In some ways, the path of the public narrative assigned to Christopher Carson’s life illustrates how simple truth can be shaded according to a “story tellers” viewpoint or motive. He was, by most worldly standards, uneducated. He spoke at least five languages with ease and simple clarity but didn’t write in any of them. In mid-lif,e he did learn to sign his name with a plain “C. Carson” to be applied to dictated letters and government documents. In real life, he was direct and plain-spoken and modest almost to a fault.

Meeting him for the first time, many who knew of his almost beyond-human exploits (both real and fictional) were taken back by his soft-spoken manner among strangers as well as his mere 5’6″ height. The “Christian” name given him at birth is seldom remembered and for the most part, he is known by the nickname hung on him by the rugged breed he became a part of when in his teens – Kit.

Over more a century and a half, his “mass media” image has flowed from one of an early comparison to Hercules to a more modern politically inspired one of a darker, violent, even racist archvillain. He was, of course, a much more complicated and simple man – as most of us humans are.

Carson had almost instantly become a “dime novel” hero when John C. Fremont published the account of his first expedition. The “Pathfinder” had high praise for his scout and guide even though it still probably fell short of the full credit he was due for the expedition’s success. Fremont never failed to credit himself at least as much as he deserved.

In the passing years, Kit was the subject of novels, biographies (both reasonably good and others reaching levels of fantasy), movies, and television series. Sometime past the mid-20th century, the Howard Zinn-inspired need to rewrite American history with a deeper concern for creating American shame than grasping our founding nature saw Carson more as a dark avenger with a wide violent streak. In this new role, he killed Indians with a remorseless pleasure. His role in the defeat of the Navajo and their removal from the protection of Canyon de Chelly was presented as just another example of willful genocide that he was more than happy to be a part of. It all fit tightly into a narrative designed to leave a lasting impression of the United States as, according to a recent New York Times writer, “persistently inhumane.”

Kit might have even fed some of this himself with his no-nonsense direct approach to anything that he was a part of. In his “autobiography,” Carson’s description of an event or battle which took others pages if not a whole chapter to cover would be concluded after a few sentences or a paragraph at best. Blunt entries such as “three Indians killed, all horses recovered” or “the prettiest fight I ever saw” could be cited as pure callousness by some. When the old scout was through dictating, there was barely enough to call it a book, and the manuscript was left untouched till 1904.

Carson was brought back into the public awareness with the 2006 publication of Blood and Thunder, the Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by the fine writer Hampton Sides, a book centered on the campaign against the Navajo. But even Sides had to spend the politically correct appropriate amount of time on what some wanted presented as Carson’s darker side. Sides does give Carson his due for courage and resourcefulness and does a good job of drawing a picture of the Diné for the readers as well.

Many observers in this “new age” have little real “feel” for the times they evaluate from the safe, warm distance measured in centuries or decades and a social setting where a click of a button can all but remove you from the unpleasantness of the surrounding world. The road to this safer, more comfortable world was paved during times and in places where survival was contested by both nature and man. In fact, these same observers often forget that there are still corners of today’s world where that is still true.

Over the years, there has been serious research digging up old-time interviews as well as reviewing stacks of old letters and journals which help us to draw a clearer picture of the historical Kit Carson than any taken from dime novel fantasy or deliberate reshaping of history. Work by the likes David Remley, Harvey Lewis Carter, Marc Simmons, Tom Dunlay, David Roberts, and Robert Utley help us to place both Carson and his works into a helpful mosaic of his times.

As a mountain man, guide, and frontiersman, Carson’s image will naturally always be associated with American Indians. There is no doubt that he fought and killed Indians. He made no secret of that. He also chose to live most of his life among them, and often lived “in their ways.”

His battles fought with Indians ranged from defending against outright attack, protecting property (mostly horses and mules), recovering property (same horses and mules), and in punishing acts against others. Frankly, this is no different than the battles fought by Indians against whites – or other Indians for that matter. Any Indian “lands” on the frontier west of the Mississippi were defined not by distinct borders but by the knife, lance, and arrow. The tribes were often at war and the “territories” claimed or lost amounted to combat success or failure.

Carson’s first two wives were Indians at a time of life when he fully expected to live his full life in their customs and ways. His first wife, Waa-nibe (roughly Singing Grass), was Arapaho and it seems to have been a good marriage but was cut short by her death shortly after childbirth.

The second was not so heavenly. It was to a Southern Cheyenne woman and was not widely known until after the turn of the 20th century. But Carson was hardly the only man to strike out as her husband. She had already had one husband and would go through at least two more later. All accounts have her being a little hard to get along with (I told you she was Southern Cheyenne) and a 1920s interview with one of her daughters indicates that the meaning of her Cheyenne name was often misread.

