The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 552
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
sympathising, from the lowest class up to the well educated and
aristocratic, while too often the men had no feeling, and treated us
cruelly, worse than beasts-cattle would have been treated and driven
with more consideration and received better food than we did.
It is impossible for pen to describe our sufferings, and no one
could imagine what we endured, especially, when as before stated,
we were half-starved before our surrender.
A little further on, we entered the village of San Felipe, the banks
of the Rio Grande were to our right. The women of San Felipe were
also very charitable, and presented us food. I think the Mexicans
must have sent couriers ahead of us, to give notice of our probable
arrival, not so much for our benefit, but to have supplies on hand for
our guard. If it had not been thus, the women could not have had
eatables ready for us, and often warm, too. Here an incident occurred,
as we entered about the suburbs of San Felipe; a Mexican girl came
out with a tray of eatables; the foremost of our men rushed forward
to get a good share, the girl, in a fright, dropped all on the ground,
and screamed and ran off for her home. No wonder our men, un-
kempt, dirty and unshaved, with haggard faces and sunken eyes,
must certainly have looked like cannibals, and as the girl never
saw such a crowd of forlorn subjects she was frightened. Many of
the women of San Felipe openly reproached Governor Armijo and
our captain of the guard, Salezar as brutes, and even their husbands
manifested their sorrow at our cruel treatment.
In justice to the women and girls of New Mexico, I state, had it
not been for their generous supplies of provisions, we, after such
long marches daily, and the pint of meal, for a days ration, you some-
times [got] only an ear of corn, we would have succumbed and died
from starvation and fatigue; but on our route from New Mexico to
El Paso, it was not our fortune to pass daily through villages to
receive those charitable gifts of the women; often we passed unsettled
portions.
Towards night we reached Algodones where we encamped. That
night was terribly cold. The Mexican guard drove us in two small
rooms and locked the door upon us. There was not room for us to
lie down nor sit down comfortably on the mud floor; it being dark
when we were drove in, and not knowing how large the apartments
might be after being locked up, a scene of misery, half suffocation
and desperation soon ensued which beggars description.
LXXI.
In the rear room there was no window or other opening for a
circulation of the air, except the door which opened in the front room,
and this was blocked up by the mass who had crowded towards it.
In the front room with a single open hole, perhaps eighteen inches552
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/592/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.