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ARCHIVE OF NEW MEXICO CIVIL WAR LETTERS,
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ARCHIVE OF NEW MEXICO CIVIL WAR LETTERS,
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Amos F. Garrison Papers: Commissary in New Mexico 43 letters (35 war-date), 1861-1877. Lightly defended by federal forces in 1861, New Mexico appeared ripe for Confederate plucking, and late in the fall, an expedition was organized composed of a strong force of experienced Texas frontiersmen and soldiers. With military experience gained in the Mexican War, in fighting Indians or, more simply, in taking part in the great Texas tradition of murdering one`s fellow countrymen, the Texans expected an easy time and, at first, found it. When driven from their headquarters in Santa Fe, however, federal forces regrouped under Gen. E. S. Canby and with the assistance of reinforcements from Colorado (including Chivington`s infamous volunteers), they routed the Texans, sending them packing from the Territory in a long death march into obscurity. With the Confederate threat effectively suppressed, federal soldiers spent more time in the remaining years of the war suppressing Indians than smashing the Confederacy. With his namesake and uncle, Amos F. Garrison served in the Commissary Department of the Union army from the late summer, 1861, through the end of the war and beyond. Based on his experience as Commissary during the Mexican War, the elder Amos F. Garrison earned an appointment as Chief Commissary of Subsistence in the Department of New Mexico, and Amos, Jr., accepted a position as clerk of subsistence in August 1861, rolling across a raging country aboard the train and escaping being shot during the tense three week trip. Arriving in Santa Fe in September, Amos discovered a scene right out of Sergio Leone: `The principal part of the inhabitants of this city is Mexicans of the lowest and most treacherous kind,` he reported, `and the rest of the citizens with the exception of a few merchants and the army, are regular sharpers and gamblers… Every American and a great many Mexicans carry pistols and knives very conspicuously, the principal thing in a quarrel is, the man that shoots first.` First impressions, in this case, turned out to be accurate, but by October 1862, Amos wrote that he was `falling into the ways of the far west so that I shall never be satisfied to live in the East again, there is a free and independent way of living here without the restraints of fashion and etiquette which suits me.` To keep partially civilized, he and his friends threw a series of weekly surprise parties that included officers and their wives. The Leone-like letters, however, filled with bad men and six guns, are less important than a series of nine letters that provide historically important details on the Confederate offensive in New Mexico from January to May, 1862. The first, written January 5, is a soldiers` classic: `This letter I am afraid will be a letter of fright to you, but keep quiet and cool as I shall do well enough. There is a rumor that two thousand Texans are marching to this town where we have only from two to three hundred soldiers, (but who cares) the express this morning brought a letter from the Colonel stating that the Texans were marching in force upon Fort Craig where he now it.` By early February he reported that the governor had called out the militia, and was `seizing upon horses, mules, wagons, guns pistols, and every thing in the fighting line and transportation…` and, a couple of weeks later, `We are now in the verge, (if not passed) of the decisive battle of the Territory…. The Texans in numbers from 2,500 to 4,000 men as repost says and with plenty of artillery and ammunition are advancing on our forces which are about 14 or 1500 Regular soldiers and about 3 to 5,000 Mexican volunteers and militia, this latter force if we judge of them by their actions at such times in the Mexican War will not be of much service, but we hope for better. Our troops have but very little artillery, but are well armed other ways with muskets and rifles. This I think will be one of the most desperately fought battles of the whole war, as the Texans are men used to arms and fighting all their lives and a great many of them were at the battle of Springfield, Mo. They are of that class called in former days Southwest desperadoes, and are commanded by old regular officers who have served in this Territory.` These desperadoes, he later wrote, were `armed by choice, with rifle, musket, double barreled shot gun, from one to three six shooters, navy size, and a large bowie knife, commonly called seven pound bowie knife. They also have the advantage in number of cannon, but our forces are men that know that they have got to fight desperately…` Even under this pressure, the old ways had not died down. `In the last three days,` Amos reported, `there has been two men killed here in the most cold blooded assassin like manner, one of them was killed in the presence of ten or twelve men. He was sitting at a table playing at faro and was reaching over the table putting a bet down when a man came up behind him and struck him twice with a heavy stick with both hands over the head. The murderer has escaped so far; but a man being killed is a common occurrence in this Territory they think nothing of it.