American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography

"Extract of the Report of Major Carleton USA in relation to the country bordering the Pecos River in New Mexico at and near a point known as Bosque Redondo. This Country was visited by Major Carleton in the middle of the month of February 1852, and the discriptions [sic] of it appearance at that season of the Year." 8pp, approx. 7 3/4 x 10 in. (creasing at folds, toning, adhesive repair, small losses not affecting text). Document in secretarial hand. Carleton signs ("James Henry Carlelton / Brevet Major U.S. Army") below notation "A copy made for His Excellency J.S. Calhoun / Governor of New Mexico." The original extract was submitted to Colonel E.V. Summer, Commanding 9th Military Department, Albuquerque, NM.

The report opens: "On the 12th I marched in a S.E. course directly across the plains for twenty miles without a road or trail of any description, and without water...." Carleton's report continues in detail with an account of his expedition to the Bosque Redondo and exploration of the surrounding area, focusing on landscape features, climate, and vegetation as well as soil quality, water availability and quality, and the presence (or lack of one) of Native Americans and/or other inhabitants. He is assessing suitability of the region for military purposes, how to reach the area with supplies, and the possibility of laying out a wagon road. In 1862, the U.S. Army would construct Fort Sumner, named after former New Mexico Territory military governor Edwin Vose Sumner, at the center of a million-acre parcel which came to be known as the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation. The fort served as an internment camp for nearby Navajo and Mescalero Apache populations from 1863 to 1868 after they were forcibly removed to the location.

James Henry Carleton was a veteran soldier who served throughout the American West and rose to command the Department of New Mexico during the Civil War. He was born at Lubec, Maine, on December 27, 1814. In 1838, at the age of twenty-five, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Maine militia and later received an appointment as a second lieutenant in the First Dragoons on October 18, 1839. Later assignments would see him venture west. During the 1840s, Carleton served duty assignment at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, served as assistant commissary of subsistence at Fort Leavenworth, accompanied Maj. Clifton Wharton's expedition to the Pawnee Villages in Nebraska, served as an officer on Col. Stephen Watts Kearny's 1845 expedition to South Pass, and saw action in 1847 in the battle of Buena Vista. He was brevetted for gallantry in the Mexican War and thereafter served on surveying and exploring expeditions, and in campaigns against various Indian nations. From 1851 to 1856 he served in New Mexico Territory with the First Dragoons, during which time this expedition and subsequent report was made.