class="l">Grain Room

18 Shoemaker’s & Tailor’s Shop 19 Post Bakery 20 Stove Room 21 Lumber & Coal Room 22 Adjutant’s Office 23 Commanding Officer’s Office 24 Ordnance Store Room 25 Chapel & Lodge Room 26 Telegraph Office 27 Condemned Store Rm. 28 Cavalry Kitchen 29 Cav. Dining Room 30 Carpenter Shop 31 Blacksmith Shop 32 Qm. & Comsy. Off. 33 Subsistence Stores 34 Subsist. Issue Rm. 35 Clothing Room 36 Q.M. Store Room 37 Q.M. Corral 38 Cav. Stables 39 Ice House 40 Ice Pond 41 Parade Ground 42 Acequia 43 Water Boxes 44 Post Trader’s Store

May 7, 1866. Colonel (and Brevet Brigadier General) Kit Carson is our new commander. He commanded a regiment of New Mexico Volunteers during the war and was sent on here with some of his old men. Good thing they sent a man like Colonel Carson to old Garland—those cantankerous Utes have been raising cane around the settlements for several months and seem to be getting worse. About the only reason they haven’t declared war on all of us is that one of their chiefs, called Uray or Ulay,[4] has been keeping them in harness.

June 28, 1866. Started building hospital northeast of parade. Adobes not baked properly—rain all the time. Building won’t stand for many seasons.

July 18, 1866. Our commander is a man to be respected. He’s keeping this Indian Pot from boiling in these parts by his will alone. The Utes are short on rations, some of them starving. They come to the fort and beg food almost every day. Maybe they’re not as hungry as they act, but they are hungry enough to be dangerous. Colonel Carson sends them away with what he can spare and has written to the Indian Agent for rations for the nearby tribes. The guard in the crow’s nest on the flag pole keeps a wary eye on the valley these nights. This fort has never been attacked, but the settlements about have been molested on several occasions.

September 12, 1866. Molly let me know that I’m to be a father come next spring. An old blue coat like myself a father! Good news comes in bunches; I was made Sergeant Major today, with a salary increase to $23. That should keep a family of five!

Sat watching Kit Carson, our commander, this evening. He stood alone on the parade grounds after retreat; the last soft sound of the bugle had died away and the troops had been dismissed. Carson stood looking up at that towering flag staff for about five minutes before he turned away. He looked uncomfortable in his uniform, as he always does. A more unmilitary man I’ve never known—and yet a better commander none of us would ever want. He makes up for his lack of book-learning with his knowledge of everything there is to know of hunting, trapping, Indian fighting and woods lore. He’s a short man, about five feet four, with legs so bowed he looks astride a horse even when he’s walking. Here at Garland, Colonel Carson has kept open house—open to all passersby (Indian and White) and even to soldiers and their wives. The wild tribe of children he brought with him are as untamed as the beasts of the mountains. One thing about it, though, when a dispute arises between Indians and settlers, the first to be called in is our “Kitty,” as the Utes call him. I’ve seen him sitting in the middle of them, laughing and joking in Spanish or Ute tongue, making hand movements for each word he speaks. Maybe it helps him to be understood.

September 23, 1866. We’ve had big doings round here. Lieutenant General W. T. Sherman, Governor (A.) Cumming, a whole patch of Ute chiefs and Kit Carson met to try to work out a treaty. This was to be a preliminary council afore the big one to be held on the banks of the Rio Grande, some thirty miles from here. On one side of the council room squatted the chiefs and on the other side sat Sherman, smoking a long cigar, with Kit on one side of him and the Governor on the other. Carson talked to the chiefs, he being the only one who could speak any language they could all understand. Kit urged the Utes to take to a reservation, as Sherman wanted them to do, but they didn’t like the idea. Chief Uray told Kit he knew he spoke for the Indian’s good, but that they couldn’t live so confined. Sherman gave up, finally, remarking that they’d have to freeze and starve a little bit more afore they’d listen to reason. The next council meeting gained only a little more. Governor Cumming did get the Tabequaches to agree to a treaty which permitted roads to be built through their lands. Chief Uray had signed another treaty in 1864. Uray even took a trip to Washington by stage and train and talked with President Lincoln. They say he came back and told his people that the Indians could never keep the white men out of their lands; that there were too many of them. Mighty smart Indian.

October 10, 1866. Some of the Ute tribes have been on the warpath again. Chief Cuneatch[5] is angry with Uray for dealing with the Whites and has stirred up some of the other chiefs. A few settlers and some Indians have been killed. The post stands as a strong point in the Valley these