Benjamin Franklin Davis: Service in the 1st U. S. Dragoons part IV

Jonathan Lettermen would reminisce about his friend and fellow army officer Benjamin Franklin Davis when he wrote Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac in 1866. "This officer, who so successfully extricated his regiment from Harper's Ferry when the post was surrendered by General Miles - who fought so gallantly on our march through Virginia in the autumn of 1862 - had been my companion in more than one campaign among the Indians; my messmate at stations far beyond the haunts of civilized men.  This long, familiar intercourse produced the warmest admiration for his noble character, which made him sacrifice friends and relatives to uphold the flag under which he was born and defend the Constitution of his country.” 

When the Pah-Ute Campaign commenced there were three officers with the command, Brevet Major James H. Carleton commanding the expedition and Company K, 1st Dragoons and 1st Lieutenant Milton T. Carr and 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Davis attached to Company B.  Lieutenant David H. Hastings was assigned to Company K however he had been absent from Fort Tejon since April  12, 1858.  The young lieutenant had been severely injured October 7, 1857 while in pursuit of Indians near Fort Buchanan.  “While making a charge down a steep rocky hill, Lt Hastings was thrown from his horse with great violence, had his leg and collar bone broken, and his chest so severely crushed, that for sometime his life was despaired for.  His injuries necessitated an extended sick leave.   

Lt. Hastings was well enough by January 1860 to be promoted Captain on January 9, 1860 and transferred to Company D, 1st Dragoons to replace Captain Edward H. Fitzgerald.  This left an opening for a 1st lieutenant in Company K and Grimes Davis was promoted to that rank as of January 9, 1860.  The word of Davis promotion appears to not have reached him until early July 1860.

Following his promotion 1st Lieutenant Benjamin Davis, took a well deserved 60 day leave of absence from July 30 to September 25, the first leave of absence he had enjoyed since joining the ranks of the 5th U. S. Infantry at Ringgold Barracks on December 24, 1854.  1st Lieutenant Davis would not return to Fort Tejon to officially join Company K until September 25, 1860. With steamship traveling along and up both coasts and the railroad across the Isthmus of Panama B. F. Davis would have probably had time to go to Mississippi and spend time with his extended family and brothers who still lived there, however it is not known what he did or where he went during his time away from the army.  One thing is certain, much had changed in the young man’s life since December 1854 and he was receiving well deserved recognition from his superiors as a promising young officer in the United States Army. 

Upon his return to Fort Tejon Grimes Davis was appointed AAQM and ACS for the post. He would continue to exercise these duties until April 25, 1861 when he was replaced by the regimental quartermaster Henry B. Davidson.  While 1st Lt. Davis was occupied with his quartermaster and commissary responsibilities his comrade 1st Lt. Milton T. Carr was assigned the daily duty of commanding the 1st Dragoons Regimental Band and acting as the post adjutant, who was responsible for assisting the commanding officer with correspondence and issuing orders.

A number of changes took place in the Department of California in early 1861.  The Departments of Oregon and California were merged together into the Department of the Pacific on January 15.  Brevet Brigadier General and Colonel, 2nd U. S. Cavalry Albert Sidney Johnston, assumed command with headquarters in San Francisco.  There were 143 officers and 2,245 enlisted men present for duty, in what was now the Department of the Pacific, as of December 30, 1860.

There had been sectional tensions in California, particularly in the southern part of the state for years, both before and after it had been admitted to the Union September 9, 1850.  As tension continued unabated, in isolated sections of California, Colonel A. S. Johnston continued to do his duty as a military officer however, in part, because of his  strong ties to the south including his adopted state of Texas, which had succeeded on February 1, 1861, he was replaced by Brigadier General Edwin V. Sumner on March 23, 1861.  Johnston would eventually resign from the United States Army May 3, 1861 and enter Confederate service as one of their fledgling army’s highest ranking officers.  He was killed at the Battle of Shiloh April 6, 1862.

