The next day two of the young men who kidnaped me came to see me at the guard house. Their names were Craig and McGarvey—James McGarvey, now of Galveston. Before they left they promised to be my friends, and faithfully kept their words. They told me that Kuhn had offered to divide with them the reward paid him for my arrest, but they declined the blood-money.
Colonel Herbert also called to see me, and denounced my arrest and volunteered to act as my counsel.
The colonel applied for a writ of habeas corpus, but the district judge refused to grant it.
I asked to see Colonel Baylor, and asked to be tried and hung or shot or released. He said he had evidence enough to hang me, though he would dislike to do it. Still, if I insisted, he would give me a court martial. He recounted very correctly some of the incidents of my journey to Santa Fe.
The next day Baylor sent his adjutant to inform me that he could not grant a court martial.
Before my arrest I had written my brother Emmett, who was employed on the overland stage line west of Mesilla, that there would be fighting between the Texas and United States troops, and suggested that he come in and report to the commanding officer at Fort Fillmore. He came, but received no encouragement at Fillmore, and learning of my arrest and being in danger of rebels at Mesilla, he attempted to make his way toward California. He went in the mail coach with a party of six other young men, all well armed.
At Cook’s canyon, about one hundred miles west of Mesilla, they were attacked by a large body of Apache Indians under Mangas Coloradas, “Bloody Sleeves,” and one of the most desperate frontier fights on record ensued. It appears that our friends had time to gain the top of a little hill and build a stone breastwork about two feet high, inclosing a space about twelve feet square. A freighter, Mr. Deguere, who passed the scene a few days later with his wagons, found and buried the bodies and found everywhere the evidences of a terrible struggle. Under a stone, on the top of the wall, he found a pencil note, dated July 23d, 1861, stating that they had been fighting two days; had killed many Indians; that all were now killed or wounded except two; that they were out of water and would try to escape that night. I have visited the scene of this conflict. A tree, not more than ten inches in diameter, about one hundred yards from the fortification, has many marks of bullets evidently discharged from inside the wall. I give a list of the names of these brave men, the extent of whose daring and suffering can never be known in this strange life of ours. They were: Emmett Mills, Freeman Thomas, Joe Roacher, M. Champion, John Pontel, Bob Avlin and John Wilson. _All were killed._ The Indians who sold their arms and watches in Mexico said that they lost forty warriors in the fight. The newspaper containing this sad account was thrown to me through the window of my prison.