The FReeper Foxhole Profiles "Kit" Carson - Aug. 16th, 2004

www.desertusa.com ^ | Bob Katz

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
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FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

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Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson
(1809 - 1868)

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Kit Carson was born the 9th of 14 children on Christmas Eve, 1809, in Madison County, Kentucky. During his long and illustrious career ranging throughout the Desert Southwest, he was a trapper, guide, military scout, Indian agent, soldier, rancher and authentic legend.

KIT CARSON AND THE INDIANS
Cover design of Frank Starr's American Novels, No. 139

Kit spent most of his boyhood in the Boone's Lick district of Missouri (then part of the Louisiana Territory), which later became Howard County. His father was killed by a falling tree limb when Kit was only 9 years old, and the need to work prevented him from receiving an education. He was apprenticed to a saddle- and harness-maker when he turned 14, but grew restless after a year and left home in 1826 with a wagon train heading west to Santa Fe.

From Santa Fe, Kit went north to Taos where he worked as a cook, errand boy and harness repairer. When he was 19, he was hired for a fur trapping expedition to California, where, in spite of his small stature (he never exceeded 5 and a half feet) he soon proved himself able and courageous. Between 1828 and 1840, Carson used Taos as a base camp for many fur-trapping expeditions throughout the mountains of the West, from California's Sierra Nevadas to the Colorado Rockies.



Like other white trappers, Carson traveled and lived extensively among Indians. His first two wives were Arapaho and Cheyenne, one of whom bore a daughter in 1836 and died shortly thereafter. But unlike other trappers, he gained renown for his honesty, courage and unassuming manner. According to one acquaintance, his "word was as sure as the sun comin' up."

In about 1840, he became employed by William Bent as chief hunter for Bent's Fort in Colorado, where his job was to keep the fort supplied with meat. In 1842, while returning from Missouri, where he took his daughter to be educated in a convent, Carson happened to meet John C. Fremont on a Missouri Riverboat. Fremont hired Carson as guide for his1st expedition to map and describe Western trails to the Pacific Ocean. After returning to Taos from California in 1843, Carson married his third wife, Maria Josefa Jaramillothen.



Over the next few years, Carson's service guiding Fremont across the deserts and mountains of the American West -- documented in Fremont's widely-read reports of his expeditions -- made Kit Carson a national hero.

Carson was still serving as Fremont's guide when Fremont joined California's short-lived Bear-Flag Rebellion, just before the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846. Carson also led the forces of U.S. General Stephen Kearney from Socorro, New Mexico into California, when a Californio band led by Andrés Pico mounted a challenge to American occupation of Los Angeles later that year.



On Dec. 6, 1846, these forces were attacked by Mexicans at San Pasqual, about 30 miles north of San Diego. On the third night of this battle, Carson and two others snuck through enemy lines and ran the entire distance to San Diego, where they brought help for Kearny's pinned-down forces.

Carson spent the next few years carrying dispatches to President James Polk Washington, DC. At the end of the war, he returned to Taos and took up ranching. In 1853, he and his Mexican herders drove 6,500 sheep to Sacramento, fetching high prices because of the California Gold Rush.


Kit Carson (standing) and John C.Fremont

In 1854 he was appointed Indian agent at Taos for two tribes of Utes -- a post he held with distinction until 1861 -- and occasionally served the Army as a scout in clashes with warring Apaches.

When the Civil War broke out, Carson resigned as Indian agent and helped organize the 1st New Mexican Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, which saw action at Valverde in 1862. He was elected a lieutenant colonel and later rose to colonel. It was during his Civil War service when he finally learned to read and write.



Most of Carson's military actions were directed against the Navajo, who had refused to be confined on a distant reservation. In 1863, Carson initiated a brutal economic campaign, marching through Navajo territory destroying crops, orchards and livestock. Other tribes, who for centuries had suffered at the hands of the Navajo, took up arms and joined Carson. After surrendering in 1864, 8,000 Navajo men, women and children were forced to take what came to be called the "Long Walk" of 300 miles from Arizona to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they suffered in confinement until 1868.



In 1865 Carson was given a commission as brigadier general and cited for gallantry and distinguished service. In the summer of 1866, he moved to Colorado to expand his ranching business and took command of Fort Garland. Ill health forced him to resign the following year, and in 1868 the family moved to Boggsville, near present-day La Junta, Colorado. He died in nearby Fort Lyons on May 23, 1868. The following year, his remains were moved to a small cemetery near his old home in Taos.

[SAMWolf]

Naw. All I got was a T-Shirt that said "Nixon sent me to Cambodia and I all got was this lousey T-shirt"

[SAMWolf]

Thanks aomagrat.

[SAMWolf]

See post 121.

[Light Speed]

The DVD version has a different cover I beleive.

Anyhoo..for near authentic..this film rates a 9

Its colorfull..maybe too colorfull as the language goes.

Brian Keith and Charleton Heston spar back and forth with insults and one liners....argue about what band of Indians are about to steal their horses and scalp them.

The movie notes the period of change....when immigrants* Brian Keiths never ending jeer appear in the North West.
The last days of the beaver trade.

In one scene around a fire..Keith tells a story where he is chased into a box canyon by 100 Rhappaho.

Keith is asked how things turned out...his reply.

"What do you think....I [expletive] Died!! : )

Heston struggles with the reality of the failing beaver trade...allong with personal problems..as he has inherited the attention of a native girl who will not leave him.
In one scene..she kicks Heston right in the family jewels..while dozens of drunken trappers look on..along with a mouthy Frenchman who Heston and Keith really dislike.

