552 Ex. Doc. No. 41. 



/ 



cumber the expedition of the twenty laundresses. Learning that 

 the most of them wished to go w4th the detachment to the Arkan- 

 ^.sasj I ordered them all to be sent there. With a sufficient number 

 of able-bodied men (husbands of the women) to take care of it, the 

 detachment amounted to eighty-six, and was placed under the com- 

 mand of Captain Brown. 



I urged every preparation for the march, but it was impossible to 

 complete them before the 19th of October; the battalion was 

 paid, with treasury drafts, on the 16th and 17th- There was no salt 

 pork in Santa Fe, and a sufficiency did not arrive until the evening 

 of the 16th. Beef cattle, furnished under a previous contract for 

 the battalion, were received the night of the 17th; and a 

 quantity of pack saddles the same evening. On the 19th of Octo- 

 ber, I marched out of Santa Fe, and encamped at Agua Frio, At 

 the earnest request of two captains and three sergeants, their wives 

 were permitted to accompany the expedition; having their own 

 wagons and mules, and provisions. 



The rations had been issued to the companies, and each had three 

 mule wagons, and one drawn by oxen; (these last were to be sent 

 back on leaving the river.) The rations were sixty days of flour 

 and salt, sugar and coffee; thirty days of pickled pork, and twenty 

 of soap. 



The mules furnished me were mostly poor and worked down; the 

 half of them were utterly unfit to commence an ordinary march. 

 A number, as well as of oxen, were left behind, unable to walk, in 

 the first forty miles: Thus, I was obliged to exchange them two 

 for one, and to purchase many others. For the first 150 miles, on 

 the Rio Grande, there was, at that season, no grass deserving the 

 ■name. I purchased, when I could, corn and fodder, but in very 

 small quantities. I had 380 sheep purchased, near Socorro, and 

 beeves, to make up the sixty days' rations. 



About 75 miles below that point, I became convinced that the 

 inarch must fail, unless some improvement was made. I was march- 

 ing about eight miles a day, in as many hours, through the 

 Aeep sand; the mules overworked, growing poorer, givino- out, dying 

 and left behind each day< 



From the opinions of the guides, there was also reason to appre- 

 liend that the supply of provisions was inadequate; and the 

 ox wagons were then to go Fack. There were twenty-two men on 

 the sick report, who, with the arms and knapsacks of others, en- 

 cumbered the wagons. I called on the assistant surgeon and com- 

 pany commanders for lists of those they believed worthless for 

 the march; fifty-eight names were soon given to me. Captain 

 :Burgwm's camp was 58 miles above. I resolved, then, to send back 

 these fifty-eight men^ with twenty-six days rations, with one ox 

 wagon, and to leave the other two there, to be sent for, retaining 

 the teams^ and to make auother reduction of baggage. Many tents 

 and camp kettles were left in the wagons, and all the up- 

 right poles, for which muskets were used as substitutes. (The 

 backs of the tents were opened, and a piece inserted, so as thus to 



t)ecoine vety large and nearly circular, in which ten men were ac- 



