Monday, December 31, 2012

A COLD NEW MEXICAN JANUARY IN 1855

It was a chilly morning in southern New Mexico, as most mornings were in January. It was the morning of January 5, 1855 and a band Mescalero Apaches had disappeared into the Sacramento Mountains in the vicinity of Sierra Blanca, White Mountain, after stealing about 2,500 head of sheep. A large force of soldiers, with Captain Henry W. Stanton in command, had left Fort Fillmore, near Mesilla, to track them. 

Fort Fillmore was established less than four years before near Mesilla to protect settlers and traders traveling to California. Travelers heading west were plagued by Apache attacks, and a network of forts was created by the US Government to protect and encourage westward expansion. 

 Indians had been raiding, killing and stealing in southern New Mexico Territory since settlement began and in 1851 and 1852 treaties were signed with various bands by the United States government. These were to no avail and by 1854 Indian raids had become a real problem. 

 Captain Stanton, with a force of eighty men and three officers, as well as forty mules and eight packers, a guide and an interpreter, was to join up with Captain Richard S. Ewell and a force of soldiers from Fort Thorn by the middle of January. Fort Thorn was a settlement and outpost establish in 1853 near present day Hatch, New Mexico. Captain Stanton was instructed to ”…attack any party of Indians he may fall in with having sheep or cattle…” Stanton and Ewell, making good time, met up near the Rio Penasco on January 7 and set up camp. They began a regular patrol of the area because Ewell’s Dragoons had reported seeing an Indian running in the underbrush on the day they set up camp. The troop’s horses were spooked by something or someone on the night of January ninth. Mescaleros were assumed but, although the soldiers found some evidence, they found no Indians. 

The Mescaleros attacked the Dragoons’ camp on the night of the eighteenth, according to the New Mexico State Archives, stealing horses and setting the grass surrounding the camp ablaze. The soldiers woke up to the mocking of a band of Indians dancing around a fire on the hillside. Skipping breakfast, the troopers saddled up and went in pursuit of the warriors. Stanton and Ewell’s main force attacked along the banks of the Rio Penasco, while small parties of Dragoons maneuvered after various clusters of braves. This running battle lasted until about four o’clock that afternoon. Captain Stanton led a small detail of twelve men in pursuit of the Apaches while the main body of soldiers set up camp for the evening. They rode into a deep ravine, near the modern day town of Mayhill, where the Mescaleros waited in ambush. Upon hearing the gunfire, the soldiers in camp rushed to support Captain Stanton’s small force. A tough battle resulted but it lasted only twenty minutes. The warriors fled. 

 Having been shot in the forehead while attempting to cover the retreat of his soldiers from that hard fight, Captain Henry W. Stanton departed this life straight away. Private James A. Bennett, 1st Dragoons, recorded in his diary that Privates John Hennings and Thomas Dwyer were also killed in the Indian ambush. The soldiers wrapped their dead companions in blankets and buried their bodies, building fires over their graves in hope that the location would be hidden until they could make a return trip to recover the bodies. 

As the disheveled and grubby soldiers returned after four days of chasing Indians through the hilly, rocky and often precipitous terrain, they paused to recover the remains of Captain Stanton and the two Dragoons killed on the nineteenth. Someone had unearthed the bodies and stolen the blankets. Animals had mutilated the exposed bodies. The corpses were in a deplorable condition. While the horses and pack animals were given time to rest, the soldiers respectfully placed the bodies of their comrades-in-arms on piles of firewood and burned the flesh off the bones. The expedition, led by Captain Ewell, then took the remains back to Fort Fillmore for a proper military funeral. They arrived on February 2. 

Eagerly awaiting the return of her husband, Captain Stanton’s wife waited at her front door for over an hour before a soldier informed her of her husband’s death. 

The following day, the garrison buried the remains of Captain Stanton, Private Dwyer and Private Hennings with full military honors. According to John P. Ryan, author of Fort Stanton and Its Community, when a new fort was established on the banks of the Rio Bonito, later in that year of 1885, it was named in honor of Captain Henry W. Stanton

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for an interesting story. Sure illustrates the hard times for those living and fighting in those days.

    ReplyDelete