VENUS – THE OUTLINED CROSS:

Mayan glyph for Venus, Patterson, A Field Guide To Rock

Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest  1997, p. 76.

The symbol of the outlined cross is commonly identified as a representation of Venus. In mesoamerica it symbolized Quetzalcoatl in his aspect of the morning star and indeed the Mayan glyph for the planet Venus includes an outlined cross (Patterson 1996:76). In light of known connections between the American southwest and mesoamerica we might well suspect that the influence of this symbol was shared between prehistoric peoples of both regions.

Winter solstice sunset, Goodman Canyon.

From Bostwick, Landscapes of the Spirits, 2002.

A study of Hohokam rock art in South Mountain Park at Tucson, Arizona, has recorded some

fascinating connections of rock art and mythology of those people in this area. Archaeologist

Todd Bostwick wrote about this in Landscape of the Spirits, Hohokam Rock Art at South

Mountain Park, photographs by Peter Krocek, University of Arizona Press, Tucson (2002).

Bostwick recorded a number of solstice sunrise and sunset alignments from locations that also were marked by rock art. From one location that they named the Morning Star site they photographed a summer solstice sunrise from a boulder upon which a petroglyph of a snake is crawling upward. In another location that they dubbed the Gila Vista site they photographed a winter solstice sunset. Remarkably, the viewing point at this site is a pointed boulder with a petroglyph of a thick-bodied lizard, possibly a horned toad, facing downward pecked on the face of it. There was one example however of a Winter solstice sunset photographed behind a boulder with an outlined cross inscribed on it. Sited in a location in Goodman Canyon, it leads one to speculate that what was being recorded by this alignment might have not been the sunset, but the setting of Venus as the morning or evening star.

 Johnson Canyon, Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, CO. Southwestern

Lore, Vol. 59, No.2, Summer 1993, p.  23.

Another example is seen in the photo taken by the author in Johnson Canyon, on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in southwest Colorado. In this instance the outlined cross of Venus accompanies a concentric circle sun symbol and a pair of anthropomorphs (Faris 1993: 23).

References:

Bostwick, Todd W.
2002   Landscape of the Spirits, Hohokam Rock Art at South Mountain Park, photographs

            by Peter Krocek, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Faris, Peter

1993    A Meteorological Model for the Concentric Circle Sun Symbol of the American Southwest, pages 23 – 27, Southwestern Lore, Vol. 59, No.2.

Patterson, Alex

1992    A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder

THE 1868 CAMPAIGN OF THE 5TH CAVALRY - A HISTORIC INSCRIPTION:

J. O’HARE, CO II, 5^TH CAV. – A HISTORICAL INSCRIPTION:

J. O'Hare, Co.II, 5th Cav., a historic inscription

in Baca County, CO. Photo: Peter Faris, 1982.

In Baca County, southeastern Colorado, on a private ranch, this historic petroglyph was recorded in 1995. It is deeply inscribed in a rock shelter in a tributary of Soldier Canyon and says “J. O’Hare, Co II, 5^th Cav.” The name of Soldier Canyon commemorates an event from the Indian Wars still related by local residents who tell of an Army column that got caught in a blizzard in those canyons and that many animals and a number of soldiers froze to death. It provides an intriguingly personal touch in an environment that still feels isolated, because of its distance from modern civilization, and perhaps because the many ruined homesteads in the vicinity give one a feeling of the fragility of civilization. Attempts to establish the identity of J. O’Hare have so far proved unsuccessful but much of the background of this story can be determined.

5th Cavalry, Nat. Anthropological Archives.

  

In 1868, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was hired by the U. S. Army as the Chief Scout for the 5^th Cavalry stationed at that time at Fort Lyon. The 5^th Cavalry had been designated as the northern prong of the great 3-pronged winter campaign against the tribes of the southern Great Plains.

Old Fort Lyon, Colorado. Colorado State

Historical Society.

H. Allen Anderson described the events of December 1868 on the website of the Texas State Historical Society as follows: On December 2, 1868 (Major Eugene) Carr led seven troops of the Fifth Cavalry and one company of the Third Infantry out of Fort Lyon, Colorado. His orders were to join Bvt. Brig. Gen. William H. Penrose, who had left Fort Lyon on November 10 with five troops of cavalry, and set up a supply base on or near the North Canadian (Beaver) River from which they could scour the area to the southeast. The column, which included 100 pack mules and 130 wagons, fared well for three days but then ran into a severe blizzard. - it was not until December 23, after much agony, that Carr finally reached Penrose’s beleaguered camp, with its supplies greatly depleted, on Paloduro Creek in present Texas County, Oklahoma. Pushing on south into the Texas Panhandle, Carr sent out scouting parties and on December 28 established a base on the main Canadian, probably in what is now Roberts County, about twenty miles west of the supply camp set up by Maj. Andrew W. Evans’s Canadian River expedition. What was more, forty of Carr’s teamsters quit and forfeited their pay rather than endure the icy weather any longer.

Camping in the Snow, p.220, The Life of Hon.

William F. Cody Known as Buffalo Bill,

autobiography, 1978, Univ. of Neb. Press

Other sources list a higher number of casualties from the blizzard. “Carr was also having his troubles. He left Fort Lyon on December 2 in clear but cold weather. Three days later, however, a howling blizzard struck the column, froze four men to death, and caused the loss of more than two hundred head of cattle that were to supply fresh meat for both Carr and Penrose. Carr fought his way slowly through the mountainous drifts, worrying increasingly about the fate of Penrose and the possibility of not being able to locate him in such weather.”

