Forty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1875— March 4, 1877). Thomas M.
Patterson, who served as Delegate in the first session of that Congress, and
was succeeded in the second session by James B. Belford, as Representative
from the State of Colorado.
The administrations of Colorado's several Territorial Governors varied
in character from a high standard of exc-ellence downward to a gradation
that was near the limits of the people's endurance. The emoluments of the
office were not very attractive to men who should have no purpose in view
other than that of pecuniary gain ; but the position was one of honor and
distinction, and, as the incumbent was clothed with rather broad powers, it
afforded many opportunities for promoting the interests and general welfare
of the people. As the reader may recall, the yearly salary of the Governor, as
fixed by the organic act, was $1,500 : but as he was by virtue of his office also
the Indian Agent for the Territory, he received $1,000 additional for his
services in that capacity.
Governor Gilpin was a brilliant, intensely patriotic, but somewhat vision-
ary and erratic man, of most engaging manners, but with tastes, inclinations,
and a life-training that tended to unfit liim for dealing readily with certain
of the political and other conditions he encountered in Colorado. His execu-
tive ability was that of the military commander rather than that which a
highly successful civil administrator must possess. It was in his military
character that he rendered his most effective services; and it would be diffi-
cult to overestimate the importance of these services. His management of
public affairs was not tainted by any form of corraption, but was clean and
vigorous. Yet, with sometliing lilce the "irony of fate," the financial ways
and means he adopted as emergency substitutes for actual sinews of war
caused his official undoing. His administration, even on its civil side, was
pervaded by a military atmosphere, not offensive in its effects, but in wliich
were present the primness, precision, formality and stateliness generally eliar-
acteristic of the methods of the accomplished military officer in tliat period.
Governor Gilpin was born in southeastern Pennsylvania in 1813. After
having attended a private school in England, he entered the University of
Pennsylvania, and after his graduation there received an appointment to
the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was graduated
in 1836. Assigned to the Second Regiment of United States Dragoons, as
a Lieutenant, he served in the Seminole War. At the close of tliat conflict
he resigned from the army and located at St. Louis, but in 1841 removed to
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 373
Indep€ndence, Missouri, on the frontier. He served in the winter of 1841-
42 as Secretary of the lower branch of the Missouri Legislature. His studies
at West Point having included a law course, he prepared to engage in law
practice at Independence, but in 1843 went to the Oregon country with
Fremont, as I have already told, and there participated in an attempt to
organize a Territory in that region, and also took part in the founding of the
city of Portland. Eeturning to Independence in 1844, lie lived there until
the outbreak of the Mexican War, in which he served gallantly as a Major
of the famous First Missouri Cavalry — "Doniphan's Regiment". Some ac-
count of his services as commander of a force of Missouri volunteers which
suppressed Indian depredations along the course of the Santa Fe Trail late
in 1847 and in the fore part of 1848, has been given in a preceding chapter.
After his return from that campaign he resided in Independence until lie was
appointed Governor of Colorado Territory. Governor Gilpin joined his for-
tunes to those of Colorado, and remained an honored and beloved citizen of
Denver until his death.
Governor Evans was of a different type of man, and his place in the
history of Colorado is that of the alilest, the best fitted in all respects,
of our Territorial Governors. His abilities were those of the great captain
in civil life : of the projector, organizer and executor of large undertakings
for the development and utilization of natural resources. He also possessed
a share of the talents that distinguish statesmanship from the views and
objects of the mere politician. He came with the predetermined purpose of
permanently identifying his future with the Territory and its people ; and,
it may be said with truth, that the efforts of no other citizen of Colorado
produced results exceeding in importance those which he accomplished in
later years as a builder of railways. His administration was highly efficient,
its integrity never was questioned, and it gave general satisfaction among the
people. Yet it was influenced, and even swayed at times, by his laudable
ambition, which he appears to have brought with him, to have Colorado
admitted into the Union immediately, and also to represent the new State
in the United States Senate. He had been an active "charter member" of
the Republican Party, was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, and an
ardent supporter of the War for the Union. Governor Evans was a native
(1814) of Ohio. After his graduation at Philadelphia as a Doctor of Medi-
cine, in 1838, he located in northern Illinois as a countrv physician among
the settlers on the Illinois River, but removed to Indiana a few months
later, where he was chiefly instrumental in procuring the enactment of a law
by the Legislature of that State providing for the erection and maintenance
of a State Asylum for insane persons, and of which he became the first
Superintendent. In 1845, he was called to a chair in the Rush Medical
College in Chicago, and which he occupied for eleven years. He participated
largely in the public affairs of Chicago ; served in the City Council, in which
he devoted his attention to the improvement of the public schools; was a
candidate for Congress, but was defeated by the "Know-Nothing" organ-
ization; was one of the founders of the Northwestern University, at
Evanston, and to which he gave large endowments ; and one of the working
Directors of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company dur-
ing the years in which that road was constructed from Fort Wayne to Chi-
cago. A full account of his various activities ere his appointment to be
Governor of Colorado Territorj^ would require the space of several of these
374 HISTOEY OF rOLORAPO
pages, and thus Ccarry me beyond my limitations. The Governor had ac-
quired an ample fortune before his coming to Colorado, in which the last
thirty-five years of his life were passed in eminent usefulness.
