USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 27
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NORTHWESTERN INDIAN TROUBLE
As early as 1857, soon after Beale's first survey, parties of emigrants tried to push through to California by the new route. Many such parties were lost on the way. The Apache occasionally was met west of the Little Colorado, but the worst danger lay in the passage through the Hualpai and Mojave country.
B. Silliman, a mining explorer who visited northwestern Arizona in the summer of 1864, wrote of seeing, on the Beale road, a day's journey east of the Colorado, the sad evidences of one of the typical early western emigrant trage- dies. In what he called Massacre Valley, a large party of Texan and Arkansas
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emigrants had been ambushed by Mojave, Hualpai and Pah Ute Indians. Silli- man told, "We found the melancholy evidence of this catastrophe scattered along the line of Beale's road for several miles, over seventy persons, with their teams and baggage wagons, having been destroyed. The bleaching bones of the oxen, half-burned remnants of baggage wagons with cooking utensils and household furniture scattered around or lying where they fell, attest the savage ferocity of these treacherous tribes."
In the journal of Beale's second expedition is a thrilling tale, albeit second- hand, of a fine fight with the Mojaves, in April, 1859. The tale was told by S. A. Bishop and Ali Hadji, the latter one of Beale's camel drivers in his prior expedition. The two met Beale near Bill Williams Mountain, riding dromedaries, with which they had made a rapid trip from the Colorado. Beale had sent word to Fort Yuma that he would need provisions when he arrived at the river. Lieut .- Col. Wm. Hoffman, with a small force, started for the river crossing, only to be driven back by the Indians. Bishop, fearing that the military would not get back to the river in time to save Beale from disaster, had gathered a foree of forty frontiersmen and had made a rapid march to the crossing. There he was met by a force of Mojaves estimated at 1,000 warriors, who, according to the narrative, were "flushed with their successes over the emigrants and rendered confident by their skirmish with the troops. They immediately attacked him, but did not calculate on the character of the men he had or the deadly efficiency of the frontier rifles in the hands of frontier men. He killed two out of every three aimed at and, in a brilliant battle, completely routed them. He then crossed the river and remained in their village for a number of days, defying them; then, so completely was the spirit of this formidable tribe broken that he divided his party, sending back twenty, leaving a strong garrison of six at the river, and with the remainder came on to meet me. On the second day after leaving the river, he was again attacked by 200 choice warriors, anxious to wipe out the disgrace of their late defeat. These, with his small party, many of whom were beardless boys, but frontiersmen, he routed, killing four at the first fire. As he approached the river, four men of the mail party, which had been making fruitless efforts for nearly a year to get a mail over the road, joined him, but on seeing the number of the Indians, their hearts failed them and two turned baek."
Wm. E. Goodyear, a pioneer guide and surveyor, has left a story of a running fight with the Mojaves in January, 1859, on the passage down the Colorado, of fifty dragoons, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffman, bound for Fort Yuma. With the party was Joe Walker. Goodyear told of assault by 1,500 Indians, who were repulsed easily, by reason of the soldiers' superiority in arms, leaving sixty dead on the ground after an engagement of two hours.
WORK OF THE RECRUIT EIGHTH CAVALRY
A bit of northwestern Arizona history lately was given by Lieut .- Gen. Samuel M. B. Young, who, a Civil War Brevet Brigadier-General in April, 1865, became a Second Lieutenant in the Twelfth Infantry the following year and soon was a Captain in the newly organized Eighth Cavalry. In 1866 he went to Fort Mojave, to relieve the California volunteers at that post. The General stated that the Mojaves had given little trouble after a massacre in the late '50s, when they slaughtered the members of an emigrant party of seven wagons on the Beale
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trail. Much more troublesome were the Mojave-Apaches and Hualpais, and there had to be a guard of soldiers to convoy the mail through from Fort Mojave to Prescott, with stone stations established every forty miles. In 1868 Young visited the Phoenix country to secure Tom Hodge, a noted gunman of that period, to be his guide in an expedition against the Mojave-Apaches of the Santa Maria country, for Hodge was declared the only white man who knew that region thor- oughly. Hodge was a quarrelsome individual and soon thereafter killed another guide and fled into Mexico, where he himself met death. The tribe had particu- larly offended in creeping up to a cavalry picket line and killing the sentry. Led by Hodge, Young trailed the Indians through the canons to a village, where there was an encounter in which a large number of Indians were killed. This was a wonderful trip, wherein Young led his troopers, most of them recruit California miners, for eleven days, averaging twenty-five miles travel a day, fighting all the way. With fourteen men, he attacked 100 Indians, killing 16 of them, while his lieutenant was engaging another large band elsewhere in the hills. Young came back with an arrow wound. The Eighth Horse was a rough sort of regiment, organized on the Coast, and had 41 per cent of desertions in 1867.
