In the month of June the machinery was running smoothly at Arivaca, the
mines were yielding handsomely, and two hundred and fifty employees were
working for good wages, which were paid punctually every Saturday
afternoon.

One day an orderly from Fort Buchanan rode up to headquarters and
handed me a note from Lieutenant Chapin, enclosing a copy of an order
from 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