In the Mojave Desert, they came across a Mexican man and boy who told them that Indians had ambushed their party and killed all the males. The women were staked to the ground, mutilated and killed, and their horses stolen. Fearlessly, Carson and veteran mountain man Alexis Godey went after the killers. Two days later, they found them, killed and scalped them and returned the horses to the Mexican and boy.
In 1847, “His fame was then at its height, … and I was very anxious to see a man who had achieved such feats of daring among the wild animals of the Rocky Mountains, and still wilder Indians of the plains,” wrote General William Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame.
“I cannot express my surprise at beholding such a small, stoop-shouldered man, with reddish hair, freckled face, soft gray eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage or daring. He spoke but little and answered questions in monosyllables.”
That was Sherman’s first impression of Kit Carson, explorer, mountain man, wilderness guide, Indian agent and Army officer who also terrorized and killed Indians, married two of them, battled the Mexicans then took a beautiful teenage Mexican woman as his third wife.
Kit Carson was admired, feared, revered and hated, but his exploits have been told and retold in movies, novels and history books, though not a word came from his pen. He couldn’t read or write.
Christopher (Kit) Carson was born in Madison County, Ky., on Christmas Eve 1809, the ninth of 14 children. When he was only 9, his father died and he had to go to work as a saddle and harness maker’s apprentice, never receiving a formal education. At 15, he left home and joined a wagon train to Santa Fe, N.M.
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