` Two fine letters describe the evacuation of Santa Fe and the Federal victory at the Battle of Apache Canyon. In a frightening moment on March 31, 1862, Amos wrote `since my last we have been compelled to evacuate two of our main Military Posts namely Albuquerque & Santa Fe after destroying all Government Property that we could not take away, which amounts to over quarter of a million dollars, our force in this part of the Territory at the two above named Posts and here only amounted to about three hundred white men and as the Texan force numbered from two to two thousand five hundred we were compelled to fall back on this place which is the strongest Fort and principal Depot for all kinds of stores in the Department. Since we arrived we have been reinforced by one thousand volunteers from Colorado Territory, these with our force here have been out on the road to Santa Fe harassing the enemy. They have been fighting for the last four or five days, the last accounts there that we had by strategy burnt up fifty wagon of there s loaded with baggage, ammunition, and provisions and disabled one cannon by spiking it. This was done by attacking them in front, then falling back and of course the enemy advanced while in this situation a detached party of our men attacked their train. This was not done without loss, but we have not heard the particulars… it is reported that among the killed of the Texians is a Major and two Capts.` Amos soon reported that the Texans were slinking away with only 1,200 men, having `deserted sick and wounded, wagons, buried or destroyed their cannon.` By May 1863, the younger Amos left the Subsistence Department to go into the Sutler`s business, and the conflict had shifted from Confederates to Indians. `The Indians.` Amos reported, `are very bad all over the country so much so that they have nearly depopulated it two or three times of white men, but the cry is still they come, as the soil and mines are very rich. In the six weeks I have been here they have killed 15 men, women & children and took three children prisoners within a circuit of from 4 to 25 miles. It is necessary either to travel with an escort or run your luck, which I have been doing day & night.` Macho enough for two, he informed his brother in the following year: `as for running horses I am not quite a horse jockey yet, although very fond of horses, they may probably run and that pretty hard in the Indians ever get after me. Give me a good horse, six shooter and rifle & I can get along min this country.` A `bit difficult to controul` in the wild west, according to his uncle, the younger Amos remained in New Mexico and Arizona after the war, eventually settling in Hermosillo, Mexico, where he ran a hotel and owned land. In 1871 he summed up the previous decade: `I am 31 years ol d tomorrow. Pretty old., but still I do not feel so – as this is kind of a wild life, so much have I become accustomed to it, that I am almost certain I could never live in straight laced Jersey, where they would not let me give a good hallo once in awhile without wanting to put me in Bedlam.` Among other exciting finds in the collection is a Spanish-language Civil War broadside printed in Santa Fe, March 20, 1863: `Propuestas` (requisitioning flour and wine vinegar for Forts Marcy, Wingate, Sumner, and Craig, and for Albuquerque and Los Pinos), issued under the name of A. F. Garrison Capt. y C. de S. (Commandante de Subsistencia). There are, as well, some interesting documents associated with the elder Amos, including a lovely vellum ADS license to practice law in New Jersey (1832), signed by Gov. P. Vroom; an ADS license to practice as attorney in Illinois (1832); a Quartermaster`s commission in the Missouri Militia (1838) signed by Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs, plus a commission as Director of the Bank of Missouri signed by Gov. (later General) Sterling Price (1853). There are two photographs: a carte de visite of Amos, Jr., taken in Sonora, Mexico, ca.1875, and a 1/9 plate daguerreotype, possibly of Amos. On a different note, the collection includes some highly interesting postal historical material. One letter contains a double postmark with a mss. cancellation for Tubac, A.T., and a circular cancel Prescott A.T. (slight doubling), dated July 20, 1865 and Aug. 6, 1865, respectively. There are also nice circular postmarks for Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Fort Craig, N.M., and a mss cancel from Fort Mason, A.T., May 6, 1866. All told, the collection is an excellent and scarce set of 35 letters from New Mexico Territory and Arizona during and immediately after the Civil War, plus 8 post-war from Mexico and elsewhere, written by the two Amos Garrisons (with assistance of Guss Garrison, the brother of the younger Amos). An extraordinary archive for the old west, the Civil War in the far west, and just general rabble rousing.
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