SLAYING OF CHIEF WAUBA-YUMA
There is a tale of 1868, also, how the commanding officer of Fort Mojave, out after a marauding band of Mojaves, with a force of only twenty-five men, found himself surrounded by 200 of the redskins, how he finally ran out of ammunition and then prepared to charge the Indian position with the bayonet. The Mojave chief from his shelter of arrowweed shouted that the soldiers now were defense- less, for they had stopped up their guns, and the tribesmen swarmed out into the open. This was the soldiers' opportunity and the Indians for the first time disastrously learned the danger of a close encounter with desperate infantrymen. The troops marched home with only a relatively small casualty record, while it is told that at least one-third of the Indians were left upon the field.
About that time eight Mojaves were sent to Fort Yuma, to be held as hostages for the tribe's future good behavior. After some months of irksome confinement, Chief Cariook deliberately sacrificed his own life that his fellow hostages might try to escape.
While the Hualpais belonged to the unreliable Yuman family and therefore had to be watched continually, there was a state of comparative peace with the tribe in the latter part of 1865, when Bill Hardy, on behalf of the whites in general, made a treaty with Chief Wauba-Yuma, giving the Indian a paper to that effect. Hardy was deeply concerned, for at the time he was doing a great part of the freighting between the river and the Prescott country and was profit- ing largely thereby. His plans all were upset and war again was precipitated in April, 1866, by none other than Sam Miller, thereafter one of the leading resi- dents of the Prescott locality, first settler in the adjoining valley that still bears his name. Miller, a freighter, on an inward trip learned of the burning of the wayside cabin of Edward Clower at The Willows and of the death within of its owner, presumably first murdered by Hualpais. So, when Wauba-Yuma, presenting his paper treaty, came to the freighter's camp near Beale Springs and, backed by the presence of a number of his braves, demanded provisions, Miller answered with a bullet. The chief dropped dead and the Indians, after a brief
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action, disappeared, to later ravage the road as they had in days past. It is worth mention that in Miller's convoy at the time were George Banghart and his family, the same Banghart who later owned the Little Chino ranch near which the territorial capitol first was dropped. Daughters who thus were rudely intro- duced to the customs of the country married A. G. Oliver, post trader at Whipple, Edw. W. Wells, later federal judge, John Marion, the pioneer editor, and N. O. Murphy, who became Governor of the Territory.
THE ARIZONA VOLUNTEERS
Arizona's contribution to the Federal forces during the Civil War was ered- ited to New Mexico, save for one organization. New Mexico, including Arizona, gave 6,561 men to the Federal cause. Of these, 277 men died in the service.
Soon after the assumption of office by Governor Goodwin, on February 20, 1864, he called the attention of the War Department to the advisability of raising a regiment of Arizona troops, familiar with the locality and the work, to fight the Apaches. This authorization was granted by the War Department April 16, for a regiment to serve three years, or for the war, the officers to be appointed by the Governor. An attempt was made to raise six companies and even this number was cut to four.
Most of the papers covering the enlistment and service of the organization are in the office of Adjutant-General Harris, in Phoenix. There are letters from C. T. Hayden, and others, recommending Frederick A. Ronstadt as Colonel, on the basis of experience in a similar position in the army of Pesquiera, in Sonora, and others recommending Henry A. Bigelow of Wickenburg.
Co. A, of which Robert Postle, of Prescott, was to have been captain, was recruited to the strength of only thirty-five men, mainly Mexicans enlisted from the placer fields at Weaver. The commanding officer for the greater part of the time was Second Lieut. Primitivo Cervantes, of Wickenburg. He, with his men, were sworn in at Whipple, October 7, 1865. The commanding officer of the pla- toon for the last five months, till muster-out of the company, October 15, 1866, was First Lieut. Wm. H. Ford.
