The place of Colonel Allen was taken, provisionally, by First Lieut. A. J. Smith of the First Dragoons, who proved unpopular, animus probably starting through his military severity and the desire of the Battalion that Captain Hunt should succeed to the command. The first division arrived at Santa Fe October 9, and was received by Colonel Doniphan, commander of the post, with a salute of 100 guns. Colonel Doniphan was an old friend. He had been a lawyer and militia commander in Clay County, Missouri, when Joseph Smith was tried by court martial at Far West in 1838 and had succeeded in changing a judgment of death passed by the mob. On the contrary, Col. Sterling Price, the brigade commander, was considered an active enemy of the Mormons. At Santa Fe, Capt. P. St. George Cooke, an officer of dragoons, succeeded to the command, as lieutenant-colonel, under appointment of General Kearny, who already had started westward. Capt. James Brown was ordered to take command of a party of about eighty men, together with about two-score women and children, and with them winter at Pueblo, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River. Fifty-five more men were sent to Pueblo from the Rio Grande when found unable to travel. Colonel Cooke made a rather discouraging report on the character of the command. He said: "It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old, some feeble, and some too young; it was embarrassed by too many women; it was undisciplined; it was much worn by travel on foot and marching from Nauvoo, Illinois; clothing was very scant; there was no money to pay them or clothing to issue; their mules were utterly broken down; the quartermaster department was without funds and its credit bad; animals scarce and inferior and deteriorating every hour for lack of forage. So every preparation must be pushed--hurried." The March Through the Southwest After the men had sent their pay checks back to their families, the expedition started from Santa Fe, 448 strong. It had rations for only sixty days. The commander wrote on November 19 that he was determined to take along his wagons, though the mules were nearly broken down at the outset, and added a delicate criticism of Fremont's self-centered character, "The only good mules were taken for the express for Fremont's mail, the General's order requiring the 21 best in, Santa Fe." Colonel Cooke soon proved an officer who would enforce discipline. He had secured an able quartermaster in Lieut. George Stoneman, First Dragoons. Lieutenant Smith took office as acting commissary. Three mounted dragoons were taken along, one a trumpeter. An additional mounted company of New Mexican volunteers, planned at Santa Fe, could not be raised. Before the command got out of the Rio Grande Valley, the condition of the commissary best is to be illustrated by the following extract from verses written by Levi Hancock: