatches received tonight—they all say for God’s sake hurry on and save us, and they all speak in the highest possible terms of Captain Dodd’s Company of Colorado Volunteers. They ask for more of the same material. Could they hear the cheers going up from our camp tonight, after our long and tedious march, they would think that surely we had as good material as was ever put together. I say that we will whip the rebels, because I do not believe that we can be whipped. Yet I know the material that the enemy is composed of. They are all picked men, and will fight desperately, knowing that all will depend upon the battle with us. If we conquer, they will lose all hold on New Mexico, and must be cut to pieces.24
Half an hour after Slough’s men had set up camp, Tappan’s battalion from Fort Wise, both mounted and on foot, came over a hill with flags flying, and there was much whooping and hollering in the ranks. The two groups merged, and handshakes and backslaps were exchanged all around. Hollister wrote, “They [Slough’s men] had marched forty miles that day—so had we. Cheers, long and loud, greeted us as we marched into camp.”25
The full regiment was finally reunited, but there was no time for prolonged celebrations. The next morning, the foot-sore First was back on the trail, driven onward with but one thought in mind: to engage and defeat the rebels. But Slough’s haughty manner continued to rankle. Hollister noted:
Our camp this evening has the bustle and hum of a small town. We “fell in” and gave the Colonel three cheers and a tiger.26 He raised his cap but did not speak. How little some men understand human nature. He had been our Colonel six months; had never spoken to us; and on the eve of an important expedition, after a long absence, could not see that a few words were indispensable to a good understanding. He has a noble appearance, but the men seem to lack confidence in him. . . . His aristocratic style savors more of eastern society than of the free-and-easy border to which he should have become acclimated.27
Despite Slough’s lack of leadership skills, the regiment continued to press forward, grumbling and grousing all the while.
As they marched south, the regiment was forced to take whatever animals that could be used for transporting supplies and men. Romine Ostrander, a member of Company F, recalled that, as the regiment continued on,
[We] were rather short of transportation and Colonel Slough gave orders to press everything in the shape of it. This [we] did without respect for persons or for the kind of transportation which happened to fall in [our] way. [We] took horses, ponies, mules, jackasses, and oxen promiscuously. Other people . . . along the route were stripped of every thing that would serve the purpose, or that they did not run off and hide. They got the idea that we were stealing their property, forgetting that government does not steal . . . but sometimes impresses. . . . It always pays for property, however distant the payment may be.28
The passage of the Yankees did not go unnoticed by the Native Americans. Buffalo Horn, a member of the Cheyenne tribe, told a reporter years later, “One morning, we discovered a regiment of blue-clad soldiers coming south, evidently intent on fighting the Confederate forces. We were at that time on decidedly hostile terms with all white men, so we strung along after them, watching our chance to kill and scalp any stragglers from their column, and also looking out for Comanches.” The Indians refrained from attacking the bluecoats.29
Route of Slough’s command from Camp Weld and Tappan’s three companies from Fort Lyon, February–March 1862.
The regiment was eager to engage the Confederates but hostility toward Slough was still running high. Indeed, several members of his command—most likely Kerber or members of his German company, still smarting over Slough’s earlier confrontation with them—were plotting his assassination. While in camp near Ratón Pass, someone ordered the guard withdrawn from Slough’s tent and an unknown number of persons hid themselves near the tent, intending to kill their commanding officer. For whatever reason—whether someone spotted them or they got cold feet—the plot was never carried out, but another opportunity would present itself—in the midst of battle.30
In March 1862, the crossing of Ratón Pass, rising like a barrier between Colorado and New Mexico and still some eighty miles from Fort Union, represented a harrowing experience for man and beast alike. Large chunks of broken granite, some larger than houses, lay strewn about a landscape punctuated with scrub oak and ponderosa pine. The roadbed often was washed away by spring runoffs or obliterated by rockfalls. A wrong turn or an inattentive step could result in a man, horse, or wagon plunging off the trail into one of the countless craggy abysses. To make matters worse, the oxygen at the summit’s 7,888-foot-high elevation is thin, making each step of the upward climb difficult and enervating. To pull the wagons uphill, the teams needed to be doubled and required the deft handling of experienced teamsters to safely descend the south side.31
As the column climbed the trail’s last incline to the summit of the pass, several eagles began circling overhead. A soldier in Company D proposed shooting the birds but Captain Downing shouted, “These are the birds of liberty, and they betoken victory to us!” The troops lowered their muskets and gave three cheers for the eagles.32
Chivington wrote that the uphill march
was a very laborious and tiresome one. When we had gained the summit and just started down the south side of the pass, we met a messenger from Colonel Paul, who was in command at Fort Union, saying that he had mined the fort, given notice to the women and children and all noncombatants to be ready to move out of the post at a moment’s warning; that Sibley and his army was in close proximity; and that he was expecting an attack at any hour, and for God’s sake, and their sake and the country’s sake, to hurry forward as fast as possible. . . . [Slough] confided his counsels to only two or three officers, who were strictly enjoined not to make it public.33
The contents of the note, however, soon flew among the troops. One of the soldiers, Sergeant Milo H. Slater of Company H, recalled that the courier’s message said, “Come faster if possible. Canby has been licked. Albuquerque and Santa Fé are both in possession of the Texans, and they are headed for Fort Union.”34
Ovando Hollister added that the secret courier caused the column to add “wings to our speed and at about 3 o’clock arrived on Red River. . . . We halted, took dinner and supper at once, and leaving everything but our arms and a pair of blankets per man in charge of a Corporal’s guard, proceeded with all possible and impossible speed towards our destination, eighty miles distant.”35
The time had come to push the regiment in a supreme effort, and Slough directed Chivington to see who still had stamina enough to reach the fort quickly. William R. Beatty, a private in Company F, recalled that Chivington told them, “Sibley had captured Albuquerque and Santa Fé and was driving Canby back. Unless reinforcements arrived, the Texans would capture Fort Union, which was well-stocked with provisions, and gain an almost impregnable foothold. We had just pitched camp after a hard day’s march, but we couldn’t pass that appeal up.”36
Chivington asked those who were willing to make an immediate forced march to take two steps forward. Every man responded. After downing a hurried supper, the Coloradans headed off into the black night.37
According to Chivington, the regiment “marched 64 miles on foot in one consecutive 24 hours. Some gave out and we put them in the baggage wagons. At the Red River we left our baggage and made the wagons ready for the men. The men took spells during the night march, in the wagons. We took breakfast the next morning at Maxwell’s Ranch, where Cimmaron now is, and by heavy forced marches from that on, we reached Fort Union.”38
Hollister noted that the wagons could not hold all the men, thus requiring “between three and four hundred to foot it. Away in the wee hours of morning did we tramp, tramp, tramp—the gay song, the gibe, the story, the boisterous cheer, all died a natural death. Nothing broke the stillness of night but the steady tramp of the men and the rattle of the wagons. . . . At length the animals began to drop and die in harness from overwork and underfeed. But for this, we would doubtless have made Union without a halt.” He added, “Col. Slough rode in the coach.”39
“By breakfast the next morning, we had reached Cimarron, thirty-six miles farther,” recalled Beatty. “I remember my breakfast that day was a piece of hardtack as big as your hand and seven cups of black coffee. In a short time, we were marching again, headed for Fort Union . . . arriving there by nine o’clock the next night.”40
At last, on the evening of March 10, with a brilliant canopy of stars arching above them, the 1,000 men of the Colorado regiment crossed the broad, treeless prairie surrounding Fort Union and were to a man relieved to see the Stars and Stripes still flying above the ramparts. “We . . . formed in columns,” wrote Hollister,
and marched into the Post with drums beating and colors flying. Upon arriving in front of commanding officer Paul’s quarters, we halted, while he and Governor Conelly [sic] welcomed us in rather unintelligible words. . . . They commended the zeal with which we had accomplished the march from Denver, but said nothing of the battle of Val Verde or of the whereabouts of the enemy at present; subjects that might naturally be supposed to slightly interest us. . . . The regulars in the Post, of which there were probably four hundred, were glad to see us, for they had been whipped in the fight below [at Valverde], and it was an undisguised fact that the Texans were having their own way in the Territory.
Hollister also noted that some of the veterans of Valverde had “come through the mountains from Fort Craig since the battle, and they . . . come to see us and talk about the fight. It is impossible to give a reliable statement of the affair, as every one tells a different story.”41
Captain Jacob Downing, Company D of the First Colorado, was somewhat amused that the inhabitants of Fort Union seemed frightened: “Every person we conversed with at Union apparently labored under a severe attack of the nightmare when alluding to the terrible Texans, in consequence of which we expected to meet men half horse and half alligator; but upon mature deliberation, the boys considered that they were not bullet proof, and rifled muskets were reliable friends; so, with high spirits, all were eager for the fray.”42
Romine Ostrander penciled into his diary, “The regulars [at Fort Union] received us with loud cheers and appeared glad to see us, [although] they looked upon us as outlaws”—an observation that quickly proved to possess some truth for, to celebrate their arrival, some of the Colorado troops—perhaps the majority—got drunk.43
Chivington recalled, “Any ordinary set of men would have been sufficiently tired to retire and sleep soundly until morning; not so with the pet lambs, at least part of them, for they raided without stint Spiegelberg’s sutler establishment, and had a great feast at his expense.”44 Hollister also noted that “some half dozen boxes of champaigne [sic], a staving good cheese and a box of crackers” were stolen.45
It was probably inevitable that trouble followed. An inebriated Sergeant Darius A. Philbrook from Company K shot an officer, Lieutenant Isaac Gray, in the head, wounding him.46 As Hollister described it,
Lieut. Gray of B Company was shot in the act of arresting Sergeant Philbrook . . . for drunkenness and noise. There are fifty different stories about it, but as near as I can judge the Sergeant had little provocation. He shot five times at Gray, and hit him once. The ball struck on the bridge of the nose between the eyes, and glancing down lodged in the lower part of the face. It did not seriously injure him. Other officers near by emptied their revolvers at Philbrook, but he escaped their shots and was finally confined to the guard house.47
Fort Union, New Mexico Territory, and environs.
The arrival of Slough’s men gave Governor Connelly, and the men at Fort Union, reason to hope. On March 11, he informed Secretary of State Seward:
Colonel Slough, from Denver City, arrived here last night, with 950 men, who from all accounts can be relied upon. These, with the 300 or 400 that are already here, will give Colonel Canby a force of 2,000 regular troops; that is, American troops. He has still the fragments of three regiments of [New] Mexican volunteers, I think to the amount of 1,500 men, which would make his force fully 3,500. The militia have [sic] all been dispersed, and have gone to preparing their lands for the coming harvest, and this is by far the best use that could be made of them.48
The first Fort Union, New Mexico Territory. (Colorado Historical Society)
For the next three or four days, the Coloradans rested; soaked their blistered, aching feet; and enjoyed their first substantial meals since leaving Denver City eighteen days and over 400 miles earlier. Any men still in need of outfitting discarded their civilian clothes and assorted weaponry for “a new suit of blue raiment and a Springfield musket,” commented one of the men. “They were then appointed to act as a reception committee to go and greet General Sibley and his friends.”49
During the next few days, Slough had the opportunity to explore their new environs, which consisted of two posts. The original Fort Union, constructed in 1851 by Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner and the men of the First U.S. Dragoons, had been built against the shoulder of a pine-covered mesa but was now in poor condition. In late 1861, Canby had ordered the post abandoned and a new one, an earthwork “star fort,” constructed on the plains about a mile due east.50 It was the star fort that served as the temporary shelter for the Coloradoans.
While the men rested in and around the star fort, Hollister took advantage of the respite to record his observations. The star fort was “a simple field-work of moderate size, with bastioned corners surrounded by dirt parapet and ditch, with a slight abatis at exposed points. The armament is poor, consisting mostly of howitzers, but the supply of ammunition is deemed sufficient for any emergency. It has bomb-proof quarters in and surrounding it, forming part of the works, sufficiently large to accommodate 500 men.”51
But the “Pikes Peakers,” as the Coloradans were called, had not come to New Mexico on a sight-seeing holiday nor did they travel all these miles simply to hide out in bomb-proof quarters. They had come to do battle with the invaders and were eager to get on with their mission.
1. Colorado Republican and Rocky Mountain Herald, March 20, 1862.
2. Ovando J. Hollister, Boldly They Rode (Lakewood, CO: Golden Press, 1949 [first published in 1863 as History of the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers]), 45.
3. Don E. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande: The Civil War Journal of A. B. Peticolas (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 53.
4. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande, 54–55; Martin H. Hall, The Confederate Army of New Mexico (Austin: Presidial Press, 1978), 29.
5. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande, 55.
6. Warren A. Beck, New Mexico: A History of Four Centuries (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 155.
7. Daniel B. Castello, “Life of Capt. [Richard Charles] Deus,” unpublished manuscript (interview of Captain Deus), undated (Mss Box 205, FF 25 and 26, CHS).
8. Official Record, 8:527–529; Milo H. Slater, “An Historical Narrative,” address given October 9, 1907, Denver, CO, CHS, 23.
9. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande, 58–59.
10. Theophilus Noel, A Campaign from Santa Fe to the Mississippi; Being a History of the Old Sibley Brigade (Shreveport, LA: Shreveport News, 1865), 33.
11. M. H. Hall, The Confederate Army of New Mexico, 29.
12. Official Record, 9:525–527.
13. Ibid., 528.
14. M. H. Hall, The Confederate Army of New Mexico, 31.
15. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande, 68.
16. Ibid., 68–73.
17. Ibid, 75.
18. Mrs. Byron N. Sanford, “Life at Camp Weld and Fort Lyon in 1861–1862: An Extract from the Diary of Mrs. Byron N. Sanford,” Colorado Magazine 7:4 (July 1930): 136–137.
19. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 45.
20. Ibid.
21. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 45–46.
22. Colorado Republican and Rocky Mountain Herald, March 20, 1862.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 47.
26. The traditional “three cheers” during the period: “Hip-hip-huzZAH! Hip-hiphuzZAH! Hip-hip-huzZAH! Ti-ger-RUFF!”
27. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 47.
28. Romine A. Ostrander, Diary, Mss Box 472, FF 1, CHS.
29. New York Telegraph, date unknown, Dawson Scrapbook #32, p. 19, CHS.
30. Letter, Tappan to Slough, December 28, 1862, CHS.
31. Williams, “Three and a Half Years in the Army.”
32. Daily Mining Record, November 2, 1907.
33. John M. Chivington, “The Pet Lambs,” Chivington papers, CHS, 4.
34. Denver Republican, October 13, 1907.
35. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 48.
36. Denver Post, July 2, 1916.
37. Chivington, “Pet Lambs.”
38. John M. Chivington, “The First Colorado Regiment,” Bancroft papers, Mss XA, 419, CHS, 5.
39. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 48–49.
40. Beatty, quoted in Denver Post, July 2, 1916.
41. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 52.
42. Weekly News, June 7, 1862.
43. Ostrander, Diary.
44. Chivington, “Pet Lambs,” 5.
45. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 52.
46. Chivington, “Pet Lambs.”
47. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 53. Two Philbrooks brothers, Darius and Leander, both sergeants, served in Company K. Darius was court-martialed and executed by firing squad on March 31, 1862. Records of the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers. Colorado State Archives.
48. Official Record, 9:645.
49. Slater, “An Historical Narrative,” 20.
50. Robert M. Utley, Fort Union and the Sante Fe Trail (El Paso: Texas Western Press / University of Texas at El Paso, 1989), 36n.
51. Hollister, Boldly They Rode, 51–52.