Co. B, of ninety-four men, had an enlisted strength wholly of Maricopa Indians, gathered at Maricopa Wells September 2, 1865, and mustered out at Sacaton July 31, 1866. Thomas Ewing was First Lieutenant, and Charles Reidt, Second Lieutenant. The latter appeared to have been in command most of the service period.
Co. C's enlisted men were Pima Indians, including Chief Antonio Azul, who ranked as First Sergeant. The first Captain named was none other than the noted California writer, J. Ross Browne, who had only lately finished a trip through southern Arizona. He was mustered in as Captain in San Francisco, December 21, 1865, and credited to "Prescott, Socorro County, Arizona." This would appear to be as far as he got on a military career. A Captain Coster was then appointed and, on his discharge, First Lieut. John D. Walker was promoted to be Captain. Walker had lived among the Pimas for years and spoke the lan- guage fluently .. Second Lieutenant of the organization was Wm. A. Hancock, transferred September 4 from a sergeantey in the Seventh California Volunteer Infantry, at Yuma.
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CUTTING THE HOSTILE TRAIL
APACHE SCOUTS AT SAN CARLOS
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Co. E was organized by Capt. Hiram H. Washburn, at Tubac and Fort Mason, in the Santa Cruz Valley, with John M. Van Mehr (who never served) as First Lieutenant and Manuel Gallegos as Second Lieutenant. This company had a full strength of ninety-four men, nearly all of them of Mexican or native birth.
Co. F was recruited in the same neighborhood by Lieut. Oscar Hutton, who had to dismiss fifty-three of his recruits, leaving him a platoon of only thirty-five men.
The Indian companies operated in their own neighborhood or out of Camp McDowell. On March 27, 1866, Walker led his own company and forty of the Maricopa company, with 250 volunteer Indians, in all making a formidable force, against the Apaches in the eastern hills. There was at least one big fight, in which twenty-five of the hostiles were killed and sixteen taken prisoners. The record of Co. C contains the names of three men killed in a fight with the Apaches near McDowell.
By far the best record of the service of the Arizona volunteers has been left by Captain Washburn, evidently a conscientious and hard-working officer. He started gathering the company he was to command as early as June, 1865. About half were ill from fever, no clothing was provided and the men had to build their own adobe shelters. Fever was so general at Mason that often as few as seven men to the company answered the roll call. Corporal Rodriguez and squad killed an Indian and captured another near the San Antonio mine. The prisoner was taken to a point where lay the skeleton of a murdered Mexican and there executed with all solemnity.
At Fort Mason, Washburn wrote Governor Goodwin a suggestion that Cochise and 400 of his Apaches could be destroyed at Fronteras, where they were to come for a spree during September. The Mexicans had been compelled to assent to the visit, their fear modified by the expectation of much profit in the sale of goods and mescal during the period of truce. Yet they had sent word to the American side, suggesting that an attack be made when the Indians had reached a somnolent stage of intoxication.
December 5, under orders, the command started for Prescott, with twenty- seven still sick; two, who died on the way, had been refused admittance to the post hospital at Tucson. Whipple was reached on the 29th, after harsh experience in the snows of the divide above Skull Valley. At Whipple, in the midst of fearful weather, no quarters were available and there was much suffering.
SHOELESS AND HUNGRY SOLDIERY
Ordered to Camp Lincoln January 4, 1866, the post soon thereafter was turned over to Washburn, with an addition of the men of Co. A. February 13, 1866, Gallegos and forty-five men of E assaulted an Indian fortress in mountain caves, near the Natural Bridge, and drove the Indians from all save the highest positions, killing thirty-two and capturing much plunder, including buckskin, highly valued, for the soldiers had worn out their shoes and had had to resort to home-made moccasins. The country was strange to all the men-no guides had been furnished. Lincoln had to be put on half rations and the garrison threatened to desert in a body. Washburn had to spend half his time Imustling supplies from Whipple and never had enough. One good draft of provisions, ineluding five beeves, was captured by Indians in June on the Verde road, at "Grief Hill," but
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enough was saved to keep the camp from starvation. Raids were made on the Indians whenever food could be had for a trip.
