Captain Jedediah Strong Smith was one of the most remarkable men who ever traversed the mountains and plains of the West in the pioneer days. He was born in New York near the Seneca Indian Reservation. He was given a good education, but he had as playmates the Seneca Indian boys, and his associations with them bred in him a desire to see pioneer life in the Far West. He was but a boy in the War of 1812, yet he was one of the victorious sailors in Perry's Victory. He continued westward, arriving at St. IJouis. There he entered the service of General Ashley, of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. He soon became the first trapper in the Rocky Mountains. His coolness in danger, his daring, his judgment, his aptness for trade, his comprehension of the fur business in all its bearings, made him a leader. He formed the Company of Smith, Jackson & Sublette to take over the business of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company when General Ashley decided to sell out his business. His company did a heavy business, and Smith amassed a competency. He determined to retire from active life in the mountains, for he had seen them all, to the Pacific Ocean. At an early day he led a party into California to hunt. This party passed a winter in the foothills on a stream east of Sacramento. From that circumstance the stream was called the American River - which name it still bears. Leaving his party there, Smith returned to the Great Salt Lake for assistance. He returned and led his companions home through Oregon, up the Columbia, and south through what is now Idaho. As an American explorer Smith stands in the first rank.

In the spring of 1831, some of the old partners of Smith engaged in the Santa Fe trade. Smith did not wish to do further business on the Plains, but was induced by his former partners to become a member of their venture to Santa Fe. The company was one of the best equipped that ever took a cargo across the Plains. All went well with it until it entered the desert between the Arkansas and the Cimarron. It seemed that the water had disappeared from every stream and spring. It seemed that death for all was certain. Captain Smith was not daunted. He had faced death too often and in too many forms to quail at the terrors of the Cimarron desert. Mounting his buckskin hunting-horse, he followed a buffalo trail across the burning sands for miles. At length he came upon an elevation from which he descried the winding channel of a stream. It was the Cimarron. He hurried to it and rode down into its bed only to find it dry and glistening sand. But Smith was a plainsman. He dug, with his hands, a hole in the bed of the river. Water slowly rose in this rude spring. As he lay prone upon the sand to drink he was attacked by a vagabond band of Comanches. They wounded him with arrows as he drank. He rose and faced the roguish savages. He battled with them, but was overpowered by numbers and slain. He killed several of his savage assailants - just how many is not now certainly known. The Indians said he killed three of their band. If they would admit the loss of three, Smith probably slew twice that number. The death of Smith was soon widely known, and it was regretted from the Mississippi to the lone hunting-camps of the Rocky Mountains. Few men ever impressed themselves upon the times as Captain Smith did on the wilderness of his day.

The Santa Fe trade continued without interruption until the year 1843. The Mexican forts on the American frontier were closed in that year in consequence of military activity along the Santa Fe trail by the armed forces of Texas, whose north line was, for some distance, the Arkansas River. In November, 1842, it was reported in Santa Fe that Texan forces were planning to attack traders passing over the Trail, as then in use, in the coming spring. Giving little heed to that rumor Don Antonio Jose Chavez, of New Mexico, started from Santa Fe to Independence, Missouri, in February, 1843. He took with him five servants. He had two wagons and fifty-five mules. He carried some twelve thousand dollars in gold and silver, and some bales of furs. Severe weather was encountered, the month of March proving unusually cold. The men were frost-bitten, and all the mules save five perished in the storms. By the 10th of April Chavez had come to the waters of the Little Arkansas, a hundred miles or more over the line into American territory. There he was intercepted by a company of fifteen men commanded by one John McDaniel. He had enlisted and organized his band on the frontier of Missouri for the purpose, as he said, of joining a certain Colonel Warfield, then on the Plains claiming to be in the service of the Republic of Texas, and intending to attack the Santa Fe caravans. Chavez was made captive and taken off the trail. He was robbed, and his effects were divided among this banditti, seven of whom immediately set out for Missouri with their portions of the spoil. The others decided to murder Chavez, which they presently did, shooting him, in cold blood. They then packed their loot upon the mules of Chavez and also departed for Western Missouri. But information of what they had done soon came to the Missouri authorities, and several of them were arrested. Some of the most guilty escaped, including three of the actual murderers. But John McDaniel was tried at St. Louis and hanged for his crime.