On April 15,1861 when President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops tensions in Southern California rose.  Captan Hancock was concerned about the safety of the vast quantity of government military stores and armaments he had in Los Angeles, as he was the only officer on hand.  Upon assuming command, of the Department of the Pacific on April 25, Sumner noted “There is a strong Union feeling with the majority of the people of this State, but the secessionists are much the most active and zealous party, which gives them more influence than they ought to have from their numbers.”   On April 29 Sumner ordered Fort Mojave abandoned and and the garrison sent to Los Angeles to make a show of force and assist Hancock.  On May 3 Special Order No 71 directed “Company K, 1st Dragoons, will be detached, from Fort Tejon, and will proceed and take post at Los Angeles.   Major James Carleton was directed to establish a camp at the most eligible position in the immediate vicinity of Los Angeles for his dragoons and the companies of infantry in route from Fort Mojave. 

A number of Grimes Davis’s classmates who were with the 1st Dragoons, including William Dorsey Pender, Alfred B. Chapman, John T. Mercer and Horace Randall, resigned from the United States Army in the winter and early spring of 1861.  All except Chapman donned Confederate Gray.  Officers of the Army were required by General Order No. 13, issued by the War Department April 30, 1861, “to take and subscribe anew the oath of allegiance to the United States of America.”  Special mention will be made of the failure to comply with the requirements of the order. Lieutenants Milton T. Carr and Benjamin Franklin Davis honored both the oath of allegiance they had sworn to uphold at West Point and the one mandated by the April 30 order and stayed in the United States Army.

Fort Tejon was closed, for all intents and purposes, on May 11, 1861. The troops manning garrison were moved closer to Los Angeles. Carleton, Davis and the rank and file of Company K left the post on that date in route to the City of Angles.   On the 14th Major Carleton and “fifty mounted troopers from Company K” reportedly “trotted into Los Angeles, to the immense relief of Captain Hancock and the Union sympathizers in town.  The officers and enlisted men of companies B and K 1st Dragoons were transferred to Camp Fitzgerald which was “on the southern outskirts of (Los Angeles), in line-of-sight with Captain Hancock’s Quartermaster building…Its location was at the base of the hill between 1st and 2nd Streets, on Front Street (now Broadway), and it initially consisted of eleven tents in a cleared area 100 yards wide and 150 yards long. ” They arrived there on May 15.  This enabled “soldiers in blue to patrol the streets of Los Angeles”.   A  “Grand Union Demonstration” was held in Los Angeles on May 25.  Union sympathizers “from as far away as San Pedro, guarded by army dragoons in full dress, gathered in the Plaza.  The 1st Dragoon Band struck up a march.  Civilians and soldiers marched toward the courthouse where Phineas Banning spoke as did Major Carleton and Captain Hancock.  The dragoons “with their glittering sabres and burnished carbines” added to the dignity of the occasion”.  

 The most eventful thing that probably happened to Lt. B. F. Davis while stationed at Camp Fitzgerald in the spring of 1861 occurred on May 23 when he had a run in with Company K’s farrier Morris Hurley.  Private Hurley had enlisted in the 1st Dragoons in Boston, Massachusetts on September 8, 1857.  His records of enlistment show him as a  twenty-one year old blacksmith born in County Cork, Ireland, who stood five foot eight and one half inches tall, had grey eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion.  If Hurley was 5’ 8” tall he would have been about as tall as Grimes Davis who, at age 18 in 1849, was 5’ 9 or 10” tall and weighted about 130 pounds.

Davis’s run in with Hurley is described in Three Dragoons on Trial a July 26, 2016 post by Will and John Gorenfield author’s of Kearny’s Dragoons Out West The Birth of the U. S. Cavalry.  The two historians wrote: `It seems on the morning of 23 May 1861, Lt. Benjamin Davis found Farrier Hurley drunk. Hurley got into an altercation with Davis who had a sergeant arrest him. While in the guard tent, Hurley became loud and ill mannered, telling the other prisoners to leave the tent. Hearing the commotion Lieutenant Davis entered the tent and told Hurley to stop making noise. Hurley called the lieutenant a “damn son of a bitch,” ordering him out of the guard tent and threatening his life. Davis testified the drunken farrier began to shove him, first with his hands and then threatening death by pointing the muzzle of a Sharps carbine at Davis.

Hurley denied aiming the muzzle at Davis or threatening to kill him. He admitted to using the butt of the carbine to strike the lieutenant and produced witnesses to give his side of the fight. Unfortunately, most of the disturbance occurred inside of the guard tent and the prisoner’s witnesses did not observe what took place.

