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ville. Enough material of war was forwarded to the Southwest to well equip and furnish a moderate sized army, in addition to what was actually needed for the Union troops stationed in Sheridan's department.

Another fact that would be found is the extraordinary amount of such material that was condemned and ordered to be abandoned. And it was abandoned, but always in very lonely parts of the Rio Grande Valley, long distances above Brownsville, contiguous to and upon the river bank. Somehow these well-guarded trains of condemned and abandoned army stores and munitions were always left at night-fall without escort. Is it any wonder, then, that Cortinas or some other of the Republican leaders always contrived to cross the Rio Grande in their bullock-hide boats and before morning to remove to their own side these valuable munitions which some lucky fate had left at their disposal? There was, also, another act in this interesting drama which will bear telling.

El Paso, now a well-known centre of railroad and commercial activity, in 1865 was a frontier village, with more swagger, crime, treason, and murder to the square foot, according to inhabitants, than any other place upon the North American Continent. It had been famous before as the starting point of military operations at the time of the first Mexican War. Doniphan's Missouri command, after its march across the plains and into New Mexico, was sent by General Phil Kearney to the village of Franklin (El Paso) to hold it as an important observation point upon the extreme northeast frontier of Chihuahua. When the slave-holders' rebellion had begun and ended, El Paso still remained in Confederate hands. It was soon after occupied by our California volunteers. A post of the United States now stands a couple of miles above the city, ensconced on a small plateau, just overlooking the narrow Rio Grande Valley, and embraced almost roughly by the mountain ranges crowding it in on either side. It is a wild, rough region, weird even to ugliness, with its gray grass, its brown mountain and mesa sides—often so grotesque in their eroded forms; its stunted trees and hideous cacti- the very hobgoblin of the vegetable world. Its human occupants are less lovely, as a rule, than even its natural aspects. But it is beautiful, also, beyond the poet's dream to describe, or the painter's genius and skill to depict. A marvelous atmosphere clothes it in wondrous radiance. Even when, at mid-day, the earth lies bald and naked beneath its translucent blue, the wondrous clearness of the arching sky lends enchantment to the vast outlook. But it is at night and morning-at dawn and sundown-that the glory of the wid

region becomes so marvelous that one's pen may well falter in an attempt to describe it. The rainbow's colors are but as idle shadows beside those that the atmosphere paints along the Rio Grande to welcome the sunrise or bid the moon and stars to their constant charming. The chasms, rough and jagged on mountain sides, are draped in the deepest, richest purple. The saw-toothed crests are all golden in the river of sunshine. The red, rugged mesa becomes a lake of beaut cous hues. Far and near, all outlines grow tender and soft. In the morning the scene is one of radiant glory. In the evening it becomes a landscape of mystical softness and bewildering enchantment, so lovely are the shadows, and so wonderful the changes wrought by the magical touch of the arid atmosphere.

Across the shallow boundary river lies the Mexican village of Paso Del Norte, with its dirty, straggling adobe dwellings, its uncouth plaza, and ugly if historical church building. For a thousand years, it is probable, has this been the site of human dwellings and activity. It is the extreme northeasterly point of Mexican territory. Its inhabitants (the Pueblo extends for several miles down the river) are nearly all of the indigenous Indian stock of Northern Mexico. They are the most patriotic of Mexicans, and the story of the republic almost begins in this frontier village; nay, it almost ended there, just before the period of Sheridan's appearance in the Southwest. It was in the village of Paso Del Norte that the adherents of the patriot-priest, Hidalgo, made their last stand against their Spanish oppressors, while the liberator was being executed at the city of Chihuahua. It was here, too, that Jaurez and his representatives maintained for nearly two years one of their last territorial footholds on the eastern side of the Sierra Madre.

The Mexican people understood from the beginning the character of our Civil War. This is seen by the fact that early in 1862 — it was in May-the Mexican Congress passed in secret session, and without opposition, a joint resolution permitting the authorities of the United States to land troops from California at Guaymas, Sonora, on the Gulf of California, and march the same overland through Mexican territory, to the Rio Grande, Texas. What greater proof of sympathetic alliance could be given? It is also understood that had it been necessary, the troops of the friendly republic would then have been used in our behalf. The permission of Mexico was never taken advantage of, owing to the fact that the Confederate General Sibley, who invaded New Mexico by way of the Rio Grande in the winter of 1861-2, was driven out completely by the Mexican volunteers of New Mexico and the First

Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, under Colonel Slough. Sibley and Baylor both acted in their invasions of the Southwest in the interest of a Confederate plan to conquer California. In this Sibley's intimates now assert that they were to have the assistance of Mexico, the northern states of which were to be sold to the Confederacy. So far as the Mexican Republicans were concerned, the rebel leaders" reckoned without their host." There was a cessation of recruiting efforts for a while in California, but in the fall of 1862, a brigade of cavalry, under Carlton and West, both West Pointers, started from Drum Barracks, Wilmington, Southern California, on a long overland march of nearly twelve hundred miles, passing across the Colorado desert, and entering Arizona at Yuma, marched up the Gila Valley, driving back the Apache marauders as they moved. They reoccupied Tucson, which had been held by Confederate guerrillas, and then they alvanced over the Chiricuhua Mountains, meeting and defeating the Apaches, into New Mexico. In the early spring of 1863, they watered their horses in the Rio Grande, occupying the valley of Mesila, and establishing brigade headquarters at Las Cruces, forty miles above El Paso and the Mexican frontier. General Carlton was assigned to the command of the department, and West, promoted as brigadiergeneral, was placed in charge of the Californians. There was considerable active service against Apaches and Navajo, and an occasional Confederate guerrilla raid. But the great duty performed by the California troops was that of holding and protecting the Republic of Mexico, almost in extremis, at the village of Paso Del Norte. The homely church structure of that place was turned into a rude fortress, which was armed with two Parrott guns and several hundred repeating rifles. This armament found its way to Paso Del Norte across the frontier of the United States. It was placed there by General West's knowledge, and with the approval of Mr. Seward, as well as the War Department. For the next two years it was the California volunteers who always appeared on furlough at the Mexican village when the French troops occupying Chihuahua, came nearer to the northern frontier than was usual with them.

The Californians were kept at Las Cruces to protect the Mexican Republicans at Paso Del Norte. And it was from this point that a cavalry column of Sheridan's would have entered Mexico, in 1865, had it become necessary to overthrow the bastard empire by the employment of our forces. The brave Mexicans were able to work out their own freedom, but the United States stood ready to assist. The moral

force of that fact, felt at Paris, Vienna, and Queretaro, finally and visibly aided to crumble the usurpation to pieces.

But the indirect and diplomatic service Sheridan's troops were rendering to Mexico comprised but a small portion of the complex and perplexing duties that devolved upon the department administration.

When General Weitzel, his second in command, arrived at Brownsville, in the latter part of April, 1865, he found a hostile Confederate army, under Kirby Smith and Sterling Price, still in the field. That was the smaller factor in the problem. It speedily solved itself by the surrender at Shreveport. The real trouble was in Texas. Here Confederates not only considered themselves as having never been "subjugated" by the "Yankee hirelings" they affected to despise, but the state began at once to swarm with the more desperate and reckless of the minor Confederate leaders and soldiers, who, penniless and full of dangerous despair, had made their way into the Lone Star State from the Southern armies that were dissolving away east of the Mississippi River. A great many of them would have rejoiced, in impotent hostility, of the chance to swell the forces of Maximilian, provided they could have seen the opportunity of a collision with the Federal forces Others there were and their number was by no means insignificant who would gladly have availed themselves of such an occasion to have entered the armies of the republic.

once more.

But these men were there, by the thousands, desperate and penniless. Grafted on the usual population of Texas, at that date exceedingly hostile, the problem of maintaining order was one of a peculiarly responsible character. General Weitzel set an early example of a needed sternness. The week before his arrival there, fourteen assassinations occurred on the streets of the town. In the week after his arrival General Weitzel tried and condemned a number of the assassins, executing four of them on one gallows. As a further illustration, an incident is recalled that occurred months later, when an ex-Confederate officer who had ranged himself on the side of Union law and order, was severely wounded in Northern Texas while defending the Union flag from a party of Texas sympathizers with Mr. Johnson. This officer had passed unscathed through the war.

Sheridan's duties in Texas then covered a vast range. They were met as promptly as they rose. Texas was gradually brought into line with law and order. As the years roll on, it will be seen that the acrid medicine of Sheridan's unyielding administration was doubtless the only potion that could at the time have been administered.

CHAPTER XXVI.

SHERIDAN IN RECONSTRUCTION DAYS.

CONDITIONS PRECEDING AND ATTENDING RECONSTRUCTION — COMMANDING IN

THE GULF STATES — NEW ORLEANS — ANDREW JOHNSON'S INTERFERENCE — MECHANICS HALL MASSACRE-RECONSTRUCTION LEGISLATION—SHERIDAN'S SERVICE UNDER IT SHOWS EXCELLENT EXECUTIVE ABILITY — EJECTING A GOVERNOR HIS BANDIT DELIVERANCE - HE GIVES THE PRESIDENT THE "LIE DIRECT" -ABLE BUT THANKLESS SERVICE - APPOINTMENT OF

GENERAL HANCOCK.

MAJOR-GENERAL SHERIDAN left Washington for the Rio Grande early in May, 1865. What he was sent there to do has already been suggested. He was placed in command of the Department of the Gulf, which in June following Grant extended to cover Louisiana and Florida, as well as Texas, with headquarters at New Orleans. This was done because a strong hand and firm will was particularly required at that point. Indications were not wanting to Grant's sagacious observation of the growth of that wide divergence of opinion between President Andrew Johnson and the leaders of the party which had been in power throughout the Rebellion, and were therefore responsible for the legislation of the land, and mainly, also, for its administration. These wide, even fundamental divergencies of opinion and action between the President who constitutionally succeeded after the assassination of the beloved Lincoln, were to place the soldiers of the Union in a terrible dilemma when Congress came to impose upon them the execution of civic duties, requirements, and authority, in the ex-Confederate States. General Sheridan was placed, of all who were so assigned, in the most embarrassing position, for he certainly had not only the more turbulent population to deal with, but the conditions surrounding him were of an extremely complex character. That he conducted himself wisely, even if he dealt sternly and severely with those whom he truthfully deemed "banditti," enleagued for the oppression and even murder of others on account of political differences, is seen in the fact that the representatives of the same communities, more

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