m the commanding officer of the Military Department:--

Santa Fe, June, 1861,
Commanding Officer, Fort Buchanan:--

On receipt of this you will abandon and destroy
your Post; burn your Commissary and Quartermasters'
stores, and everything between the Colorado
and Rio Grande that will feed an army.

March out with your guns loaded, and do not
permit any citizen within fifteen miles of your lines.

(Signed) Major General Lynde

A council of the principal employees was called, and the order laid
before them. The wisest said we could not hold the country after the
troops abandoned it,--that the Apaches would come down upon us by the
hundred, and the Mexicans would cut our throats. It was concluded to
reduce the ore we had mined, which was yielding about a thousand dollars
a day, pay off the hands, and prepare for the worst.

About a week afterwards the Apaches came down by stealth, and carried
off out of the corral one hundred and forty-six horses and mules.

The Apaches are very adroit in stealing stock, and no doubt inherit the
skill of many generations in theft. The corrals are generally built of
adobe, with a gate or bars at the entrance. It was a customary practice
for the Apaches to saw an entrance through an adobe wall with their
horsehair ropes (cabrestas).

The corral at Arivaca was constructed of adobes, with a layer of cactus
poles (ocquitillo) lengthwise between each layer of adobes. The Apaches
tried their rope saw, but the cactus parted the rope. The bars were up,
and a log chain wound around each bar and locked to the post; but they
removed the bars quietly by wrapping their scrapes around the chain, to
prevent the noise alarming the watchman. The steam engine was running
day and night, and the watchman had orders to go the rounds of the place
every hour during the night; but the Apaches were so skillful and
secretive in their movements that not the least intimation of their
presence on the place was observed,--not even by the watchdogs, which
generally have a keen scent for Indians.

At the break of day the Apaches gave a whoop, and disappeared with the
entire herd before the astonished gaze of five watchmen, who were
sleeping under a porch within thirty yards. A pursuit was organized as
soon as possible; but the pursuers soon ran into an ambuscade prepared
by the retreating Apaches, when three were killed and two wounded. The
rest returned without r