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.
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