The lieutenant claimed he left the tent and ordered a sergeant of the guard to take a file of men to the tent and secure Hurley, but they did not do so as they were afraid of the belligerent Hurley. A frustrated Davis stormed back into the guard tent and attempted to seize the carbine. He was not successful. The sergeant and his men were again ordered by Davis to secure Hurley. The prisoner once again threaten the guard, fought them, lost the struggle, was retrained, and then tied up and taken to the city jail.

The Army charged Hurley with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. Hurley wasn’t charged with a violation of Articles 7 and 9 of the Articles of War with mutiny and striking a superior officer, each of which allow for the imposition of the death penalty. On 5 July 1861, the general court-martial panel, headed by Capt. John W. Davidson, 1st Dragoons, found Hurley guilty of the specifications and charge. It ordered him to suffer a forfeiture of pay and to be confined under guard for six months. During his confinement the farrier was to carry each day in prison a pack weighing fifty pounds.

It is unlikely that Hurley served the entire sentence. Skilled farriers were difficult to come by, all the more so during wartime. Consequently, Maj. James Carleton testified Hurley, when sober, was a valuable soldier in his company. In the fall, Company K sailed for the East Coast and the civil  war. Army records reveal Hurley served his full five year term enlistment and was honorably discharged in Mechanicsville, Virginia on September 8, 1862. 

In June the dragoons at Camp Fitzgerald were joined by Companies I and F of the 6th Infantry who arrived from Fort Mojave and San Diego.  Lieutenant Davis was relieved as AAQM and ACS on June 20.  He was then appointed post adjutant and took over commanded of the regimental band from Milton Carr.  Camp Fitzgerald, which would be moved a total of three times during its short tenure as an army post at the start of the Civil War was relocated two miles south of Los Angeles adjacent to the San Pedro Road.  The new camp site reportedly was able to accommodate a larger number of troops and provided better grazing for the horses. 

Benjamin Davis continued his duties as post adjutant and dragoons regimental band commander into July 1861.  On July 14 Lt. Davis left Camp Fitzgerald on a special assignment and made a trip back to Fort Tejon to determine if there was any validity to the reports of citizens accusing Indians in the area of depredations  and “threatening to make war”.  On July 23 he submitted a report of his findings to Major Carleton.  The report reads as follows:

Camp Fitzgerald

Near Los Angeles, Cal., July 23. 1861

Brevet Major Carleton,

Commanding Camp Fitzgerald near Los Angeles:

Major:  I have the honor to report that in compliance with your orders I left this camp the morning of the 14th and proceeded to Fort Tejon for the purpose of ascertaining the facts concerning certain reports made by the people of the vicinity that the Indians were committing depredations and threatening to make war on them.  I arrived at that place on the 28th and made careful inquiries of Messers. Alexander, Barbee, Halpin, and other residents of the canon.  From their statement it appears that when the troops left the fort the Indians came about in considerable number to pick up old rags, shoes, &c., as is usual with them in such cases, and Lieutenant Carr, the officer left in charge seems to have had some difficulty in getting rid of them.  A few days afterwards two or three of these Indians got drunk at the “Yews” and on their way home attempted to throw a lariat over the head of a man whom they met coming up the can n a buggy.  They also tried to break into the house of a Mrs. Welt, who lives below the fort, but she easily frightened them off by firing a pistol out the window.  This seems to have been the extent of their depredations, and since that time they have been quiet and friendly.    The apprehension that the people are under from the Indians may be judged of by the fact that most every family has them employed either as house servants or laborers, and they are well aware that it is in their power to prevent all trouble in the future by simply prohibiting the sale of liquor by any member of the community.  I then proceeded to the settlements on the slough or South Fork of Kern River to inquire into the threatened depredations in those quarters.  The story that these people  tell is that an Indian boy told a Mrs Cottrell or Cottring that the Indians from the reservation were coming down when the corn got ripe to eat it up, and were then going to kill all the whites.  This woman lives near her father, an old man named Bonny, who has also another daughter, Mrs Greenlis, who lives eight or ten miles down the slough.  The old man becoming alarmed sent for this daughter, which caused the panic to spread to two or three other families in the neighborhood.    They collected at his house and remained together three or four days, when, their fear having subsided, they returned to their homes.  According to their own showing this is the only foundation for the reports which they circulated and the petition which they signed praying for protection.  It is possible that some idle Indian boy may have amused himself by playing upon the fears of the women, but I believe the whole story to be a fabrication.  Mr. Gale, an old mountaineer, who lives within a mile of Mr. Bonny, says he heard nothing of the matter until the people had returned to their homes, and James McKenzie, who lives near Greenlis, makes the same statement.  I returned by the way of the reservation and had an interview with Mr. Bagchart, the newly appointed agent.  He says that these reports about the Indians are false; that they are contented with their condition, and that he is well satisfied with their conduct.  He also stated that he wanted no troops for protection against Indians.  In this connection I would respectfully refer the general to the report which the gentleman has recently made to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs on this very point.  The truth is that the people in the vicinity of Fort Tejon have lived so long upon Government patronage that they now find it difficult to do without it, and they will use every means to have troops restationed at that place.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