"Wliile the duties of the chief executive of the Territory were not easily
to be discharged to the entire satisfaction of every citizen, Governor Cum-
mings succeeded only in making both himself and his administration ex-
tremely obnoxious to the great body of the Colorado people. It has Ijeen
well said, by General Frank Hall, that "of all the executives ever imposed
upon this or any other Territory, Cummings was perhaps the most un-
popular, because wholly unfitted by the peculiar bent of his disposition to
govern a free and radically independent people'' ; and also that he left "no
good deeds behind him worthy of even a paragraph in the annals of that
period". At the time of his appointment, Cummings was a resident of the
city of Philadelphia, and was, as he long had been, a political satellite of
Simon Cameron, to whose preferment and influence he was chiefly indebted
for his nomination and confirmation as the successor of Governor Evans.
He came to the Territory with a besmirched reputation. In the first year of
the Civil War, he was appointed to purchase certain supplies for the Union
Army, and in doing so expended about $160,000. But instead of the
necessities he was instructed to obt<ain, a large part of his purchases were
found, when they were delivered to the troops in the field, to consist of old
and trashy merchandise, which was not only next to being worthless as such,
but in no manner conformed to the requirements and was utterly useless to
the soldiers. These transactions became a public scandal, and were investi-
gated by a Congressional Committee, ^\^^ile the influences which had
obtained this appointment for him prevented his prosecution for the offenses,
the committee's report ended his career as a purchasing agent for the Federal
Government. Upon his arrival in Colorado te assumed the airs and man-
ners of a dictator, and his general demeanor toward the people was an aping
of that of an autocrat in dealing with his subjects. Although arbitrary and
dictatorial, he was a scholarly man and endowed with much ability ; but in-
stead of the kind his new position required, his qualifications were those of
the crafty and scheming order. TJie welfare of the Territory and its people
was, in his estimation, a negligible political quantity, and his achninistra-
tion was characterized by all that was implied by the term "violent Terri-
torial politics". His position enabled him to secure the following of a small
faction, but among the people generally he soon provoked a sentiment of
mingled detestation and contempt tliat endured in robust form as long as he
remained in the Territory, and which lingered for years after his departure.
At the time he came, the Statehood movement of 1865 had passed the con-
vention stages, and party candidates for the offices of the anticipated State
form of government had been nominated. Cummings at once began con-
spiring to defeat the movement. His alleged cardinal reason for opposing
it was an affected hostility to the constitution that had been framed for the
proposed State because it denied sufl'rage to negroes. But tliis was merely a
pretext. As the programme contemplated Colorado's admission into the
Union early in the impending session of Congress, that event would cut
short his tenure of office as Territorial Governor. Thei-e were some sound
reasons for deferring Colorado's admission, but Cummings cared nothing
for tliem ; and although the movement met defeat, this was not the result
of his influence. After eighteen months of stormy experience, during which
HISTORY OF COLOEADO 375
time several petitions for his removal had gone to the President, Cummings,
much to the satisfaction of the people, resigned his office, terminated his
presence in Colorado and went hack to Philadelphia. His political friends in
that State presently obtained for him the position of Collector of Internal
Eevenue for the Pourth District of Pennsylvania.
