Note I'-24 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: THROUGH NEW MEXICO ON THE RIO GRANDE TO EL PASO, FEB. 27TH-MAR. 21ST, 1807.

No mileage for to-day, nor even number of hours on the march; no named point. In fact Pike's itinerary from Santa Fé thus far hardly gives a natural feature—not even the mouth of the Rio Puerco; we have to check it as best we can by a few names of towns now nearly a century old, and not always indicating a present location, together with what we may suppose to have been ordinary days' journeys. Camp of the 13th may be set somewhere within the limits of the present Bosque del Apache Grant, a good ways below Bosquecitos and San Pedro on the E., or San José and San Antonio on the W. A view of the Bosque faces p. 499 of Abert's report. The grant named is a small triangular area whose N. base is the S. border of the Socorro Grant, whose W. side adjoins the E. border of the Armendaris Grant, and whose apex is at or near Mt. Pascal (Cerro San Pascual). Old Fort Conrad was built on the W. side of the river, nearly opposite but a little above Valverde. Valverde was inhabited during the first quarter of this century, but the inhabitants were killed or driven off by the Apaches and Navajos, and it showed nothing but its ruins in 1846, as delineated on the plate of Abert's report, facing p. 506. Writing of 1839, Gregg says, Comm. Pra. II. 1844, p. 71: "We passed the southernmost settlements of New Mexico, and 20 or 30 miles further down the river we came to the ruins of Valverde. This village was founded about 20 years ago, in one of the most fertile valleys of the Rio del Norte. It increased rapidly in population, until it was invaded by the Navajoes, when the inhabitants were obliged to abandon the place after considerable loss, and it has never since been repeopled." This locality, in a narrow, sandy valley, some 15 m. by the road above Fra Cristobal mt., used to be a point of departure in various directions from the Rio Grande, and the name occurs continually in the history of scouts on reconnoissances in this region before our Civil War; it was the general rendezvous of Doniphan's forces, preparatory to his invasion of Mexico and capture of Chihuahua; and it was the scene of a battle, for gallant and meritorious services in which action a particular friend of mine, Allen Latham Anderson, was brevetted major, Feb. 21st, 1862.