B. F. DAVIS,

    First Lieutenant,&c. 

In late July 1861 the headquarters of the 1st U. S. Dragoons was moved from Los Angeles to Fort Churchill, Nevada Territory.  This did not affect Companies B & K who remained at Camp Fitzgerald near Los Angeles.  On July 30, 1861 Lieutenant Benjamin F. Davis was promoted to Captain upon the dismissal from the service on the same date of Henry B. Davidson who had been the regimental quartermaster for the 1st Dragoons since December 5, 1858.  2nd Lieutenant George B. Sanford, who was attached to Company K but who had yet to join the regiment, was promoted to 1st Lieutenant filling Davis’s slot. 

The 2nd U. S. Dragoons were also going through a transformation in July 1861.  Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, who had 28 years of service with the dragoons, commanded the regiment and the Department of Utah from his headquarters at Camp Crittenden, Utah Territory.  In late July the military forces at Camp Crittenden which included 4 companies of the 2nd U. S. Dragoons, 3 companies of the 4th U. S. Artillery and 2 companies of the Tenth Infantry were ordered to vacate the post and head east.  They left there July 27 in route to Washington D.C.  After leaving Fort Laramie Colonel Cooke left the group and took the stagecoach to Fort Leavenworth.  On November 28 he assumed command of the regular cavalry serving with the Army of the Potomac outside Washington D.C. 

    

On August 3, 1861 the 1st U. S. Dragoons, the oldest, longest serving mounted regiment in the United States Army would be renamed the 1st U. S. Cavalry.  Many in the ranks of the Dragoons who had a proud history of service to the country were not happy with the new designation.  The 2nd U. S. Dragoons would become the 2nd U. S. Cavalry.  The original 1st and 2nd  U. S. Cavalry, which dated from 1855, became the 4th U. S. Cavalry and 5th U.S. Cavlary.

To be continued.

Most of the information in this post comes from Returns of U S Military Posts and from the Returns of the 1st U. S. Dragoons, and the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. Additional information is extracted from newspapers, (Three Dragoons on Trial, July 26, 2016, www.achargeofthedragoons.com) and Los Angeles in the Civil.

Benjamin Franklin Davis: Service in the 1st U. S. Dragoons Part III

On December 27, 1859 Benjamin F. Davis left Fort Tejon for Los Angeles on detached service.  He was back at the fort by January 10, 1860.  On the 10th Davis in command of thirty rank and file from Company B, which formed part of a squadron of 1st Dragoons commanded by Captain John W. Davidson, left the post for Los Angeles.  They arrived there on the 11th after having traveled 105 miles in 33 hours.  On the 12th the squadron attended the funeral of Brevet Major Edward H. Fitzgerald, Captain 1st Dragoons who had died On January 9, 1860 of tuberculosis at Los Angeles. Davidson and his squadron were back at Fort Tejon by January 18. 

Brevet Major James H. Carleton, Company K, 1st Dragoons and Benjamin Davis left Fort Tejon on January 19 in route back to Los Angeles. Both men were assigned to court martial duty at Fort Yuma in accordance with Special Order No. 2, issued January 9 by the Department of the Pacific in San Francisco, which “orders a detail for court martial at Fort Yuma”.  On Monday January 31 the young 2nd lieutenant left Los Angeles in the company of James Carleton, Lieutenant Julian McAllister and Lieutenant Chandler headed to Fort Yuma. Lt. Davis and his comrades  would be relieved from court martial duty by mid February and he would be back at Fort Tejon by February 27.   Upon his return to the fort Davis was put in charge of Company B.  Milton Carr replaced Davis in command of the company in early March.