“Making Out Road” is the normal moniker assigned to her but her daughter contended that the real meaning of the Cheyenne was more akin to “laying down the law.” A short second marriage might have been understandable regardless of race or tribe. In the late 1850s, Carson and Making Out Road’s fourth husband camped for a few days together in the southern Rockies helping to rescue some settlers. There is no record of what I am sure were some interesting campfire conversations.

Carson’s third wife was Maria Josefa Jaramillo whom he almost surely met in Taos in the home of his friend Charles Bent, her brother-in-law. On January 28, 1842, Carson was baptized into the Catholic faith, probably to ease the objections of Josefa’s parents to having the 30-something trapper court their teenage daughter. A year later, February 6, 1843, they were married in Taos. It lasted a quarter of a century and they proved to be devoted to each other. But the union would have its trials, almost entirely due to Carson’s sense of duty to both friends and country.

But between his baptism and marriage, there was another major event in his life that would transform him from a highly respected frontiersman into a national icon. Carson had escorted a wagon train along the Santa Fe Trail to St. Louis, visited his daughter from his first marriage who had been left with relatives to receive the “proper education” that he so sorely lacked, and had begun his return when there was a chance meeting with Lt. John C. Fremont.

The young son-in-law of Missouri’s powerful Senator Benton was commissioned to explore up the Platte River to the Rocky Mountains. But Fremont was in need of a guide and Carson “informed him I had been sometime in the mountains and thought I could guide him to any point that he wished to go.” Fremont was told by mountain men already employed by the expedition as packers that Kit was indeed a lot more than he claimed to be and Carson was hired for $100 a month, three times what he earned as a hunter for Bent’s Fort. It was just what a prospective bridegroom needed!

The 1842 Fremont Expedition mapped the South Pass, key to both the Oregon and California Trails. It also made its “Pathfinder” leader and his guide national heroes. The service to Fremont also fed what most researchers agree was a strong patriotism in Carson for the nation whose borders he had left as a teen for adventure on the Santa Fe Trail. Carson assured Fremont that he would be available whenever needed in the future.

Carson used the funds from the first expedition to begin a couple of attempts at ranching and farming with partners and create a home for himself and his wife. But by the fall of 1843, he took a job escorting a wagon train heading back to St. Louis for more trade goods past the threat of Comanche and Kiowa raiders. After leaving the train when conditions were judged safe, he returned by way of Bent’s Fort instead of the Cimarron Cut-Off and found Fremont there mounting another expedition. He dictated a letter in Spanish to Josefa and joined the expedition as guide. This one would take the Fremont-Carson team around the rim of the Great Basin, into Oregon, down into California and out again. The trip would mean more acclaim for the pair, more high wages for Carson but also meant an extended time away from “Little Jo” as he referred to his wife when among Anglos.

On his return, Carson and Richard Owens began developing land along the Little Cimarron with the intent of establishing a ranch. But 1845 saw another call from Fremont. This expedition’s stated mission was to locate the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers. But he probably had secret orders to visit Oregon (which at the time was disputed territory between the United States and the British) and Mexican California, and establish an armed presence there in case of conflict. Which is exactly what he did.

War did break out between the United States and Mexico while the expedition was in California. Carson played an important role in what became a very quick “conquest of California” and was sent by Fremont to carry word to Washington. For the sake of speed and distance, Kit left southern California and crossed the desert southwest through the Gila Wilderness. After completing an almost superhuman journey through the Gila, Carson ran into the command of Stephen Kearny who was on his way to California after establishing American control of New Mexico.

Carson, who had hoped to spend time with Josefa on his way to Washington, was ordered to turn around and guide the Kearny command to California. He objected but probably never would have refused what he considered a duty. Carson had been commissioned a lieutenant by Fremont in their “conquest” down the California coast and he now considered himself getting an order from a superior officer. It was a good thing for Kearny and his soldiers that Carson turned around.

Not only did the scout bring the soldiers through the hostile desert intact but when they arrived in Lower California, they found that the “conquest” of California had not lasted long. Kearny found his troops trapped in what is known as the Battle of San Pasqual. It was Carson who slipped through the Mexican lines on foot and then made a legendary tract to get Kearny rescued.

Carson returned to Taos and Josefa and once again and began establishing ranching and trading interests. When Fremont came calling again in 1848, Carson finally declined. This expedition was not for the government but was privately funded to lay out a railroad route along the 38th parallel. Carson did not want to leave his wife again and did not consider the trip a patriotic matter. He also told Fremont it was too late in the year to begin the trip into the heart of the Rockies. Old Bill Williams took the guiding job instead and led the expedition into a disaster which almost cost Fremont his life.

