Carson began his adult life in 1829 as a mountain man. He trapped beaver about ten years for the fur trade. During these years, Carson became an "Injun killer" he was forced to kill many Native Americans to protect himself from attack, theft, and murder. Carson became known as one of the greatest of "Injun killers" through novels, newspaper accounts, and other media. When the fur trade died out in the 1840s, Carson looked for other work.
In 1842, Army officer John Charles Frémont hired Carson to guide him on three separate expeditions into the West. All three expeditions involved mapping and describing remote and uncharted areas of the West. These expeditions were hugely successful. Frémont's reports to the government made Carson a frontier hero, and were read by many Americans. Carson became a celebrity throughout the United States. His adventures were turned into stories that were published in paper-covered books called dime novels. These cheap, popular books made him more famous than ever.
In 1853, Carson became an Indian agent in northern New Mexico. His job was to keep the Utes and Apaches at peace. He saw to it that they were treated with honesty and fairness, and that they got the food and clothing they needed. In 1861, the American Civil War broke out. Carson resigned his position as Indian agent, and joined the Union Army. As a lieutenant, he led the New Mexico Volunteer Infantry. His forces fought Confederates at Valverde, New Mexico. The Confederates won this battle, but were later defeated. Most of Carson's time in the Army was passed training recruits.
Carson served in several wars and battles with the southwestern tribes during this time. He rounded-up and moved Apaches and Navajos from their homelands to government lands called reservations. Carson was promoted to the rank of colonel. Late in life, he was promoted to brigadier general, and given command of Fort Garland in Colorado. After about two years. Carson left the military because of illness. He died in 1868 at Fort Lyon, Colorado. He is buried in Taos, New Mexico, next to his third and last wife Josefa Jaramillo.
Carson was described by his contemporaries as a "small, stooped-shoulder" man with brown to red hair, blue eyes, and a strong but spare frame. He was said to be about 5 foot 7 inches. He was a modest gentleman. Most of his contemporaries were astonished that such a slight, inconspicuous man had accomplished so much among the Native Americans and wild animals on the western frontier.
In 1847, General William Tecumseh Sherman met Kit Carson in Monterey, California. Sherman wrote: "His fame was then at its height, ... and I was very anxious to see a man who had achieved such feats of daring among the wild animals of the Rocky Mountains, and still wilder Indians of the plains ... I cannot express my surprise at beholding such a small, stoop-shouldered man, with reddish hair, freckled face, soft blue eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage of daring. He spoke but little and answered questions in monosyllables."
Colonel Edward W. Wynkoop wrote: "Kit Carson was five feet five and one half-inches tall, weighed about 140 pounds, of nervy, iron temperament, squarely built, slightly bow-legged, and those members apparently too short for his body. But, his head and face made up for all the imperfections of the rest of his person. His head was large and well-shaped with yellow straight hair, worn long, falling on his shoulders. His face was fair and smooth as a woman's with high cheekbones, straight nose, a mouth with a firm, but somewhat sad expression, a keen, deep-set but beautiful, mild blue eye, which could become terrible under some circumstances, and like the warning of the rattlesnake, gave notice of attack. Though quick-sighted, he was slow and soft of speech, and posed great natural modesty."
Lieutenant George Douglas Brewerton made one coast-to-coast dispatch-carrying trip to Washington, D.C. with Carson. Brewerton wrote: "The Kit Carson of my "imagination" was over six feet high a sort of modern Hercules in his build with an enormous beard, and a voice like a roused lion ... The real Kit Carson I found to be a plain, simple ... man; rather below the medium height, with brown, curling hair, little or no beard, and a voice as soft and gentle as a woman's. In fact, the hero of a hundred desperate encounters, whose life had been mostly spent amid wilderness, where the white man is almost unknown, was one of Dame Nature's gentleman ..."
Carson was illiterate (he could not read or write). He was embarrassed by this, and tried to hide it. He was impressed by gentlemen who could read and write however. In 1856, he told his life story to an Army officer who wrote it down. Carson told the officer that he left school at an early age: "I was a young boy in the school house when the cry came, Injuns! I jumped to my rifle and threw down my spelling book, and thar it lies."
Carson enjoyed having other people read to him. He liked the poetry of Lord Byron. Carson thought Sir Walter Scott's long poem, "The Lady of the Lake" was "the finest expression of outdoor life." He also liked a book about William the Conqueror. The Conqueror's favorite oath was "By the splendor of God". Carson used this oath as his own, and was known to never have used anything stronger.
Carson learned to write "C. Carson" late in life. It was very difficult for him. He made his mark on official papers, and this mark was then witnessed by a clerk. Carson easily spoke English, Spanish, and French. He could speak many Native American languages, including Navajo, Apache, and Comanche. He also knew the sign language used by mountain men. Very late in life, he learned to read to a certain extent, and to recognize his name when it appeared in print.
Kit Carson was born in Kentucky, but his family moved to Missouri when he was a baby. In Missouri, the family was in danger from Native American attacks, and they were forced to find ways to protect themselves. After his father's death in 1818, Kit's mother remarried. The boy became a wild teenager. His stepfather put him to work in a saddle-making shop in Franklin, Missouri.
Carson was born in a log cabin at Tate's Creek, Madison County, Kentucky on Christmas Eve 1809. His parents were Lindsay (or Lindsey) Carson and his second wife, Rebecca Robinson. Lindsay had had five children by his first wife Lucy Bradley, and ten more children by Rebecca. Kit was their sixth.
Lindsay Carson had a Scots-Irish Presbyterian background. He was a farmer, a cabin builder, and a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. He also fought Native Americans on the frontier. Two fingers on his left hand were shot away in a battle with the Sauk and Fox tribes.
The Carsons moved to Boone's Lick, Howard County, Missouri when Kit was about one year old. They knew the Daniel Boone family. Lindsay's oldest son William married Boone's grand-niece, Millie Boone, in 1810. Their daughter Adaline became Kit's favorite playmate.
The Carson family was always in danger of Native American attacks in Missouri. They had to be alert. Cabins were "forted". This means that they had tall fences built around them called stockades. These stockades made the people inside safe from attack. During the day, men worked in the fields near the cabins. Some men had weapons, and protected the workers. These men were ready to kill any Native American who attacked. Carson wrote in his "Memoirs": "For two or three years after our arrival, we had to remain forted and it was necessary to have men stationed at the extremities of the fields for the protection of those that were laboring."
One day in 1818, Lindsay Carson was clearing a field when a tree limb fell on him. He was killed instantly. Kit was about 8 years old. His mother took care of her children alone for four years. They lived in great poverty. She then married Joseph Martin, a widower with several children.