On February 29, 1860 Dr. Jonathan Letterman arrived at Fort Tejon.  He had been assigned to the post as an assistant surgeon.  Letterman, the son of Dr. Jonathan Leatherman and his wife Anna Ritchie, was born in the southwestern Pennsylvania town of Canonsburg, December 11, 1824.  He attended Jefferson College and Jefferson Medical School, graduating in March 1849.  In June 1849 he joined the United States Army as an assistant surgeon.  Dr Lettermen served in Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico Territory and Virginia before being assigned to Fort Tejon in 1860.   

In April 1860 Company B and K, 1st Dragoons left Fort Tejon under the overall command of Major James H. Carleton to conduct a campaign against the Paiute (Pah-Ute) Indians in the Mojave Desert.  They would not return to the post until July.  Lieutenants Milton T. Carr and Benjamin F. Davis accompanied the detachment.  Dr. Jonathan Letterman went along as assistant surgeon.

The objective of the campaign was to punish the Paiutes who were accused of murdering three white men in the desert along the Salt Lake Trail which ran from Salt Lake City through Las Vegas to San Bernardino and terminated at Los Angeles.  The first casualty was cattle herder Robert Wilburn, who was killed near the Mojave River on January 23, 1860.  The second killings occurred at Bitter Springs on March 18 when two teamsters, Thomas Williams and his brother-in-law Jehu Jackson, were reportedly murdered by the Indians.  The killings caused an uproar in Los Angeles.  Citizens petitioned California’s Governor  John G. Downey and the commander of the Department of California (formerly the Department of the Pacific), Brevet Brigadier General  Newman S. Clarke “asking that the Pah-Utes be punished and a post established somewhere on the Salt Lake Trail for the protection of travelers”. 

 On April 5, 1860 Special Order No. 35 was drafted at San Francisco by command of Brevet Brigadier General Clarke:  The order directed:

1. Major Carleton’s Company K 1st Dragoons (raised to 80 effective men and horses by detachments from the other companies serving at Fort Tejon) will proceed to the Mojave. 

2. The Assistant Surgeon of the posts will accompany the troops.

3. The Commanding officer at Fort Tejon will supply the command as far as the means at his disposal will permit and the assistant Quartermaster at Los Angeles (Captain Winfield S. Hancock) will furnish such additional supplies as are required by Major Carleton.  

In an instructional letter accompanying the orders Carleton was directed to “proceed to Bitter Springs and chastise the Indians you find in the vicinity, then give them to understand that, they have been punished for the recent murder and that the punishment will be certain for future offenses and of increased severity…The punishment must fall on those dwelling nearest to the place of the murder or frequenting the water courses in the vicinity. The General wishes you on account of economy and expedition to move as light as possible, and that your arrangements shall be such as to enable him in future expeditions on the desert to give detailed instructions to officers of less experience than yourself.”

Upon receipt of the orders preparations were made for the campaign.  On April 12, as the command, including three  commissioned officers, eighty-one rank and file, the assistant surgeon, two civilian guides, and an interpreter marched out of Fort Tejon in columns of four, followed by four wagons loaded with supplies, the regimental band played the music of a traditional English folk song from the Elizabethan Era “The Girl I left Behind Me”.  The troops crossed Grapevine Creek and headed southward on the Los Angeles Road leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.  On April 19, after covering about 170 miles in a week’s march, Carleton and him men arrived at a spot where “water came to the surface” a few miles east of the junction of the Mojave Road, which connected Los Angeles to Albuquerque, and the Salt Lake Road about 20 miles east of Barstow in San Bernardino County, California.  Here they established a base camp called Camp Cady, after a friend of Carleton’s who was the commander at Fort Yuma, Major Albemarle Cady of the 6th U. S. Infantry. The Dragoons erected temporary shelters of brush and mud called “dugouts” which they lived in for three months while not out on frequent patrols in search of the Paiutes.  Supplies, in addition to those brought from Fort Tejon, were shipped to the site from Los Angeles via Cajon Pass by Acting Quartermaster Captain Winfield Scott Hancock.  Patrols would be sent out to all point of the compass from the base camp in search of Indians. 