The 5^th finally found Penrose’ column and, after resupplying them, they scouted around the area for hostile Indians with no success. Considering the fact that Carr’s and Penrose’s columns never saw a hostile Indian was a plan that led to such loss of life justifiable? Carr and Penrose had accomplished their mission, although they had not seen a single Indian as the position of their forces had prevented the Cheyennes from moving north or west and kept them firmly in the path of the principal striking force. There was now nothing for them (Carr and Penrose) to do but retrace a cold and weary path back to Ft. Lyon, which they reached on February 19.

Carr and the 5^th Cavalry went on to deliver the final blow to the free Cheyenne on the Northern Plains with their July 11, 1869, defeat of the Dog Soldier band at Summit Springs, Colorado, in which their chief Tall Bull was killed.

Apparently, while confined by the storm in Soldier Canyon, in what was to become Baca County, Colorado, J. O’Hare passed some of his time inscribing this record of his presence in the sandstone of the cliff. Then, in February 2010, I received a communication from Pamela Owens who located enlistment records on www.ancestry.com for a John O’Hare who enlisted in the U.S. Army in August 1864 in Detroit, Michigan, and served in the 5^th US Cavalry, Company I. Born in Detroit, O’Hare enlisted at the age of twenty. The records located by Owens further show that he survived the blizzard because he was discharged from the army at Camp Grant, Arizona Territory in August 1872 at the end of his service contract.  He could not be identified on the 1870 or 1880 federal censuses. Mr. O’Hare may well have living descendants who have no idea of this record and I hope that somehow one of them runs across this story.

REFERENCE:

Anderson, H. Allen

2001,  http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/fcadd.html, Texas State Historical Association.

A HISTORIC INSCRIPTION - James Ragen, Co. H, 2nd CO. CAV, Apr.20, ‘65:

James Ragen inscription, Bent's New Fort, CO.

Photo - Bill McGlone.

This inscription is carved on the cliff along the Arkansas River near the site of Bent’s New Fort, located a few miles downriver from Bent’s Old Fort. In the late 1840s Indian troubles caused a decline in trade, which made Bent’s business unsustainable. Wm. Bent attempted to sell it to the army but they would not meet his price so in 1849 he blew the fort up. In 1853 Bent built a new stone fort to the east of the old fort in what is now Prowers County, Colorado. In 1860, Fort Wise was established by the US Army one mile west of the site of Bent’s New Fort and in 1861 its name was changed to Fort Lyon. William Bent left his new stone fort and rented it to the army as a storage depot. He retired to a farm at Boggsville, along the Purgatory River. Unfortunately Fort Lyon had been built too near the river and in early 1865 a spring ice dam on the Arkansas River backed the river up and flooded the buildings. The fort was moved to a new site near Las Animas in Bent County, Colorado in 1865.

Old Fort Lyon, fr. Hyde, The Life of Geo. Bent, 1968.

The Second Colorado Cavalry was organized in October 1863, in St. Louis, MO, by consolidation of the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments. James Ragen enlisted with the rank of Private and was assigned to Company H. Companies F, G, H, and K, were on duty in Colorado at Fort Lyon and other points until November 1863. “Company K stayed at Fort Lyon till the month of November; then Companies F, G, and H of the Third Regiment, in obedience to general order, concentrated with Company K of the Second at Fort Lyon and received orders to march for the States. Accordingly, on the twentieth day of November, 1863, with Major Pritchard in command, we started at noon and made about twelve miles.” While Company K of the Second Colorado was crossing the Plains the rest of the regiment, including Company H which was already on duty in Arkansas, received orders to march to Kansas City preparatory to consolidation. Another trooper in Company H of the Second Colorado Cavalry was John Johnson, otherwise known as “liver-eating” Johnson, the notable mountain man and the model for the character of Jeremiah Johnson in the movie of the same name.

Lt. Col. Theodore Dodd (L.) and Col. James H. Ford (R.),

photo archived at Carlisle Barracks.

“The first and only colonel of the regiment was James H. Ford, Theodore Dodd was the lieutenant colonel. At the time of the consolidation Company A of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry (Dodd’s former company) became Company B of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry. Company B of the 2nd Colorado Infantry (originally Ford’s Independent Company) became Company A of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry.” In January, 1864, the 2nd Colorado Cavalry was ordered into the Missouri border counties to fight against Confederate “bushwhackers” and in October, 1864, was part of the Union force raised to repel the Missouri invasion of Confederate General Sterling Price. When he withdrew, the 2nd Colorado Cavalry joined the pursuit, meeting his forces for the last time near Fayetteville, Arkansas, in November 1864.

In December 1864 they were moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Colonel Ford, with the Brevet rank of Brigadier General, commanded the military district of the Upper Arkansas. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry was largely devoted to escorting supply and wagon trains, and occasionally skirmishing with Indians. At Fort Riley, Kansas, there were eight companies of the 2nd Colorado, accompanied by one section of the 9th Wisconsin Artillery. Two companies of the 2nd Colorado were also stationed at Fort Larned with one company of the 12th Kansas Cavalry, one company of the 11th Kansas Cavalry, and one section of the 9th Wisconsin Artillery. On December 31, 1864, Col. Ford had 24 officers and 803 men present, able for duty, and in the saddle. Of course, there were many not in the saddle.

The last troops of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry were mustered out in September 1865 leaving this inscription as a tangible record of the events. It reminds us of the history of the area, and gives us a peek into the complicated stories of the early years of American settlement of the West.