University of Virginia Library

American Military Period

Active investigation of the western terrain in New Mexico commenced
with the American invasion in 1846. Colonel Doniphan was
empowered to deal with the Navajos, and he sent parties under Captain
Reid and Major Gilpin to treat with the Indians in the Tunicha
(Chuska) area. Major Gilpin, in the fall of 1846[10] must have crossed
the lower Chaco while going south from the San Juan to the Tunicha
Mountains, but no mention is made either of the Chaco or of ruins.

In August of 1849, Lieut. Col. John M. Washington (governor of
New Mexico) led troops in a military reconnaissance from Santa Fe,
across the Continental Divide, down the Chaco, and on through the
Navajo country. Lieut. James H. Simpson (later a general), who was
a topographic engineer, and artist Richard H. Kern (brother of E. W.
Kern, also an artist with the expedition), from the 26th to the 29th of
August took notes and made sketches of the various ruins encountered.
This material was incorporated in a publication[11] in 1852 which contained
the first use of the word "Chaco," and described and gave names
or numbers to all of the principal ruins in the immediate Chaco Canyon
area with the exception of Pueblo Alto, which seemingly was overlooked.
This journal also presented the first general archaeologic map
of the Chaco Canyon. All of Simpson's ruin names have been retained,
with an occasional modification in spelling.

The various parties of the 1850's which explored for feasible wagon
and railroad routes across New Mexico and Colorado never approached
the Chaco area.[12] Captain L. Sitgreaves, in 1851, followed the old
Laguna-Zuñi road to attain the headwaters of the Little Colorado.
Lieutenant Whipple's party, of 1853-1854, that explored a route near
the thirty-fifth parallel, got no closer than Campbell's Pass and Fort
Defiance. Captain J. N. Macomb and naturalist Newberry, in 1859,
followed the Old Spanish Trail northwestward from Abiquiu across the
Navajo and Blanco tributaries of the San Juan, and returned by Canyon
Largo and Jemez. Apparently, however, in 1858, several members
of Company E, RMR, left their record on the walls of Chaco Canyon.[13]
This was Company E of the Mounted Riflemen which campaigned
against the Navajos in October and November of 1858 (under Captain

Thomas Duncan), and later became Company F of the 3rd. United
States Cavalry.

At some time between 1850 and 1857 the Abbé Em. Domenech
traversed northwestern New Mexico. Since Domenech gives an account
of the Chaco ruins, Bloom believes that the Abbé probably traversed the
Chaco Canyon; however, as Bancroft points out, the Domenech account
is merely a badly garbled version of Simpson. Furthermore, no one
who had actually been in the Chaco would have made the geographic
blunders committed by the good Abbé.[14]

In the following decade the military energies of the United States
were directed mainly toward waging the Civil War. However, Colonel
Kit Carson (later brevet brigadier general) was commissioned to round
up the Navajos and transfer them to Bosque Redondo—which he did in
1863-64. There is no record of any operations in the Chaco Canyon
during this campaign.[15]