On April 19, 1860, while out on a scout southwest of Camp Cady, a detachment of Carleton’s command under 2nd Lt. Benjamin F. Davis encountered a group of Paiutes.   In the skirmish that followed one Indian was killed and a second Indian taken prisoner, who was subsequently killed in an escape attempt.  The bodies of the dead Indians were taken to Bitter Springs and reportedly hung on a gallows as a warning to the other Indian in the area.  

Potions of a letter written on April 22 by Dr. Letterman to Captain Hancock describing the engagement was published in the Los Angeles Star on April 28, 1860.  Letterman noted: “ Davis killed two  Indians on the 19th, in the mountains to the south-west from our camp, about twelve miles southwest of the fish-ponds.  In the affray two men were seriously wounded - one in the neck and one in the abdomen, by one of the Indians.  Both are doing well; the one wounded in the abdomen is not out of danger yet.  One man received a flesh wound in the left shoulder from one of our men’s pistols.  The Indian was surrounded so that there was no chance of escape, and he fought to the last.  Davis, had a ride of fifty miles there and back, in about eight hours.  The men all seemed to vie with each other, who should kill the rascal, and were perfectly fearless.”  Letterman also noted “The Major (Carleton) and Davis are off beyond this place in different directions.  I look for them back on the 26 or 27th” of April. 

1st Lt. Milton Carr with 16 rank and file and guide David McKenzie left Camp Cady on April 30  on a ten day scouting expedition, heading in a northeasterly direction along the Mojave Road to Soda Springs and the Providence Mountains.  Carr and his command attacked a group of Indians on May 2, killing three of the men, wounding another and taking a woman prisoner, without any loss to the Dragoons.  By May 10 Carr was back at Camp Cady.  Major Carleton reported to headquarters that “the heads of the Indians who were killed are hung upon the gibbit at Bitter Springs as a warning to the tribe for the murders committed there”.  This did not go over well with department headquarters, however.  On May 28 Wiliam W. Mackall, Clarke’s Assistant Adjutant General informed Carleton “Brigadier General Clarke has received your report of May 14, 1860.  He desires you to give positive orders to prevent mutilation of the bodies of the Indians who may fall, and to remove evidence of such mutilations from the public gaze.  He cannot approve of such acts, tho the effect upon the Indians may, or may be thought to be good”. 

Major Carleton and Lieutenant Davis both left Camp Cady on May 1.  Davis and his command of 12 Dragoons left camp for Snow Mountain exploring the Mojave Desert southwest of the base camp for any sign of Indians.  Davis was back in camp by May 5 having traveled 140 miles.    In a  letter drafted on May 14, 1860 accompanying the April Field Returns, sent to  the Department of the Pacific, Carlton reported “Lt. Davis made several long marches, some of them by night, and swept over a good deal of the country from this camp (Cady) to the Point of Rocks and southward to the base of the great San Bernardino range of mountains.  He did not succeed in finding any Indians.  Major Carleton scouted to the south of Camp Cady and engaged the Indians on May 1.  After a running fight Carleton "destroyed all their effects, burnt up their rancheria” and headed back toward Camp Cady.  After Lieut. Davis’s scouting party alluded to (above) returned, (to camp) Major Carleton and Lieut. Davis with twenty men on foot made a night march and succeeded in getting to the highest point of the mountain.  You can judge of the altitude: ice formed in our canteens.  We were disappointed:  the Indians had all fled.  Their trails which have been cut by our scouting parties, indicate sixty or seventy, and they have all gone northward.”

On May 6 Carleton and Davis left Camp Cady with thirty-five enlisted men on another scout toward Rattlesnake Mountain.  They were back in camp by the 9, having covered 80 miles.