Intent on creating a secure family life, Carson had become a part of establishing a “settlement” on Rayado Creek east of Taos with Lucien Maxwell to supply beef and fodder to the Army. Maxwell, a former mountain man who had trapped with Carson and been a part of the first Fremont Expedition, was the son-in-law of Carlos Beaubien who held the massive Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant (known now mostly as the Maxwell Land Grant).

Over the next few years, Kit was active also with driving herds of horses and mules north for use on the Oregon Trail as well as a highly profitable trail drive of over 6,000 head of sheep into California. When he arrived home from the California drive, he was met with news that he had been appointed United States Indian Agent at Taos. It was a surprise to him because he had not shown interest in the position but now he saw it as a chance for a regular salary and to stay close to home and a growing family (he and Josefa would have eight children). Kit marked the end of the drive and what seemed a new beginning of a more stable home life by purchasing one of the new Singer sewing machines just patented in 1851 for Josefa who was known for her love of sewing.

In a modern world where there is an overt effort and rush by many to attach “racism” to almost anything or anyone, those who want to draw a complete picture of Carson and his long relationships with American Indians need to include a full study of the work done by Tom Dunlay. Dunlay has spent years with the correspondences and records produced by Carson’s time as an Indian Agent as well as his later time in the military. His best work on the subject is simply titled Kit Carson and the Indians and spends over 400 pages on the subject. It is completely necessary for any who wants a true impression of the man.

The unlettered Carson was not allowed any clerical help for the bureaucratic office but was budgeted for a “translator” which he did not need for Indians. The funds were used for someone to take his dictation and to read all correspondence to him. These papers as well as journals of friends show a man constantly struggling to create a safer and more productive environment for those he had been made responsible for, primarily the Southern Ute bands and the Jicarilla Apache.

Carson was certainly uneducated but hardly unwise to the ways of the world. He fully understood that he was no longer a trapper because he could not control the price of beaver. As a result, his quest to provide for himself and family had taken him from trapper, to hunter, to guide, to stockman, and now to frustrated bureaucrat. Likewise, the Plains and Intermountain Indian tribes no longer were in a world where raiding any outside their group could be considered a natural right and entitlement. Kit understood that, even if the Southern Ute did not. He also understood the tribes mostly saw the government annuities given them as bribes not to raid settlers and that a lack of game to that generation of Utes simply meant they needed to raid settlers more.

The individual examples are almost endless when pieced together by the work of Dunlay and others. But Carson was constantly busy arguing policy and details with government bureaucrats and politicos, trying to create “safe spaces” for both Indians and whites, and recovering stolen stock from both Indians and settlers and riding between the tribes. He was much more comfortable about council fires than meeting tables but managed to maintain the respect of all. The Ute came to refer to him with a term which more or less can be read as “Father Kit” or simply “Kitty” when they tried to use his white nickname.

Carson’s task was greatly complicated when gold was discovered in 1858 in what was then western Kansas but would soon become part of Colorado. But almost amazingly, Carson’s constant work between the two groups kept hostilities far below what could be expected.

Carson’s great hope was to be allowed enough territory away from whites to allow the Indians to develop an agricultural economy that would make them more independent and not “be reduced to permanent beggars.” He failed to convince either politicos or those tribesmen who saw little need to change as long as the government would pay the ransom.

The Civil War brought yet another change. Not only were a great many regular Army soldiers and officers immediately called eastward but there was also an exodus of southern-born from their ranks as well. In May of 1861, the War Department made a call for a regiment of volunteers to protect New Mexico Territory from invasion from Texas. Although his family roots were mostly southern (he had one brother who fought for the gray) and one source has him being offered a bribe to organize the Indians against the Union, Carson did not hesitate. He resigned his post as an Indian Agent and answered the call, offering to try and organize a unit of Utes as Union scouts. He began with the rank of lieutenant colonel of volunteers and was moved to full colonel within months and given command of the volunteer regiment.

The invasion from Texas came soon with Carson leading his regiment in the Battle of Valverde helping to turn the Texans. It would prove to be his only action against the Confederates. But he would be a busy commander for the remainder of the war.

The Union military commander in New Mexico was John Henry Carleton and, for the next four years, Colonel Kit Carson would be his right hand in protecting settlers, military installations, and vital transportation routes from hostile Indians. Northern New Mexico might seem remote during that day and time but it lay in the middle of an important route connecting the Union to California and its gold, much needed in an expensive war.

