Science Source ftp Apr 2015

This was the last picture taken of Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 - May 23, 1868), known as Kit Carson, was an American trailblazer and Indian fighter. He left home at age 16 and became a mountain man and trapper in the West. He explored the west to Spanish California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. He was hired by John C. Fremont as a guide, and led "the Pathfinder" through much of California, Oregon and the Great Basin area. During the Mexican-American war from 1846 to 1848, Carson was a courier and scout, celebrated for his rescue mission after the Battle of San Pasqual and for his coast-to-coast journey from California to Washington, DC to deliver news of the war to the U.S. government at the capital. In the 1850s, he was appointed as the Indian Agent to the Ute and Jicarilla Apaches. In the Civil War, he led a regiment of mostly Hispanic volunteers on the side of the Union at the Battle of Valverde in 1862. Later during the Indian Wars, Carson led armies to pacify the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, and the Kiowa and Comanche Indians. He is vilified for his conquest of the Navajo and their forced transfer to Bosque Redondo, where many died. Breveted a general, Carson is probably the only illiterate American to reach such a high military rank; he could sign his name. His life, full of many adventures and participation in numerous key events of the early republic, has attracted the attention of novelists, historians, and biographers. He died in 1868 at the age of 59. His last words were: "Adios Compadres".