While Governor Hnnt had participated with Cummings in opposing the
Statehood movement of 1865, he retained the respect and confidence of the
great majority of his fellow-citizens. His direction of the Territorj-'s affairs,
BO far as they were iinder his personal control, was honest and effective, and
generally satisfactory to the people. But doubtless his administration
would have been still more efficient had all his associates and advisors been as
well-meaning as he. As this was not so, he was hampered more or less by
the evils of Territorial polities. Much of his time and attention was given
to Indian affairs, especially to those of the Ute Indians, with whom lie was
engaged in promoting friendly relations with the white men at the time of
his sudden and undeserved removal by President Grant. Hunt's abilities
were those of the man of business rather than of the politician. He was a
native (1829) of New York State, and came to Colorado in June, 1859,
locating in Auraria City, where he was at once recognized as a man of force.
Late in that year he was elected Vice President of the Auj-aria Town Com-
pany; and in June, 1862, became United States Marshal for the Territory,
succeeding Copeland Townsend, who had been removed. Hunt also had
served as Territorial Treasurer, in the year before his appointment to the
Governorship. After his retirement from that office he engaged in the con-
struction of railways in the Territory, and in later years in Mexico, when
he severed his identification with Colorado and established his residence in
Laredo, Texas.
Although the personality of Governor JlcCook was far unlike that of
Cummings, his administration was almost as complete a failure as that of
the Philadelphian. McCook, educated for the legal profession, had been a
Colorado pioneer in 1859, and here had engaged in such practice of law as
then was in vogue in the Pike's Peak country. At the election held in the
alleged Arapahoe County, of Kansas Territory, on November 6, 1860, and at
which only a small number of votes were cast, he was elected Eepresentative
of that uncertain political division in the Kansas Legislative iVsserably.
Notwithstanding that that county had been abolished by Kansas law about
a year before, JlcCook was recognized and admitted as its Eepresentative,
and served as a member of the Assembly in the winter of 1860-61. Upon the
outbreak of the Civil War, he received a commission as Second Lieutenant
in the Eegular Army; and by gallant and other meritorious services, some
of wliich were rendered under General Grant, attained the rank of Brevet
Major-General before the conflict was ended. Shortly after the close of the
war, he was appointed American Minister to the Hawaiian Islands, with
residence at Honolulu. Resigning that position in the autumn of 1868, he
located in Washington City, there to await the upturning of something else
in the way of office-holding. In the spring of the next year, he applied to his
old commander-in-chief, who was now President, for a billet. President
Grant, who was always willing and ready. whene\'er it was possible, to pro-
vide for a comrade-in-arms, promptly acted upon the proposition that the
holding chief executive of Colorado be turned out off-hand and that General
McCook be piit in his place. The General's brilliant record as a soldier had
376 HISTOEY OF COLORADO
proved that he possessed ability, but as Governor of Colorado he made no
good use of that endowment for the welfare of the Territory. During the
first eighteen months of his administration, it drifted along loosely and in-
efficiently, niarked by nothing of importance to its credit nor by anything
that was rankly discreditable. But soon thereafter, ugly rumors that shame-
ful frauds were being jDerpetrated upon the Federal Government and the
Ute Indians, \mder the Governor's sujierintendency of Indian affairs in the
Territory, reached the ears of the people. These rumors presently took
more definite form, and responsibility for the peculations was laid at the
Governors door. An investigation followed, but it was conducted in such a
manner as to give rise to a general belief in Colorado that influences from
high quarters at Washington had interfered to prevent disclosures that would
directly implicate the Governor. Unconvinced of the latter"s innocence, the
people of Colorado, of whom but few had had at any time a good opinion of
McCook's administration, demanded his removal with such vigor and persist-
ence that at length the President wa? compelled to yield to these expressions
of public sentiment and appoint a new Governor for the Territory. McCook
returned to Wa.?hington City and resumed his residence there. It was said
in Denver that before his departure he declared he would come again and
reoccupy the office from which he had been displaced.