The Mescalero Apache were Carson’s first assignment. Mainly due to Carson’s work, the majority of the Mescalero were at a place soon to be the most notorious in New Mexico, Bosque Redondo. The rest mostly had moved southeast to raid deeper into Texas/Mexico territory.

Carleton was determined to next address the people who had been considered the biggest threat to settlement since the first Spanish had come to New Mexico, the Navaho. Although seldom the subject of Hollywood westerns, the Navajo were the most powerful and dangerous southwestern tribe before the Civil War and hardly the simple blanket weavers as they are so often pictured.

Since the 1600s, they had been the major impediment to European settlement in the area and a constant terror to the pueblo tribes. They had grown powerful and rich by their standard of raiding New Mexicans and retreating to their safe harbor in the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico. There they had a somewhat pastoral life centered on the livestock and captives taken from New Mexicans. They felt safe enough there to grow some crops and peach orchards that they were especially proud of. Away from there, they were the fiercest raiders of the southwestern desert frontier.

Carleton was ready to act, but first, he had to deny the resignation of the man he considered indispensable for the task, Kit Carson. Colonel Carson had stood ready to turn the Confederate invasion but that had been done and the old mountain man suffered more and more from failing health as well as missing his family. If invasion again became a threat it would be his “pride and pleasure” to serve but at present his “happiness” directed him to “home & family.” Carleton played the duty card on Carson and refused to accept the resignation.

What is often simply referred to as the “Kit Carson Campaign” is the core of the “racist” charges against the old trapper. Carleton stubbornly insisted on the majority of Navajo hostiles being placed at Bosque Redondo, far from the Four Corners. As a result, talks with the principal Navajo chiefs broke down and the campaign began.

Carson employed roughly 100 Ute scouts which he mostly led himself, staying in the saddle through days of hardship on a failing body. The Utes and Navajo were long-standing traditional enemies and Carson not only wanted to personally direct this most effective unit of his troops but also to keep their actions in check against their hated rivals.

Over the weeks of the campaign, crops were destroyed, livestock taken, and captives moved away. In an effort to speed up the surrender of the most hostile Navajo, Carson would release chiefs who had given themselves up to try and convince others to do the same. A full examination of the evidence shows that Navajo deaths at the hands of Carson’s forces were actually fairly light. Independent actions of Utes and New Mexicans taking advantage of the conditions to get revenge for long-held hatreds and plunder for the moment accounted for more.

Carson’s purpose was to destroy the Diné’s safe harbor and force surrender. When the Navajo understood surrender was possible, most turned themselves into Carson.

Kit had little or nothing to do with what are the two aspects of the Navajo conquest which created the most trauma of an extremely hard time for a defeated people. Those two are what is called The Long Walk and the time spent at Bosque Redondo. Carleton was responsible for both. The most Carson had to do with The Long Walk was to warn Carleton that he probably had underestimated the number of Indians to be transported and that they be adequately fed. He argued for their fair treatment when they arrived to be located on the Pecos among the Mescalero who were also traditional enemies.

The Bosque Redondo experiment did not rise to the concentration camp image some like to use. But it was for the most part a terrible time for the Navajo and a grave for far too many. It was one more failed laboratory in a poorly conceived reservation system that the nation had been trying to make work since the 1840s. The suffering of the people located there was real and lasted until the government gave up on the experiment and returned the Navajo to the northwest.

There is much to be added about Carson’s conduct of the campaign that has to put aside for now in a piece that has already gone longer than intended. That campaign can certainly be properly considered part of his legacy. But The Long Walk and Bosque Redondo are also laid onto Kit when they are rightfully Carleton’s legacy and not Carson’s.

Carleton next sent Carson toward the high plains where the Comanche and Kiowa felt safe from troops regardless of blue or gray. The two tribes had taken advantage of the eastern conflict to greatly increase raiding on the Santa Fe Trail, the vital last leg connecting California gold to the east and military supplies to the troops holding New Mexico.

Carson led a force of volunteer troops and Ute and Jicarilla scouts toward Adobe Walls, what was left of an old Bent brothers trading post close to the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. At another time this campaign, which proved to be Kit’s last Indian fight, deserves more detail. But basically the column encountered a large Kiowa camp and then a large group of mixed Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache after taking the first camp. A few details of the fight are similar to what took place slightly more than a decade later with George Custer, with a few exceptions. Carson had insisted on bringing artillery and he knew when to back up.

After almost a day of heavy fighting, howitzers were used to cover a retreat to the first village and the corrals of Adobe Walls. Carson then used his own judgment and intel from his scouts to overrule the desire of many of his officers to again attack the larger camp. Artillery and a wise retreat kept the number of Americans killed below 10.

