July 17, 1868. My outfit is leaving Garland and this time I’ll be going along. I wonder when or if I’ll see the fort again? Meyer and Posthoff entertained the whole detachment last night with a farewell blow. Molly and our two little ones will have to follow me to the new post at a later date. (The Valley was fairly peaceful during the years of Sgt. O’Connor’s absence. Life at the fort changed but little, as new companies of Infantry and Cavalry came and went.) September 10, 1879. Back home again. Returned to Fort Garland last week after more’n ten years here, there and everywhere, with first one outfit and then another. A soldier’s life is a weary one. But it’s good to be back here where I really began soldiering. Let’s see now, been 19 years since I first came to Garland. The place has changed since the early days. Even got a railroad running by the fort—came in ’78. Two years earlier Colorado Territory was made the 38th State. New buildings have been added; all made of the same old adobe, of course. The parade is a little greener and the cottonwood trees have grown tall enough to make good shade. The barrack rooms are now heated with stoves as well as fireplaces and they’ve built a kitchen and mess to the southwest of the Infantry barrack. The soldiers’ quarters have a little more furniture and the officers’ quarters are a little more spick and span. More females about the place, too, now that the Valley is more civilized. The soldiers here are a lot younger than they used to be; lot of pink-faced boys who’ve never heard an Indian whoop. [Illustration: The Fort’s West Barracks. Mount Blanca in the background. About 1900.] [Illustration: The Fort Abandoned. Officer’s Row, about 1900.] [Illustration: Fort Buildings in Ruins—just prior to restoration.] [Illustration: Bugler]