August 3, matters came to a standstill. Half of the men struck. They had been in service their year of enlistment, without a cent of pay, half starved and unclothed, and Washburn reported that he could not blame them. By the end of the month Lincoln had been reduced to a garrison of five men, Washburn the only officer. September 13, three of the five were discharged and the settlers had to be called upon to help guard the government property. September 29 the post was regarrisoned by a company of the Fourteenth Infantry under Captain Downie. November 5 the last enlisted strength had been discharged and Wash- burn and Gallegos had called for muster out.
Washburn sadly acknowledged that he had little to show for his sixteen months of hardship and toil. He blamed the failure wholly upon his inability to get even a proper amount of subsistence for his men. But he claimed that at least one thing had been proved: "That the native troops are far superior to any of the others for field service in this Territory, and until this shall be taken as the basis of operations no immediate good results can occur. Three hundred native troops, well officered, at an expense of less than $800 to the man per year, will in less than two years rid the Territory of its greatest bane and obstacle in the way of progress." In his letters to higher authority he urged that the men be allowed all the spoils they found in their campaigns, as something that would spur on any one of Spanish lineage. They were promised on enlistment all the stock and plunder they would take.
Lieutenant Hutton and his men had much the same hard experience, with headquarters at Camp Date Creek. In February, 1866, the command took station in Skull Valley, and on the 24th of that month lost two men, killed by Apaches, while on road guard. In August the Lieutenant with fourteen men and twelve citizens killed twenty-three Indians, with a loss of one man killed and one wounded. Seventy Apaches had attacked a wagon train and were surprised on their retreat.
Skull Valley had been a bloody field of Indian depredation long before the coming of the volunteers. According to General Thomas, the name came from the massacre within the valley of a party of emigrants, who were trying to reach the Colorado by the Bill Williams River route. All were killed, together with many of their oxen. The bodies of the men and cattle were left upon the ground and the next party of white men over the route found the bones and skulls bleaching on the ground.
Following the muster out of the Arizona volunteers, the Legislature in November expressed warmest gratitude and highest praise to the officers and men of the battalion for the valuable and efficient service they had rendered in hunting and destroying the implacable Apache during the past year, it being stated: "They have inflicted greater punishment upon the Apache than any other troops in the Territory, besides ofttimes pursuing him barefoot and upon half rations to his fastnesses, cheerfully enduring the hardships encountered on mountain and desert." Regret was expressed that "the financial condition of our young Territory will not permit of our offering a more substantial reward and expression of our obligations to them."
Some of the Indians, a few nearing 100 years of age, have been trying of late
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years to secure pensions from the national government. They have been refused, on the ground their service was not against the Confederates and "because they are Indians." Some of these Indians were sincere mourners at the funeral of their Lieutenant Hancock, when he died in Phoenix, after years of honorable civic service.
CHAPTER XV INDIAN BORDER DEPREDATIONS
Protests of the Governor and Legislature-Eskiminzin-The Work of Cochise in South- western Arizona-Death of Lieutenant Cushing- Loot of the Hughes Ranch- Depredation Claims.
At the first representative session after organization of the Territory, Congress was petitioned to provide for placing on a reservation along the Colorado River about 10,000 Indians belonging to the Yavapai, Hualpai, Navajo and Yuma tribes, reported as often reduced to a starving condition, in which, by necessity, they made raids upon the property of the whites. It was suggested that a canal could be constructed at small expense to conduct irrigation water from the Colo- rado to the Indian lands.
The menace of the Apaches was early expressed in a memorial passed by the First Arizona Legislature, in which was asked an appropriation of $250,000 to be used in arming and sustaining companies of rangers. It was reported that "the depredations of hostile Apaches are now the only barrier to a speedy settle- ment of this Territory, the working of mines of unequaled value, the occupancy of farming and pastoral lands of excellent quality, and the development of all the resources of the Territory depend upon the subjugation of the barbarous foe so long a terror of the settler within our borders. It were vain to solicit capital or immigration until the power of the Apache is broken. Recent campaigns against him, waged by civil and military expeditions, have been attended with consid- erable success; but enough has not been done, and your memorialists respectfully request the aid of the government in prosecuting a war until the Apache shall be forced, as the Navajo has been, to go upon a reservation."
