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THE AMERICAN CONFLICT.

VOLUME II.

I.

TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO.

THE frontiers of Texas, Mexican | from New Orleans to San Antonio, and savage, were guarded, prior to and assigned to the command of the the outbreak of Secession, by a line of department, it was doubtless underforts or military posts stretching from stood between them that his business Brownsville, opposite Matamoras, to in Texas was to betray this entire the Red River. These forts were force, or so much of it as possible, located at average distances of one into the hands of the yet undevelhundred miles, and were severally oped traitors with whom Floyd was held by detachments of from 50 to secretly in league. Twiggs's age 150 of the regular army. San Anto- and infirmities had for some time nio, 150 miles inland from Indianola, excused him from active service, unon Matagorda Bay, was the head til this ungracious duty-if duty it quarters of the department, whence can be called-was imposed upon the most remote post-Fort Bliss, on and readily accepted by him. Withthe usual route thence to New Mex- in 90 days after his arrival' at Indiico was distant 675 miles. The anola, he had surrendered' the entire whole number of regulars distributed force at and near San Antonio, with throughout Texas was 2,612, compri- all their arms, munitions, and supsing nearly half the effective force of plies, to three persons acting as our little army. "Commissioners on behalf of the When, soon after Mr. Lincoln's Committee of Public Safety," seelection, but months prior to his in-cretly appointed' by the Convention auguration, Gen. David E. Twiggs which had just before assumed to was dispatched by Secretary Floyd take Texas out of the Union. The

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betrayal was colored, not fairly | ate service, recently a captain in our

army, who had been sent from Montgomery with authority to offer increased rank and pay to all who would take service with the Rebels. His mission was a confessed failure. A few of the higher officers had participated in Twiggs's treason; but no more of these, and no private soldiers, could be cajoled or bribed into deserting the flag of their country.

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Col. Waite was still at San Antonio, when news reached Indianola* of the reduction of Fort Sumter; and Col. Van Dorn, with three armed steamers from Galveston, arrived with instructions from Montgomery to capture and hold as prisoners of war all Federal soldiers and officers remaining in Texas. Maj. Sibley, in command at that port, had chartered two small schooners and embarked thereon a part of his force, when he was compelled to surrender again unconditionally. Col. Waite was in like manner captured at San Antonio, by order of Maj. Macklin, late an officer in our service, under Twiggs; Capt. Wilcox, who made the arrest, an

cloaked, by a slim display of military force in behalf of the sovereign State of Texas, Col. Ben. McCulloch, an original and ardent Secessionist, having undertaken and fulfilled the duty of raising that force and posting it in and around San Antonio, so as to give countenance to the demand for capitulation. It was fairly stipulated in writing between the contracting parties, that our troops should simply evacuate Texas, marching to and embarking at the coast, where their artillery and means of transportation were to be given up, while they, with their small arms, should proceed by water to any point outside of Texas; but these conditions, though made by a traitor in Federal uniform with fellow-traitors who had cast off all disguise, were shamefully violated. Col. C. A. Waite, who, after the withdrawal of Floyd from the Cabinet, had been sent down to supersede Twiggs in his command, reached San Antonio the morning after the capitulation, when all the material of war had been turned over to the Rebel Commis-swering Waite's protest with the sioners, and 1,500 armed Texans surrounded our little band, in the first flush of exultation over their easy triumph. Unable to resist this rapidly augmenting force, Waite had no alternative but to ratify the surrender, dispatching, by permission, messengers to the frontier posts, to apprise the other commanders that they were included in its terms. Collecting and dispatching his men as rapidly as he might, he had some 1,200 encamped at Indianola ready for embarkation, when they were visited by Col. E. Van Dorn, of the Confeder

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simple words, "I have the force." Waite, and a few officers with him, were compelled to accept paroles not to serve against the Confederacy unless regularly exchanged.

Of course, the forces at the several posts protecting the frontiers of Texas, being isolated and cut off from all communication with each other, or with a common head-quarters, fell an easy prey to the Rebels. A part of them were commanded by officers in full sympathy and perfect understanding with the Texas conspirators for Secession, who, by means of the se

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MILITARY TREASON ON THE RIO GRANDE.

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cret organization known as "Knights | mander, Col. Loring, and his adjuof the Golden Circle," having its tant, but only to find them both as Texas head-quarters at San Antonio, thoroughly disloyal as Crittenden. and its 'castles' or affiliated lodges in He was rudely rebuked by them as a every part of the State, had prose- meddler with other men's business, cuted its undertaking at immense and ordered directly back to Fort advantage over the unorganized and Staunton, but found opportunity to often unsuspecting as well as unin- give notice to Capt. Hatch, comformed Unionists. The conspirators manding at Albuquerque, to Capt. had long before made themselves ac- Morris, who held Fort Craig, and quainted with the loyal or disloyal other loyal officers, of the treachery proclivities of the Federal officers; of their superiors, and the duty inand, wherever an important position cumbent on them of resisting it. was held by an inflexible Unionist, Meantime, desperate efforts were they were able, by secret representa- made by the prominent traitors to tions at the War Department, to pro- bring their men over to their views, cure such a substitution as they de- by assurances that the Union had sired; and thus Col. Loring, a North ceased to exist-that it had no longer Carolinian, deep in their counsels, had a Government able to pay them or been sent out by Floyd, in the Spring feed them-while, if they would but of 1860, to take command of the de- consent to go to Texas and take serpartment of New Mexico, while Col. vice with the Confederacy, they should G. B. Crittenden, a Kentuckian, of be paid in full, and more than paid, like spirit and purposes, was appointed beside having great chances of proby Loring to command an expedition motion. To their honor be it recordagainst the Apaches, to start from ed, not one man listened to the voice Fort Staunton in the Spring of 1861. of the charmer, though Capt. ClaiLieut. Col. B. S. Roberts, however, born, at Fort Staunton, made several who here joined the expedition with harangues to his company, intended two companies of cavalry, soon dis- to entice them into the Confederate covered that Crittenden was devoting service. Of the 1,200 regulars in all his sober moments-which were New Mexico, one only deserted during few-to the systematic corruption of this time of trial, and he, it is behis subordinates, with intent to lead lieved, did not join the enemy. his regiment to Texas, and there turn nally, the disloyal officers, headed it over to the service and support of by Loring and Crittenden, were glad the Rebellion. Roberts repelled his to escape unattended, making their solicitations,' and refused to obey any rendezvous at Fort Fillmore, twenty of his orders which should be prompt- miles from the Texas line, not far ed by the spirit of treason. He finally from El Paso, where Maj. Lynde accepted a furlough, suggested by commanded. Here they renewed Loring, and quickly repaired under their intrigues and importunities, it to Santa Fé, the head-quarters of finding a large portion of the officers the department, making a revelation equally traitorous with themselves. of Crittenden's treachery to its com- But Maj. Lynde appeared to hold out See his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.-Report, Part 3, pp. 364–72.

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against their solicitations. His forces, however, were so demoralized that, soon afterward," when he led 480 of them, out of 700, to the village of Mesilla, some twenty miles distant, he fell into an ambuscade of 200 badly armed Texans, and, after a skirmish, wherein his conduct can only be vindicated from the imputation of cowardice by the presumption of treason, he ordered a retreat to the fort, which his men were next day engaged in fortifying, when surprised, at 103 A. M., by an order to evacuate that night. The commissary was ordered to roll out the whisky, from which the men were allowed to fill their canteens, and drink at discretion. No water was furnished for the weary march before them, over a hot and thirsty desert. They started as ordered; but, before they had advanced ten miles, men were dropping out of the ranks, and falling to the earth exhausted or dead drunk.

At 2 A. M., a Texan force was seen advancing on their flank, whereupon Lynde's Adjutant remarked, "They have nothing to fear from us." Our men were halted, so many of them, at least, as had not already halted of their own accord; and the officers held a long council of war. Many privates of the command likewise took counsel, and decided to fight. Just then, Capt. Gibbs appeared from the officers' council, and ordered a retreat upon the camp, saying, "We will fight them there." Arrived at the camp, our soldiers were ordered to lay down their arms, and informed, "You are turned over as prisoners of war." The subordinate officers disclaimed any responsibility for this disgraceful surrender, laying the * July 24, 1861.

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blame wholly upon Lynde. Our men were paroled, and permitted, as prisoners, to pursue their course northward, after listening to a speech from Col. Baylor, of their captors, intended to win their good-will.

Their sufferings, on that forlorn march to Albuquerque and Fort Wise, were protracted and terrible; some becoming deranged from the agony of their thirst; some seeking to quench it by opening their veins, and drinking their own blood. Maj. Lynde, instead of being court-martialed and shot, was simply dropped from the rolls of the army, his dismissal to date from his surrender;" and Capt. A. H. Plummer, his commissary, who held $17,000 in drafts, which he might at any moment have destroyed, but which were handed over to and used by the Rebels, was sentenced by court-martial to be reprimanded in general orders, and suspended from duty for six months!

New Mexico, thus shamefully bereft, at a blow, of half her defenders, was now reckoned an easy prey to the gathering forces of the Rebellion. Her Mexican population, ignorant, timid, and superstitious, had been attached to the Union by conquest, scarcely fifteen years before, and had, meantime, been mainly under the training of Democratic officials of strong pro-Slavery sympathies, who had induced her Territorial Legislature, some two years before, to pass an act recognizing Slavery as legally existing among them, and providing stringent safeguards for its protection and security-an act which was still unrepealed. Her Democratic officials had not yet been 'July 27, 1861.

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