=Arrival at Santa Fe; Condition of the Command.=--The main body of the command continued its march south-westward to San Miguel, thence turning the point of a mountain range marched north westward to Santa Fe, where they arrived in two detachments on the 9th and 12th of October, respectively. Upon the arrival of the first detachment the Battalion was received by a salute of one hundred guns by order of Col. Doniphan,[30:b] then in command both as civil and military head of the department of New Mexico; but making ready for what was to be his great and historic march upon Chihuahua. On the arrival of the Battalion at Santa Fe it was learned that General Kearny, previous to his departure for the west, had designated Col. P. St. George Cooke[31:c] to take command of the Battalion and to follow on his trail with wagons to California. Speaking of the condition of the Battalion, on its arrival in Santa Fe, and remarking on its physical unfitness to undertake the march to California, Col. Cooke, in his "Conquest of New Mexico," says: "Everything conspired to discourage the extraordinary undertaking of marching this Battalion eleven hundred miles, for the much greater part through an unknown wilderness, without road or trail, and with a wagon train. "It was enlisted too much by families; some were too old and feeble, and some too young; it was embarrassed by many women; it was undisciplined; it was much worn by traveling on foot, and marching from Nauvoo, Illinois; their 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; and animals were scarce. Those procured were very inferior, and were deteriorating every hour for lack of forage or grazing."[31:d] "So every preparation must be pushed--hurried. A small party with families had been sent from Arkansas crossing up the river, to winter at a small settlement close to the mountains, called Pueblo. The Battalion was now inspected, and eighty-six men found inefficient were ordered, under two officers, with nearly all the women, to go to the same point; five wives of officers were reluctantly allowed to accompany the march, but furnished their own transportation. By special arrangement and consent, the Battalion was paid in checks--not very available at Santa Fe (i. e. negotiable). "With every effort, the quartermaster could only undertake to furnish rations for sixty days; and, in fact, full rations, of only flour, sugar, coffee and salt; salt pork only for thirty days, and soap for twenty. To venture without pack-saddles would be grossly imprudent, and so that burden was added."[32:e]