Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules: The San Antonio-El Paso Mail, 1851-1881 PDF
Preview Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules: The San Antonio-El Paso Mail, 1851-1881
Page iii Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules The San Antonio—El Paso Mail, 18511881 By Wayne R. Austerman Texas A&M University Press COLLEGE STATION Page iv Copyright © 1985 by Wayne R. Austerman All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Austerman, Wayne R. (Wayne Randolph), 1948 Sharps rifles and Spanish mules. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Postal service—Texas—History—19th century. 2. Coaching—Texas—History—19th century. 3. San Antonio (Tex.)—History. 4. El Paso (Tex.)—History. I. Title. HE6376.A1T417 1985 8440557 ISBN 0890962200 Manufactured in the United States of America FIRST EDITION Page v To Ernie Trahan Grace was the coin of her beauty Page vii Contents Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1. After the Eagle Screamed 3 2. "Notice to Travelers" 19 3. A Tangled Weave 45 4. "I'll Be Damned If I'll Die!" 64 5. "From No Place through Nothing to Nowhere" 87 6. Hard Passages 109 7. Omens and Rivals 132 8. The Flame and the Talons 154 9. Thrones for the Ravens 175 10. Coopwood's Try 194 11. The Brash Reinsman 207 12. The Knives of Winter 226 13. "Charges against the Service" 243 14. Concord Suffrage 269 15. The Savage Recessional 283 Afterword 309 Appendix: Chronology of the San AntonioEl Paso Mail, 18501881 315 Bibliography 325 Index 357 Page ix Illustrations following page 132 Bigfoot Wallace Edward D. Westfall George H. Giddings Louis Oge James M. Hunter James Birch Parker Burnham Ben Ficklin Francis C. Taylor William Mitchell Bethel Coopwood Eli Bates and F.C. Taylor at the reins Jim Spears A mail station in the Concho River country The crossing on the Pecos Howard's Well as it looks today El Muerto Canyon, 1985 Ruins at the Head of Concho Entering Bass Canyon from the east, 1985 Quitman Pass today Modern view of the stage road through Quitman Canyon Page x Maps Upper Road, San Antonio to the Pecos; Lower Road to the Pecos 12 Pecos to El Paso 14 Santa Fe to El Paso Road 24 El Paso to San Diego 100 Page xi Acknowledgments The author wishes to acknowledge Dr. Rex Strickland for his generous aid and insightful guidance of my pursuit of this subject. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. John Loos and Dr. Robert Becker of Louisiana State University for their interest and valuable criticisms. Dr. Becker's intimate knowledge of mules and vineyards has been of particular value. Page 3 Chapter 1 After the Eagle Screamed Between January and March, 1848, a random glitter of light on the pebbled bank of a California stream and the dry scratch of a quill's point across the face of a parchment sheaf combined to thrust the American people out of a dream of empire and into the dawn of its realization. Blind fortune at Sutter's Mill and astute diplomacy at Guadalupe Hidalgo bound the Southwest irrevocably to the United States from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. John Sutter's luck and James K. Polk's statesmanship guaranteed that the newly won lands would draw legions of men across the wilderness in quest of a golden promise. Thousands of people sought the quickest routes across the continent as they caught the California virus. The overland trails of the Central Plains attracted most; others braved the jungles of Panama. A few tested Mexican hospitality as they marched from Vera Cruz to Chihuahua. Many, however, chose to travel the plains that reached across Texas from the Gulf Coast to the Rio Grande, for "the distance looked shorter, the climate milder, and the spring came much sooner."1 There were no roads worthy of the name on this route, but that mattered little to the men who landed on the beach at Indianola or rode overland across the Sabine. They naturally gravitated toward two points for launching their journeys across the arid plains. San Antonio and Austin were the largest settlements in the state, and natural rivals for the emigrant trade. These twin departure places hosted caravans bound for one vital way station on the trail to California. The old Spanish frontier outpost of El Paso del Norte beckoned to them like a lantern hung in a dark archway. 1 Mabelle E. Martin, "California Emigrant Roads through Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 28 (Apr., 1925): 290. Page 4 Immutable geographic factors dictated that El Paso should be a funnel for travel to California and for trade with other points in the Southwest. It was at the Pass of the North that the Rio Grande cut through the southern spur of the Rocky Mountains to win a passage to the Gulf of Mexico far to the southeast. For several centuries already, El Paso had served as a stopping place on the Camino Real from Chihuahua to Santa Fe. When the axis of travel shifted in the 1840s, it likewise served a similar role on the road from the Gulf to the Pacific. Once travelers had negotiated the plains that lay to the east and emerged from the Rio Grande Valley, they found that the Gila River's course led them west to the crossing of the Colorado and on to the final hurdle of the Sierras.2 The momentum of the California emigration movement built rapidly after the discovery of gold became widely known in 1848. In early 1849 a total of 17,341 people departed New York by sea alone. Nearly one out of every twenty of them was bound for Texas to begin the first land leg of the passage to the west. Many more fortune seekers assembled in New Orleans to secure berths on steamers bound for the Gulf ports. Texas was destined to become a marshaling yard for one of the great American migrations.3 The citizens of San Antonio quickly recognized the advantages to be gained from luring the emigrant traffic through their town and raised funds by public subscription for an expedition to blaze a wagon road west to El Paso. Not only would such a road attract the emigrant trains, it would also cut into the rich trade that had formerly flowed largely north from Chihuahua to St. Louis via Santa Fe. Thus, in the summer of 1848 they appointed John C. Hays, a noted surveyor and plainsman, to lead a party west under the protection of thirtyfive Texas Rangers commanded by Captain Samuel Highsmith.4 Hays and Highsmith rendezvoused northwest of San Anto 2 Rex W. Strickland, Six Who Came to El Paso, 4; C.L. Sonnichsen, Pass of the North, 10024; Ferol Egan, The Eldorado Trail, 11417; Donald W. Meining, Imperial Texas, 42. 3 Martin, "Emigrant Roads," 290. 4 W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West, 3637; Martin, "Emigrant Roads," (footnote continued on next page)
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