Today in History:

629 Series I Volume XXVI-I Serial 41 - Port Hudson Part I

Page 629 Chapter XXXVIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.

[Inclosure.]

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Santa Fe, June 13, 1863.

Honorable W. H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that on the 22nd ultimo I arrived at this city. I had some detention on the road at the different military posts in changing escorts, whose company I found very necessary from the danger of Confederate bushwhackers near the frontier of Missouri, and a banded set of robbers and murderers that were infesting the roads and mountain districts between here ad Fort Lyon, on the Arkansas.

Since I left the Territory, in October last, there has occurred nothing of a nature to excite alarm as respects another Texas invasion. There was a Confederate force of 500 or 600 men at Fort Davis, nearly 500 miles south of this place, of which some fears were entertained, as the advance guard of a large number, but it seems they were only stationed there temporarily as a protection to the trains that were transporting provisions from the State of Chichualhua by way of the Presidio del Norte, on the Rio Grande. I learn now that the whole force has left for San Antonio.

It is to be hoped that better success will attend this campaign than has attended others that have been made against that tribe, at such enormous expense and loss of stock to the Government. This is the only tribe that is hostile to our people, and the only one from which we have suffered and loss for a number of years. They are insignificant in numbers, and their only defense when invaded is in flight, with troops, leaving but few of their men in sight, and they mounted on the best of their horses, rendering all pursuit fruitless in the country they inhabit.

General Carleston has reduced the whole Mescalero Apache tribe to a state of peace, and has them now living at Fort Sumter, on the Pecos River, in the immediate presence of the troops, with orders that not one be permitted to leave under penalty of being taken and treated as an enemy.

We have had the most seasonable rains this spring, such as hretofore have never visited this Territory in May and June. This has given us great hopes of a bountiful harvest and the earliest and most luxuriant growth of grass with we have been blessed for a number of years. This will be quite a relief to the ravaged and desolate situation of the Territory, for such has been the desolation caused by the Texan invasion and the Indians, together with an unusual rise in the Rio Grande last year, that two of the lower counties, Valencia and Socorro, are kept from suffering with hunger by subscription from the people of the more fortunate counties more remote from the theater of the late Texan raid and Indian depredations, and where lands were more favorably situated on the river, and avoided the destruction of crops caused by the unusual and unexpected rise of that steam. In fact, everything now wears a cheerful appearance, and if we remain secure from further Texan and Indian depredations, will soon forget our past misfortunes.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HENRY CONNELLY,

Governor of New Mexico.


Page 629 Chapter XXXVIII. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.