The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979 Page: 30
496 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
We amuse ourselves as much and think as little of any danger when we
gather around our camp fire as we would in a city. It is true we load
our arms more carefully and try the range of their bullets often but we
think of that more as a trial of skill than as a preparation for danger.
So one becomes used to think of expeditions only as offering chances
for distraction and it is possible that the idea of personal risk is one of
the last that enters the mind of an officer. I do not know for I have had
little experience but I can conceive how one may learn to place so
much confidence in their [sic] skill with weapons and their means of
defense as to think of an encounter as certain to result in a victory.
I met a "scouting party" a few mornings since. Twenty fine soldiers
and an officer. They came riding into our camp as if they were on a
party of pleasure only their discipline was strict and their arms were
ready for action. Officers of our army need no introduction. We sit
down and talk. Tell and receive the news and part to meet again
perhaps. We met this party again on the day following. They were in
the saddle then with their guide and might be in battle in an hour. We
chatted a few moments, shook hands, and then were off. We have not
seen them again nor have they met us or for that matter heard of us.
Then we came a day or two afterward to "Laredo" and when eight or
ten miles from the city out came the officers hunting for us and inviting
us to their quarters. They brought the ladies of our party oranges and
such little presents as they thought would please them after their sea
voyage and long deprivations-yet we had never met before. There is
something pleasing in this. It is well to know that wherever there are
officers you have friends-the word means very little-but they are
friends as the world goes, polite when you are with them, ready to do
you a favor one day, to forget you possibly the next.
We stayed at Laredo one day. If you will look at the map you will
see Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande about one hundred and ten miles
north of Fort McIntosh.O Tonight we are forty less miles distant from
Duncan, the point to which we were ordered from New York. We
march tomorrow and on the next day. On the third we expect to be
GFort McIntosh was established as Camp Crawford March 3, 1849, at Laredo, and re-
named Fort McIntosh January 7, 1850. Its purpose was to interdict Indian traffic over the
border as one of a series of posts established along the Rio Grande. It was abandoned and
reoccupied twice, 1858-1860, and evacuated in 1861. It was manned by Confederate forces
during the Civil War, reoccupied by Federal troops in 1865, rebuilt completely 1868-1877,
and finally discontinued as a military post in 1946. Robert W. Frazer, Forts of the West:
Military Forts and Presidios and Posts Commonly Called Forts West of the Mississippi
River to 1898 (Norman, 1965), 154. For another account of the party's welcome at McIn-
tosh, see Lane, I Married a Soldier, 27-28.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979, periodical, 1978/1979; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101206/m1/50/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.