Editing Kit Carson (section)

=== Indian captive Ann White ===
{{Main|White Massacre}}
Carson's reaction to his depiction in these first novels is suggested by the account of events around the fate of Ann White. In 1849, as he moved to civilian life at Taos and Rayado, Carson was asked to guide soldiers on the trail of White, her baby daughter, and "negro servant", who had been captured by [[Jicarilla Apache]]s and [[Ute people|Utes]].<ref>Duffus, R.L. ''The Santa Fe Trail'' University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1975, 1930, 1975 edition p. 231</ref> The commanding officer, [[Captain (land)|Captain]] William Grier of the [[1st Cavalry Regiment (United States)|1st Cavalry Regiment]], ignored Carson's advice about an immediate rescue attempt after catching the Jicarillas unaware, but after a shot was fired the order was given to attack, and the Jicarillas had started to flee. As Carson describes it in his autobiography, "In about 200 yards, pursuing the Indians, the body of Mrs. White was found, perfectly warm, had not been killed more than five minutes - shot through the heart by an arrow.... I am certain that if the Indians had been charged immediately on our arrival she would have been saved."<ref>Carson, Kit, edited by Milo Milton Quaife, University of Nebraska Press, 1966 reprint of 1935 edition pp. 132–133</ref> Her child and servant were taken away by the fleeing Jicarillas and killed shortly after the attack, according to an 1850 report by [[James S. Calhoun]], the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New Mexico.<ref>Calhoun, James S., collected and edited by Annie Heloise Abel, "The Official Correspondence of James S Calhoun While Indian Agent at Santa Fé and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New Mexico," 1915 Washington Government Printing Office, pp. 168–170</ref>

A soldier in the rescue party wrote: "Mrs. White was a frail, delicate, and very beautiful woman, but having undergone such usage as she suffered nothing but a wreck remained; it was literally covered with blows and scratches. Her countenance even after death indicated a hopeless creature. Over her corpse, we swore vengeance upon her persecutors."{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Carson discovered a fictional book, possibly by Averill, about himself in the Apache camp. He wrote in his ''Memoirs'': "In camp was found a book, the first of the kind I had ever seen, in which I was made a great hero, slaying Indians by the hundreds, and I have often thought that Mrs. White would read the same, and knowing that I lived near, she would pray for my appearance and that she would be saved."<ref name="Kit Carson's Story of His Own Life">{{cite book |last1=Grant |first1=Blanche |title=Kit Carson's Story of His Own Life |date=1926 |publisher=Blanche Grant |location=Taos, New Mexico |pages=95–96 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106000650785&view=1up&seq=9 |access-date=September 10, 2020}}</ref> The real Carson had met the fictional Carson and was deeply upset at his inability to have saved White, for he had failed to live up to the growing myth around himself. He was sorry for the rest of his life that he had not rescued White; the dime-novel Carson would have saved her.<ref>Sides 258–259</ref>