Theres some great scenery shots in this film....the drama level is as good as the humor.

So ends Light Speeds Movie review : )

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Light Speed.

I know about the movie but never saw it. I'll check and see if Snippy wants it on our "Movies to see" list.

[snippy_about_it]

[snippy_about_it]

We'll have to check the library and see if they have it. Thanks Light Speed.

[snippy_about_it]

:-)

[SAMWolf]

LOL! You are so bad!

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. Ping to 126

[PhilDragoo]

Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson, commanding the First Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, was ordered to lead an expedition against the winter campgrounds of the Comanches and Kiowas, believed to be somewhere on the south side of the Canadian. On November 10 he arrived at Fort Bascom with fourteen officers, 321 enlisted men, and seventy-five Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts and fighters he had recruited from Lucien Maxwell's ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. Two days later the column, supplied with two mountain howitzers under the command of Lt. George H. Pettis, twenty-seven wagons, an ambulance, and forty-five days' rations, marched down the Canadian into the Panhandle of Texas. Carson's destination was Adobe Walls, where he had been employed by Bent nearly twenty years earlier. After a delay caused by snowstorms the column set up camp for the night of November 25 at Mule Springs, in what is now Moore County, thirty miles west of Adobe Walls. Two of Carson's scouts reported the presence of a large group of Indians, who had recently moved into and around Adobe Walls with many horses and cattle. Carson immediately ordered all cavalry units and the two howitzers to move forward, leaving the infantry under Lt. Col. Francisco P. Abreau to follow later with the supply train. After covering fifteen miles Carson halted to await the dawn. No loud talking or fires were permitted, and a late-night frost added to the men's discomfort.

At about 8:30 A.M. Carson's cavalry attacked Dohäsan's Kiowa village of 150 lodges, routing the old chief and most of the other inhabitants, who spread the alarm to several Comanche groups. Pushing on to Adobe Walls, Carson forted up about 10 A.M., using one corner of the ruins for a hospital. One of the several Indian encampments in the vicinity, a Comanche village of 500 lodges, was within a mile of Adobe Walls. The Indians numbered between 3,000 and 7,000, far greater opposition than Carson had anticipated. Sporadic attacks and counterattacks continued during the day, but the Indians were disconcerted by the howitzers, which had been strategically positioned atop a small rise. Dohäsan led many charges, ably assisted by Stumbling Bear and Satanta; indeed, Satanta was said to have sounded bugle calls back to Carson's bugler.

With supplies and ammunition running low by late afternoon, Carson ordered his troops to withdraw to protect his rear and keep the way open to his supply train. Seeing this, the Indians tried to block his retreat by torching the tall bottomland grass near the river, but Carson set his own fires and withdrew to higher ground, where the battery continued to hold off the attacking warriors. At dusk Carson ordered a force to burn the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache lodges, which the soldiers had attacked that morning. The Kiowa-Apache chief, Iron Shirt, was killed when he refused to leave his tepee.

Concerned with protecting the supply wagons and Abreau's infantry column moving up from Mule Springs, Carson decided to retreat. The reunited forces encamped for the night, and on the morning of November 27 Carson ordered a general withdrawal from the area. In all, Carson's troops and Indian scouts lost three killed and twenty-five wounded, three of whom later died. Indian casualties were estimated at 100 to 150. In addition 176 lodges, along with numerous buffalo robes and winter provisions, as well as Dohäsan's army ambulance wagon, had been destroyed. One Comanche scalp was reported taken by a young Mexican volunteer in Carson's expedition, which disbanded after returning to Fort Bascom without further incident.

General Carleton lauded Carson's retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as an outstanding military accomplishment; though the former mountain man was unable to strike a killing blow, he is generally credited with a decisive victory. Carson afterward contended that if Adobe Walls was to be reoccupied, at least 1,000 fully equipped troops would be required. The first eyewitness account of the battle other than Carson's military correspondence was published in 1877 by George Pettis, who had served as the expedition's artillery officer.

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Excerpt from the popular penny dreadful "Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia" by Kit Kerry truthslayer (Indian name "Cries From Invisible Wound"):

Arrows whizzed about me as I lay stealthily in my birchbark swishboat five fathoms full in the hunting grounds of the Cambodahoe--although President Grant said there were no honkie dog soldiers there.

I had just dropped off Joseph C(lymer) Wilson and his wife "Natasha" (not her real name) on a Pmission to Pnom Penh.

I still have the hat they left me:

Is that Kerry and Edwards in that tent?
Hey, not that there's anything wrong with that.

I had the hat.
I didn't see Old Yeller
but may have cried after the Disney television
episode of Davy Crockett's last stand at the Alamo.

USS Hector was 403' long; USS Jupiter was 542' long.

Just in: the sun causes global warming. Still, that doesn't excuse Halliburton getting a no-bid contract to construct a tinted global dome and mammoth refrigeration units.

New on Mekongazon.com:

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[Professional Engineer]

ROFLOL

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo

Indian name "Cries From Invisible Wound"):

LOL!!

but may have cried after the Disney television episode of Davy Crockett's last stand at the Alamo.

I know I did, I felt like I had lost a friend.

I like the idea of Fox News giving a lot of time to the Swifties today. Of course, Juan Williams tried his best to blame all the negaticity on the Republicans.

[PhilDragoo]

Juan has a nickname around our house: "Stupid".

A la the Fox show "Hannity and MUTE".

[SAMWolf]

Juan has a nickname around our house: "Stupid".

LOL! We just call him Bleeding Heart Liberal"