On May 14, Carleton, Davis, Dr. Letterman and forty rank and file, twenty five of whom were mounted, left Camp Cady on a ten day scout toward Las Vegas which was on the Salt Lake Trail northeast of Carleton’s base camp.    After returning to camp on May 26 Carleton wrote the following report on May 28 outlining what happened on the scouting trip.  He noted “The command reached Bitter Springs (on May 15).  Here is was increased by 15 dismounted men.  On the 16 after marching to a Dry Lake six miles in advance of Bitter Springs”  the command was split.  Carleton with fifteen mounted men, Dr. Letterman, an interpreter and four pack mules separated from Lt. Davis, scouting alone with his command with the intention of rejoining Davis at a spot on the Salt Lake Road southwest of Las Vegas called Mountain Springs.  “Lieutenant Davis with twenty five dismounted men and McKenzie the guide proceeded with the provisions and forage in three wagons by the Kingston Springs Road”, an offshoot of the Salt Lake Road, toward Mountain Springs.  Both Carleton and Davis were at the rendezvous point by May 17 however neither party had encountered any Indians.  “Lt. Davis had been obliged from the breaking of a wheel to one of his wagons, to leave the wagon and its load of forage at Kingston Springs.  He left a guard with it of a corporal and five men.  One of his other wagons had upset in the night march, and a tire had come off the other, so he had been delayed a good deal on the road.  These things are mentioned because they are really serious difficulties on these long stretches of dessert where one is without water, and when time becomes of great importance.  Lt. Davis made up for all these embarrassments by promptness and energy, and arrived at Mountain Springs even before the hour agreed upon”.  The combined command made it to Las Vegas by the 19th, stayed there until the 20th when they headed back to Camp Cady.  “The distance to Las Vegas by the Amargosa (Carleton’s route) is 172 miles; by the other road (Davis’s route), in round numbers, 150 miles.  The command marched it each way in five days, making over 300 miles in ten days on the desert.  Very few Indians were encountered on the campaign although there signs were everywhere.

Lieutenant Milton Carr, with a detachment of twenty-two men left Camp Cady on a scout toward Soda Springs and the Providence Mountains on May 28.  He was back at camp by June 6th.   Second Lieutenant Grimes Davis left the base camp on May 30 with ten rank and file scouting toward the Rattlesnake Mountain.  He returned without  coming across any Indians.  

On June 9 B. F. Davis was dispatched on another scouting mission, this time to “a snowy mountain to the north and west of Kingston Springs” now known as Telescope Peak which is within the confines of the current day Death Valley National Park.  He would not return to Camp Cady until June 18.  Accompanying Davis, as a scout, was an employee of Captain Hancock, Joel H. Brooks. Lieutenant Davis wrote a detailed report of his expedition on June 21, 1860 which he submitted to Major Carleton along with a map “Of a Reconnaissance of the Snow Mountain” showing the route he took into Death Valley.

Major: 

      I have the honor to report, that in pursuance of your directions to follow up the Indians in the direction of the large Snow Mountain, which lies to the Northwest, I left this place on the 9th instant with a detachment of thirty-five  men and marched to the Turtle Springs, distance twenty-five miles.  These springs are in a sandy ravine, about three miles to the northwest of the dry lake which you see to the left in going to Bitter Springs. There are three holes, two of which will contain 100 gallons, the other about 20.  The water runs in very slowly.  We were able to get half enough for our animals.

June 10.  We started at sunrise, passed the western end of Bitter Spring Mountain, then crossed a dry lake (Bicycle Lake) and ascended a long slope to the slope of a granite mountain (present day Granite Mountain) which runs east and west; after crossing some rough spurs we descended into the plain on the northern side.  There the guide Mr. Brooks expected to find water, but failed.  Sergeant McCleave while examining a ravine found two Indians; he gave chase but they escaped up the mountain.  Here we also found some water in a granite hole, but only enough to give the men a drink.

As the animals began to suffer it became necessary to push for the nearest water, which was Saratoga Springs.  This place was reached at 9 o’clock at night, having traveled over fifty miles.  The horses suffered so much, that most of the men were compelled to throw away their barley.  

June 11.  We remained in camp to recuperate till 6 o’clock in the evening.  The Saratoga Springs is on the northern side of the Valley of the Amagosia; at the foot of a low black mountain which projects well into the valley from the General range on the west.  It is twelve of fifteen miles due west of Salt Spring.  It is a hole ten or twelve feet in diameter and three or four feet deep; the water boils up through quick sand holes in the bottom.  The stream from it runs several hundred yards and forms two or three considerable lakes.  Wood is plenty. The grazing is not good; there is some little grass and cane. Left camp at 6 o’clock p.m. and marched fifteen miles.