Governor Elbert, who had. since Ms coming to Colorado as Secretary of
the Territor}-, married a daughter of Governor Evans, entered upon his
duties, on April 17, 1873, with a determination to give the people a worthy
administration devoted to their interests. Notwithstanding that he was
beset almost immediately by some political harpies in the Territory and
by others in Washington, and although his management of affairs was em-
barrassed and in the next year terminated by their machinations, he suc-
ceeded in doing so throughout the fourteen months of his incumbency. He
was among those who early foresaw the results that would accrue in the arid
parts of the West from the construction of great systems of reservoirs and
canals for the purposes of irrigation, and had resolved to attempt organized
cooperation in the western States and Territories to obtain legislation from
Congress in aid of his grand proposition, which was a forerunner of the
present Federal Eeclamation Service. In the summer of 1873, he proposed
and called a convention of delegates from States and Territories containing
arid lands to meet at Denver on October 15th, of that year, to consider and
act upon his project. The convention, which met at the appointed time,
heartilj' indorsed the Governor's conception, and adjourned with the under-
standing that another convention should be held in the next year. Elbert
had these plans well advanced at the time he was arbitrarily removed from
oflBce. Governor Elbert was bom (1833) in Ohio, but had removed witli his
parents to Iowa in 1810. After his admission to the bar, in 1856, he located
at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, where he became somewhat prominent in the
political affairs of that Territor}-, and where he was residing when appointed
Secretary of Colorado Territon-, in which he lived all the rest of his days.
He was one of the three Justices elected to constitute our State's first
Supreme Court, his term being for six yeai-s, during the last half of which he
was the Chief Justice. In 1885, he was reelected a Justice of that court, but
resigned in 1888 to give required attention to his private affairs.
Soon after his return to Washington, General McCook won the favor
of several men who stood close to President Grant, among whom was General
0. E. Babcock, the President's Private Secretar}', who is now remembered
HISTORY OF COLORADO 377
mainly because of his entanglements in the enormous frauds worked upon
the Federal Government by the notorious "St. Louis Whiskey Ring".
Through these influences, President Grant was persuaded to send McCook
back to Colorado to govern the Territory ; and on January 27, 1874, laid the
unheralded nomination before the Senate. This was opposed by many
Senators, and proofs of frauds and peculations during McCook's first term,
and of which it was said that the Governor must have had knowledge, were
produced while the nomination was "hung up" in the Senate. But party
and other pressure finally prevailed, after nearly six months of suspense, and
McCook was confirmed on June 19th, by a majority of one vote. That such
a man as Elbert should be displaced to make way for another term of Mc-
Cook, was one of the various unsavory proceedings that took place during the
administrations of President Grant. However, the Colorado opposition to
McCook did not cease with his confirmation and his resumption of authority
in the Territory. His reappointment became a party issue, and at the
autumn elections the Republicans split their vote and thus enabled the
Democrats to carry Colorado, for the first time. This rebuke had at Wash-
ington the effect intended. The President cast about for a successor to
McCook, whose "resignation" he accepted, and in March nominated Jolin
L. Routt, of Illinois, a choice which the Senate confirmed promptly.
Governor Routt had the advantages that arose from the circumstance
that his service as Territorial Governor was rendered in the period, when, by
almost unanimous consent, renewed preparations for attaining Statehood for
Colorado were put under way, and in which the successful consummation was
reached. He was a strong man, who served well, and fully merited the honor
and distinction which the Colorado people conferred upon him by electing
him to be the first Governor of the State. Routt was a Kentuckian by birth
(1826), but had removed to Illinois at his maturity. He served as a Captain
of Illinois Volunteers in the Civil War, and shortly after the war as United
States Marshal for the Southern District of that State. In 1871, he became
Second Assistant Postmaster-General, which position he was holding when
appointed Governor of Colorado Territory. In agreement with the inten-
tions he had in mind when he came, Routt identified himself with our people,
became a citizen in the full meaning of that word, and so remained until his
death. He was one of those who acquired large fortunes from the mines of
Leadville.
CHAPTEE XVIII.
