USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 36
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THE BORDER STILL DRENCHED IN BLOOD
Capt. T. C. Lebo of the Tenth Cavalry had a running fight with the Indians on May 3 in Sonora. Captain Lawton and Lientenant Benson with scouts and several troops of cavalry kept hot on the trail of the hostiles, which May 11 beat off a Mexican command west of Cananea. Geronimo then struck northward into the Mule Pass and Dragoon Mountains, while Nachis led a few bucks back into the Santa Cruz Valley and northward east of Tucson and back again into Mexico. In the Rincon Mountains a variation of the usnal style of murders was when an old man named Henderson was dragged to death behind a wild pony. In passing Greaterville, W. F. Wemple was murdered. Some Indians belonging to the other party were surprised to find resistance at Hooker's Hot Springs, where three Apaches were killed by the Jones brothers who, in order to establish the correctness of their tale, brought the three scalps into Willcox. There had also been successful defense by a party of miners in the Mule Pass Mountains. May 30 Creech and MeGimley were killed at a cattle ranch on Eagle Creek and about the same time a Mexican near Camp Thomas. All over southeastern Arizona the ranches and prospect holes were deserted or else were held under incessant guard.
Captain Hatfield, May 14, captured a hostile camp and a large number of horses, but the soldiers were ambushed and Hatfield in turn lost the horses and two of his men.
In the Rincon Mountains on June 3, Dr. C. H. Davis was ambushed as he rode in his buckboard into a mountain pass and mercifully killed at the first fire. Thomas Hunt was killed at Harshaw on the 6th and Henry Baston near Arivaca on the 9th. A Tucson resident, M. Goldman, met death at Bear Springs on the 10th. Trinidad Berdin, the girl captured at the Peck ranch, made her escape from the Indians in the course of a fight between the hostiles and Mexi- cans near Magdalena. As she ran toward the Mexicans there followed an old squaw, in whose charge she had been, but the woman was shot down and killed.
The hostiles had combined forces and it was their entire band that was chased by Lawton. July 13, Lieutenant Brown of Lawton's force, with only a few scouts, captured the hostiles' camp and started the Indians on the run.
Geronimo, pursuing his same tactics, before this had sent one of his band northward to Fort Grant, with a request for a conference with General Miles. He was told that the Chihuahua band had been sent to another country and that a similar deportation awaited the hostiles in case they surrendered. There- after the Indians started northward again. On August 10, twenty-five miles from Bacuachi, they ran across a party of Americans headed by J. T. Kirk, a well-known miner, later superintendent of the Greene mines. They killed Thomas O'Brien and Pres Hatcher and mortally wounded John Thompson in the course of a fight that lasted about a day, when the Indians retired. Kirk, the only uninjured American, rode to Bacuachi for assistance for the wounded.
Their trail followed almost unceasingly by Lawton, hemmed in by Mexican and American troops, the hostiles renewed their offers of surrender. August 23, Colonel Forsyth and several cavalry troops arrived at Fronteras, Sonora, from Fort Huachnca, but found the Indians already gone from that locality. The Indians were making overtures at that time to the Mexican anthorities, trying to secure assurance of protection with unlimited facilities for raiding into
SAM AX Mojave-Apache, 1915
REV. GILBERT DAVIS AND WIFE Mojave-Apaches
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Arizona, but General Torres had directed his officers to offer only terms of un- conditional surrender.