June 12.  At daylight we could see the Snow Mountain to the west, apparently twenty or twenty-five miles distant.  We marched till 12 o’clock, when having passed the point at which the guide expected to find water, we halted and sent out parties to hunt for it.  The day was intensely hot and the men began to suffer for water.  Brooks returned at 2 o’clock  but without success.  At 4 o’clock we mounted and pushed on and found water after traveling five miles.  The other party returned at 10 at night, having found water 15 miles up a canon on the mountain.

June 13.  We remained in camp, to rest the horses and the men.  We were now at the foot of the mountain for which we had been aiming.  The valley of the Aqua Magosia is here, ten miles wide and runs due north toward a large mountain, which appears to be 40 miles distant.  It then turns to the west.  The stream rises in a lake on the western slope of the above mentioned mountain and runs east and southeast to Salt Spring.  It then turns west, northwest and finally due north to within 20 miles of its source, when it again turns to the west and is lost in the Desert.

Above Salt Spring there is said to be plenty of water, but below its valley consists of a series of dry lakes, interspersed with patches of lumpy soil which has been deposited by the salty waters of the river during freshets.  

I took a party of men in the afternoon and travelled into the mountain ten miles and encamped for the night.  I estimate the mountain 7000 feet above the valley.  The snow still lies in small patches on the summit.  There is also some Pinon timber on its top; but it is neither so well watered nor timbered as one would expect.  There were no fresh Indian signs in the vicinity; a few old Indian huts in the valley and rancheros in the mountain show that they live here a certain season.  Mr. Brooks says they are not the Pah-Utes; he calls them Ponomints and says they live in the valley from this point down.  They do not speak the same language as the Pah-Utes and make war upon each other.  Their Head Quarters are on a stream about 40 miles farther down the valley.

July 14th  We returned to camp at 9 o’clock a.m.  I have called this water Ponomint Springs, from the name of the Indians who inhabit the valley.  There is a large patch of grass, three or four hundred acres in extent, in which the water is found any where in great abundance by digging two or three feet.  They are on the western side of the valley about 45 miles from Saratoga Springs.

It is evident that the Indians we were in pursuit of, were not in this part of the country, but that they were still farther to the south and west, and that failing to find the 2nd water, had thrown us out of our course too much to the right; as the barley was entirely gone and rations were getting short, I determined to return.  We turned around on the evening of the 14th and reached this camp (Cady) on the 18th instant. 

I am Major, Very Respy, Yr Obt Servt. B. F. Davis, 2nd Lt 1st Dgs.

 An article in the July 8, 1860 Daily National Democrat mentioned Lt. B. F. Davis’s scout noting “Lieutenant Davis, in command of a scouting party from Camp Cady made a journey lately from camp to a point distant about forty miles, in search of Indians, to a part of the Desert, where water is usually found, and where the Indians are known to frequent.  Depending on the spring for water, he took a supply sufficient only for the outward journey, but on arriving at the place, he found that the water was exhausted, and the place desiccated, which caused great suffering to all the party.  However, they succeeded in getting back to camp, greatly debilitated, having undergone great suffering”.

After Davis’s scout failed to find the illusive Indians the party had been in search of Major Carleton decided to call off the campaign and take his command back to Fort Tejon.  Carleton notified headquarters he would abandon Camp Cady on July 3, 1860.  On July 2nd however, probably much to the surprise of the whole command “three Pah-Utes Chiefs appeared on the hill south of camp with a white flag.  They came to hear the white man’s team for peace”.  Carleton held a council with around 27 of the Indians and executed a treaty. 

Carleton and his dragoons evacuated Camp Cady on July 3 and were back at Fort Tejon by July 9, 1860.  Lt. Davis and Dr. Letterman did not return to Fort Tejon with the rest of the command, instead they headed toward Los Angeles on detached service.  Davis might have gone there to settle his accounts as AAQM and ACS for the Pah-Ute Campaign with Captain Hancock.  Carleton’s Field Returns for July also mention 1st Lieutenant B. F. Davis was transferred by promotion to Company K, 1st Dragoons and indicate he was “temporarily attached to Co. “K” 1st Dragoons June 19, 1860”.

To be continued. 

 Considerable information about  the Pah-Ute Campaign comes from Carleton’s Pah-Ute Campaign by Dennis G. Casebier, King Press, Norco, California, June 1972 .  Additional information is derived from newspapers and Returns from Military Posts and Returns of the 1st U. S. Dragoons.