Although Adobe Walls was much more a declared victory than an actual one, it accomplished its mission. The Lords of the Southern Plains turned south in the spring for their raiding avoiding the Santa Fe Trail. The spring and summer of 1865 was a bloody one along the Texas frontier line.

From the time that he volunteered early in 1861 until he was mustered out of the Army in 1867, Kit Carson commanded six different forts, headed four major campaigns, and had been brevetted a Brigadier General for his service. He attempted to resign four different times since 1863 and had always been refused and prevailed upon even after the conclusion of the Civil War to command troops and spearhead talks with the Indian tribes. At least two written responses from Carleton assured him that only he could create a favorable outcome for both sides and he should see it as his duty to follow through.

But unlike regular army officers, those of the volunteer army had no retirement benefits and in one of his resignations he noted he had “become much more poor than at my enlistment.” He confided in one person that, “I fear I have not done right by my children.” He especially worried about their education having been constantly moved between Taos and various army posts over the war years. The government had maintained the New Mexico volunteer regiment to save the costs of transferring regulars to the remote territory but in 1867 it was mustered out. The last one out was General Christopher Carson.

“The General,” as he was referred to most of the time during his last days, attributed his failing health to a 1860 roll down the side of a mountain when his horse stumbled. Whatever the cause, he could hardly mount a horse without help and was in constant pain. He was also the sole support for his family. He hoped to develop ranchland he had purchased along the lower Purgatory River west of Fort Lyon in Colorado Territory. Near the small settlement of Boggsville, he laid out plans to build a house and moved his family into a small apartment owned by his good friend Tom Boggs.

But his government would impose on him still again. The territorial governor of Colorado was responsible for putting together a delegation of Utes and a few whites familiar with the territory for a trip east to meet with President Andrew Johnson. The purpose was a treaty redefining the territory west of the Continental Divide. The core of the treaty was to create a large Ute Reserve far from the existing whites much like Carson had lobbied for in the past.

Carson hesitated, fearing he would miss the birth of Josefa’s eighth child in April of 1868. But he once again gave into an appeal to “his duty” to both the Utes and settlers he had lived between for so long. His trip would take him to Washington and then New York. There those who had known him in the past were shocked at his frail appearance. He was urged to see a doctor immediately but said he had promised the chiefs a trip to Boston and felt obligated to that. He did visit one doctor but passed on his request to stay for treatment, replying that he was eager to be with his wife and family.

Two weeks later he was barely able to step off the train in Denver. He rode to Pueblo laying in the back of a wagon. From there he was able to send word to Josefa he would be on his way in a couple of days. Despite the weather, he declined to sleep in the house with Daniel Oakes because he was afraid his constant cough would keep the house awake. The next day, with Oakes driving the team, they started down the Arkansas River toward Boggsville. Kit rode in the bed of the wagon, laying down and wrapped in blankets.

Eager to see her husband, Josefa asked Tom Boggs to take her upriver to meet him as soon as she received the news of his arrival in Pueblo. They met 20 miles upriver and rode the remainder of the way home together in the back of Tom Boggs’ wagon. For a quarter of a century, Kit and Josefa clung to each other through almost constant interruptions to their life caused by a sense of duty that had not only stolen a lot of their together but left him battered; poorer but determined to build for his family in the time left. Three days later their eighth child was born.

It is important that we remember the stories of those whose sense of duty created personal sacrifices that helped to leave us all opportunities and liberties unseen by humankind for thousands of years of history. It is also important that we not just remember but acknowledge that same sense of duty in a present generation which seeks to protect all of it.

For decades now, our military has been entirely volunteer. We are protected by a small percentage of our best who move themselves, by their own choice, to the front of the line to perform a duty absolutely necessary for a free society to continue to exist. Especially for the past two decades, they have served multiple tours in some of the worst hellholes on our globe.

At home, we are blessed by individuals who accept the frustration of enforcing the rule of law in a world increasingly hostile to their mission and willing to accept without question false slanders against them. It is their job to protect us, our property, and our liberty from a world corrupted.

As fulfilling and necessary as such duty is, it always comes at a price. The individuals themselves and their families and all who care about them pay that price. We have among us scores of young bodies broken from the danger they willingly faced. Others have even deeper scars that can’t be seen from the outside but which still damage themselves and those around them.

These individuals don’t just deserve our acknowledgment and respect. They deserve our support. They pay a price, every day, for their response to duty. In many cases that price is paid their entire lives. Because of their putting duty into action, we have a lasting duty to them.