COLORADO IN THE CIVIL "WAR. — POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDITIONS IN
THE TERRITORY IN 1861. — GOVERNOR GILPIN'S PREPARATIONS FOR EN-
LISTING VOLUNTEERS. — ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERATE PARTLSANS TO FORM
A M1LIT.ART FORCE. — ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST REGIMENT OF COLO-
RADO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY. — TWO ADDITIONAL COMPANIES FORMED. —
LOYALTY OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. THE GOVERNOR'S FINANCIAL
EXPEDIENT. DENVER HOME GUARDS. — CONFEDERATE INVASION OF NEW
MEXICO. — GREAT POLITICAL PURPOSES OF THE CAMPAIGN. — POLITICAL
SENTIMENT IN NEW MEXICO. COLORADO VOLUNTEERS SENT INTO THAT
TERRITORY. ADVANCE OF GENERAL SIBLEY'S CONFEDERATE ARMY UP
THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY. — HIS VICTORY AT VALVERDE AND TRIUMPHANT
MOVEMENT TO SANTA FE. — MARCH OF COLORADO'S FIRST REGIMENT TO
THE RESCUE. — BATTLE OF LA GLORIETA PASS. — CRUSHING DEFEAT OF THE
CONFEDERATES. GREAT SERVICE OF THE COLORADO VOLUNTEERS IN A
GREAT EMERGENCY. THEIR HEAVY LOSSES IN THE CAMPAIGN. GOV-
ERNOR Gilpin's "drafts" and his removal from office. — conver-
sion OF THE FIRST COLORADO INFANTRY INTO TPIE FIRST REGIMENT OF
COLORADO VOLUNTEER CAVALRY. — ITS SUBSEQUENT SERVICES. — ORGANI-
ZATION OF THE SECOND AND THIRD REGIMENTS OF COLORADO VOLUN-
TEERS AND M'LAIN'S battery. — THEIR SERVICES IN KANSAS, MISSOURI
AND THE INDIAN TERRITORY. — CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECOND AND
THIRD REGIMENTS AND THEIR REORGANIZATION AS THE SECOND REGI-
MENT OF COLORADO VOLUNTEER CAVALRY. — GALLANTRY OF COLORADO
TROOPS IN THE DEFEAT OF GENERAL PRICE'S INVASION OF MISSOURI.
LATER SERVICES OF THE SECOND COLORADO CAVALRY AND M'LAIN's BAT-
TERY. — RAID OF A TEXAN BAND OF GUERRILLAS INTO COLORADO. — RATIO
OF COLORADO VOLUNTEERS IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. THEIR EXCEL-
LENCE AS SOLDIERS.
In the summer of 1861, when Governor William Gilpin was preparing
to pnt into operation the political machinery of the new Territory of Colo-
rado, nearly one-third of the Territory's people were, as indicated by cir-
cnmstances that have been cited in the preceding chapter, in sympathy
with the Cause of Secession; and the number of these had been even
greater in the spring of that year. As the reader of this volume has seen,
the first company of Colorado's Argonauts, and which also was the first to
give effective support to the old tales that told of the existence of gold
in the Pike's Peak countrj', was organized and led hither in 1858 by
former residents of the State of Georgia. In the multitudes that swarmed
to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in 1859 and '60 there were many
men from slaveholding States ; and among our pioneers of the primitive years
there were no better citizens, considered as a body, than those who had come
from such States. They did their full part in establishing and maintaining
forms of local government that were required by the extraordinary exigencies
of those years, and under which order was preserved, the common welfare
promoted, and the personal rights of the members of the pioneer commun-
ities were defined and protected.
At the time of Governor Gilpin's arrival in the Territory the people
of Colorado had no military organization. Two small companies of .
militia — the "Jeflierson Rangers" and the "Denver Guards" — had been
378
HISTOEY OF COLORADO 37r»
formed in Denver City in 1860, in accordance with an enactment by the
Legislative Assembly of JefEerson Territory, but had been disbanded at
the end of the following winter. The only Federal soldiers stationed
within the bounds of Colorado in the summer of 1861 were those who
formed the slender garrisons of Fort Garland, in the San Luis Valley,
and Fort Wise, on the Arkansas River, in a locality near the eastern line
of our present Bent County. As I have stated in an earlier chapter. Fort
Wise had been the last "Fort Bent", of the fur-trading period, and which,
after its purchase by the Federal Government in 1859, was renamed in
honor of Henry A. Wise, the Governor of Virginia at that time. In the
autumn of 1861, the post's name was changed to "Fort Lyon", in memory
of the Union General Nathaniel Lyon, who had been killed in the Battle
of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, on August 10th, of that year.