One Snively, styling himself a Colonel, organized, in North Texas, early in May, 1843, a force of about one hundred and seventy-five men for the purpose of preying on the Mexicans engaged in the Santa Fe trade. Texas and Mexico were then at war, and the purpose of Snively would have been justified had he molested only the Mexicans. He arrived on the Arkansas in May, and was soon joined by Warfield and his company, who had recently lost their horses to the Mexicans by a stampede. Snively came upon a party of Mexicans south of the Arkansas sand hills, and in the skirmish which ensued eighteen Mexicans were killed; and five of the wounded died later. The force of Snively sustained no casualties. The surviving Mexicans fled in the direction of their own country, finding their scalawag Governor, Armijo, encamped with a strong force at Cold Spring. That ferocious sheep-thief waited for nothing, but broke into a mad rout for Santa Fe.

After his encounter with the Mexicans, the force of Snively fell off, seventy-five men leaving for Texas in a body. Soon after this the caravan of traders from Missouri appeared upon the Trail. But they were under escort of Captain P. St. George Cooke, who had a command of two hundred United States Dragoons. Snively was on the south side of the Arkansas about ten miles below the "Caches." Upon the arrival of Captain Cooke Snively crossed the river to meet him, and was informed that he must surrender his arms. This he avoided by a trick, turning over the antiquated and harmless fusils taken from the Mexicans in the recent skirmish.

The action of Captain Cooke demoralized Snively's forces. Many of his men returned directly to Texas. And when Captain Cooke retraced his steps to Fort Leavenworth he carried about forty of the Texans with him as captives. Something like sixty of Snively's force soon elected Warfield as their commander and pursued the caravan of traders, then well on their way beyond the Cimarron. At the Point of Rocks, twenty miles east of the Canadian, they abandoned the pursuit, and went back to Texas. And the interference of the Texans with the Santa Fe trade was at an end. Santa Anna, then President of Mexico, issued a decree on the 7th of August, 1843, closing the port of New Mexico to all commerce. That decree was superseded by the order of March 31, 1844. And ninety wagons carrying goods valued at two hundred thousand dollars, taken out by nearly two hundred men, found their way from Missouri to Santa Fe the following summer.

COL. A. W. DONIPHAN [From Photograph Owned by William E. Connelley]

The most important military expedition to pass over the Santa Fe Trail was Doniphan's Expedition. To Santa Fe it was commanded by General S. W. Kearny, who went on to California. Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan was left in command of the expedition. This whole military movement is known in history as Doniphan's Expedition. It was organized at Fort Leavenworth in the spring of 1846, as a part of the American forces of the Mexican War. The volunteer force was made up on the frontier of Missouri, various counties of that State contributing companies. It was called the First Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers, Mexican War. Alexander W. Doniphan had joined the Clay County Company as a private, but in the selection of officers he was elected Colonel of the Regiment. Congreve Jackson was Lieutenant-Colonel, and William Gilpin was Major.

The regiment marched from Fort Leavenworth on the 26th day of June, 1846. It crossed the Kansas River at the mouth of the Wakarusa. From that point it marched south to the Santa Fe Trail, coming into that historic highway at Black Jack Point. The location known by that name to the Missourians is not the point of the same name where John Brown met and captured the Border-Ruffians. It is the elevation overlooking the valley of Coal Creek, and where the Fort Scott Road crossed the Trail. The town of Brooklyn was laid out there. The regiment followed the Trails and arrived eight miles below Bent's Fort and crossed into Mexican territory on the 29th of July. The final stage of the march to Santa Fe was begun from Bent's Fort on the 2d of August. Santa Fe was entered on the 18th day of August, 1846, and New Mexico was taken without the shedding of a drop of American blood. Colonel Doniphan made a successful campaign against the Navajo Indians and then invaded Mexico from the north. He defeated the Mexicans at Brazito, north of El Paso, which post fell into his hands in consequence. On Sunday, the 28th day of February, 1847, he fought the battle of Sacramento, twelve miles north of Chihuahua. This was not the greatest battle, but it was the most remarkable battle ever fought by Americans. An army of five thousand Mexicans was attacked and destroyed by an army of Missourians, less than a thousand strong. And the Missourians lost but four men killed and eight wounded. Colonel Doniphan took possession of Chihuahua, which he held until ordered to report to General Wood at Saltillo. The expedition returned to Missouri by way of New Orleans.

How possession of New Mexico was secured without a battle has never been told. The story has been withheld by the War Department at Washington. This author learned of the existence there of the valuable documents. Access to them was long denied. But perseverance finally prevailed, and in May, 1910, I was permitted to make copies of those papers the only copies ever made. They tell a thrilling story, and a story of great importance to the history of the country. It is the most important incident connected with the Santa Fe Trail. Because of their value they are set out here:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1 & 2
BIOGRAPHIES — VOLUMES 3, 4, & 5
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z

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