The Indian situation was considered so bad in 1867 that the Legislature petitioned Congress asking that the Governor of the Territory be authorized to raise a regiment of volunteer troops. The statement contained in the memorial showed the serious state of affairs. It told of settlers compelled to abandon their improvements, their farms and mining operations, seeking security in the various towns and military camps with fearful damage, with almost every day the sad tidings of the death of citizens, killed by Indians; with scarcely a road or footpath safe to travel; with security not even found in the villages or near the military camps. It was declared that the Indian foes had become terribly in earnest, seemingly determined to drive the whites from the Territory. Within a few months hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of live stock had been stolen. United States troops were few and, however willing, were declared totally insufficient to protect or raid. In the extremity of the situation it was declared that, "unless we have speedy assistance, we will be compelled to abandon the
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RETURN FROM AN INDIAN CHASE
CHIEF NANA GERONIMO
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property we still have and leave the Territory." The memorial recited a belief that a regiment of Arizona troops would be more efficient than any other that could be employed in the service, "through their acquaintance with the country, with the haunts and habits of the Indians and their earnest desire to rid the country of the common foe."
ESKIMINZIN, INDIAN PHILOSOPHER
For many years, on a rancheria in the lower San Pedro Valley, lived one of the most notable Apaches of the Southwest, Eskiminzin, mentioned by Colyer, referred to by the pioneers as "Skimmy." He was a precious old scoundrel, who later maintained what might have been called a "fence," through which was marketed the spoil of marauding bands, who in return received arms and ammu- nition. But the old chief in his later days always claimed to be peaceful. He had somewhat more than local renown, owing to one of the early-day stories. He was in Tucson buying a rifle or two, a transaction that seemed to be viewed with favor by the dealer, who, however, in jocular mood, felt moved to query, "Going to kill soldiers with these, Skimmy?" The answer was prompt, "Naw; no use gun to kill soldiers-kill 'em with elub." Eskiminzin was at Old Camp Grant at the time of the massacre, in April, 1871, but escaped. About that time he had boasted that he had killed, a couple of years before, a man named Mckenzie who had a ranch in the San Pedro Valley and who had shown much charity and good will toward the Indian and his followers. Eskiminzin and some of his bucks stopped at the Mckenzie house for a meal, which was given them. Then, after eating, Mckenzie and his two ranch hands were murdered offhand. Eskim- inzin rather took high credit to himself for this. He said, "Anyone can kill his enemy, but it takes a brave man to kill his friend." For some one of his crimes in 1874 he served a short jail sentence.
The old chief was afforded an opportunity to go East and see how many of the white men there really were, so that the futility of trying to kill all of them might be impressed upon him. He gained some idea of the world outside and it is told that two of his sons were named respectively Bismarck and Washington. At one time he had $5,000 on deposit in Tucson. On a visit to that city he saw some zine trunks that attracted him, so he bought one for each of his seven wives.
Though Eskiminzin for years was considered a fixture in the San Pedro Valley, living for much of the time within a very short distance of old Fort Grant, it must be told that he was one of the most villainons of all Apaches and that to him must be laid the loss of even scores of white lives, almost every death accompanied with torture. As early as 1867 his band killed a man named Valen- tine north of Tucson and in September a post trader named Irwin was murdered within sight of Old Camp Grant. The latter's partner, Israel, was so active in trying to chase down the assassins that the Indians marked him particularly for their vengeance. May 28, 1870, he was coming from Tucson with a stock of goods in company with a party that included a man named Kennedy. About five miles beyond Cañon del Oro, Eskiminzin lay in wait and at the first fire wounded Kennedy and Israel. The former mounted a mule and rode to Grant, which was distant about twenty-five miles, but fell from the animal, which continued on into the fort, its bloody flanks serving as notice that troops were needed on the road. Kennedy was found by Lieut. John G. Bourke with an arrow still within his
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body and died the next day. Israel was found tied to the wheels of his wagon, where he had been burned alive, his feet apparently first charred off and his body showing marks of fearful torture. The rest of the party had succeeded in getting back into the hills iu a position where a successful defense was made. A few days later the same band killed Henry Long and Samuel Brown on the San Pedro River near Tres Alamos. These were only a few of the many murders of the band which included, according to F. H. Goodwin, an old resident of the San Pedro Valley, that of a major of the United States army and several soldiers at Round Valley on the Gila River.
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