Today in History:

636 Series I Volume L-I Serial 105 - Pacific Part I

Page 636 OPERATIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. Chapter LXII.

the conquest of New Mexico in 1846 by the army under the command of General Stephen W. Kearny, the people hereof have had a succession of military and civil governors, embracing General Kearny, Colonel Washington, Colonel Weightman, Colonel John Munroe, Colonel Garland, Major Bonneville, Colonel Fauntleroy, and Colonel W. W. Loring, besides Governors Calhoun, Lane, Meriwether, and Rencher. I am not aware that either of these gentlemen, comprising a list of high sounding names, ever distinguished themselves by any signal abilities or left their impress upon the statutes or improved the pecuniary condition of the inhabitants, their manners or morals. There are no visible monuments in the Territory or gilded marks of progress or improvement to denote their deeds as warriors or acquirements as civilians. In 1850 New Mexico had a population of 50,000 souls, now (1860), according to the census returns, the white inhabitants, or those free born, exclusive of U. S. soldiers and Indians, number some 93,000. To govern this country requires a greater degree of administrative ability, comprehensive sagacity and research, matured judgment, and wise forecast, ener of character than is required to govern the great States of New York or Pennsylvania. In the Empire and Keystone States the Executives can rely upon aid and information furnished by the daily and weekly press of the cities and country towns, by the intelligence communicated far and near, upon the said character of the community, the pulpit, and the school-house, the love of order, the observance of religious solemnities, the sanctity of morals, and improvements incident to a civilized and populous community. Here there are no such auxiliary tributaries to furnish intellectual and moral food for the governing power, nothing but a wild and thinly populated frontier Territory composed of a mixed and incongruous population with rude and nomadic tribes of Indians, numbering some 40,000, besides the friendly Pueblos, Gilas, Apaches, Pimas, and Maricopas. This country, stretching from the Kansas borders or Indian Territory west of the Arkansas, extends to the Colorado River west and to the Mexican line of Sonora (31 deg. 20 sec. north latitude) on the south. The governors of New Mexico somehow or other never have paid the slighest attention to the will or wishes or wants of the people of the district of Arizona, and hence the citizens of that expansive region, under the political teachings of Philemon T. Herbert, Judge Edward McGowan, Samuel J. Jones, Lieutenant S. Mowry, Judge Lucas, Governor Owings, Granville H. Oury, Colonel Ewell (of the U. S. Army), and others, sought to erect, a little over a year ago, a provisional government, embracing the region lying between La Mesilla on the Rio Grande and extending north to the Gila, west to the Colorado, and south to the Sonora line. Our country, stretching more than 1,000 miles along the Mexican frontier, requires a vigilant eye to be kept upon the machinations of the secession force who are now straining every nerve, using every device, pulling every cord with might and main to circumvent the supporters of our glorious Union, and incorporating the States of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, and Sonora, Mexico, into the Government of the Confederate States of the South. For this purpose Jeff. Davis, the rebel chief, has dispatched secret agents to the governors of the States above enumerated to induce them to secede from the Republican of Anahuac and join the standard of the seceshers. is going on, or has been transpiring under their very eyes and noses, what have the governors of New Mexico been doing to avert the fatal catastrophe? Listless and apathetic, if not secessionists at heart, they are the next thing to them, and have remained as dormant and passive as old Mrs. Partington with her door mop. The time has


Page 636 OPERATIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. Chapter LXII.