LAWTON'S BAND OF SLEUTHS
The record of the Lawton expedition after the Chiricahua bandits is well worthy of segregation. Under instructions from General Miles, Colonel Royal of the Fourth Cavalry at Fort Huachuca, May 4, 1886, relieved Capt. H. W. Lawton from duty at that post to assume command of an expedition into Mexico against hostile Apaches. There had been an agreement shortly before this between the Mexican and American military authorities permitting the chasing of hostile Apaches across the line by troops of either nation. To Captain Law- ton was given a command of 35 men of Troop B, Fourth Cavalry, 20 men of Company A, Eighth Infantry, 20 Indian scouts and two pack trains. The com- missioned strength of the command was First Lieut. Henry Johnson, Eighth Infantry, Second Lieuts. Leighton Finley, Tenth Cavalry and H. C. Benson, Fourth Cavalry, together with Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood, later Colonel of Rough Riders. The report of Captain Lawton, returned September 9 of the same year, was a model of soldierly brevity. The command had been in- structed to confine its operations to the hostiles south of the international bonn- dary in their stronghold in the Sierra Madres and was directed to follow the trail constantly, locate the main camp of the hostiles and destroy or subdue them. The Indians in the course of a series of desperate raids in southern Arizona and northern Sonora had been met by Captain Lebo, Tenth Cavalry, who followed them into Sonora, where about. May 3, he fought in the Penito Mountains. The trail of the hostiles was taken up near Lebo's battle ground and the Indians were kept constantly on the move thereafter. June 6, not far from Calabazas, Lieutenant Walsh of the Fourth Cavalry intercepted a south- bound band of Indians and captured most of their animals, baggage and supplies. A new detail of Indian scouts was secured under Lieutenant Brown of the Fourth Cavalry, a fresh infantry detachment was sent to the line and the base of operations was changed to a point 150 miles south of the boundary. During this period of their chase Lawton's command marched 1,396 miles, nearly all of the distance over rough, high mountains. The Indians did their best to throw the troops off their trail, but Lawton's Indian scouts were too keen. After July 6 the infantry section of Lawton's main command was given to Assistant Surgeon Wood, one of the few medical officers ever placed in active command of troops in the field. July 14 a sudden attack was made upon a hostile rancheria, which was captured together with the horses and equipage.
The tired hostiles were driven into a pocket near Fronteras, which point was reached by Lawton by forced marches, July 20. Lientenant Gatewood of the Sixth Cavalry with two Chiricahna Indians had been sent from headquarters to communicate with the hostiles and did consult with Geronimo and the Indian chiefs. Possibly the subsequent proceedings had better be told in the language of Captain Lawton himself.
On the evening of the 24th I came up with Lieutenant Gatewood, and found him in communication with the hostiles; but on his return from their camp he reported that they declined to make an unconditional surrender, and wished him to bear certain messages to General Miles. I persuaded Gatewood to remain with me, believing that the hostiles would
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yet come to terms, and in this I was not disappointed. The following morning Geronimo came into camp, and intimated his desire to make peace, but wished to see and talk with General Miles. I made an agreement with him that he should come down from the moun- tains, camp near my command, and await a reply to his request to see and talk with Gen- eral Miles. After Geronimo moved near my camp, the Mexicans made their appearance near ns, which so frightened the hostiles that I agreed that they should move with me toward the United States. General Miles declined to see and talk with the hostiles unless they gave some positive assurance that they were acting in good faith and intended to surrender when they met him. The hostiles were alarmed at the movement of troops in their vicinity, ard they agreed to move with me near Fort Bowie, where General Miles then was. The day following they agreed to surrender to General Miles and to do whatever he told them, and Geronimo's brother went to Bowie to assure the General of their good faith. In the mean- time General Miles had started for my camp at the mouth of Skeleton Canon, which he reached on the evening of September 3d. On the 4th of September the hostiles surrendered as agreed, and the leading men placed themselves in General Miles' hands, and were taken by him to Fort Bowie. The same day I started for Fort Bowie with the main party of Indians, and by making slow marches reached that post on the morning of September 8th. This ended the campaign.
During this latter portion of the campaign the command marched and sconted 1,645 miles, making a total of 3,041 miles marched and scouted during the whole campaign.
The command taking the field May 5th continued almost constantly on the trail of the hostiles, nntil their surrender more than four months later, with scarcely a day's rest or intermission. It was purely a command of soldiers, there being attached to it barely one small detachment of trailers. It was the persistent and untiring labor of this command which proved to the hostiles their insecurity in a country which had heretofore afforded them protection and seemingly rendered pursuit impossible. This command, which fairly run down the hostiles and forced them to seek terms, has clearly demonstrated that our soldiers can operate in any country the Indians may choose for refuge, and not only cope with them on their own ground but exhanst and subdne them.
I desire to particularly invite the attention of the Department Commander to Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood, the only officer who has been with me through the whole campaign. His conrage, energy and loyal support during the whole time; his enconraging example to the command, when work was the hardest and prospects darkest; his thorough confidence and belief in the final success of the expedition, and his untiring efforts to make it so, have placed me nnder obligations so great that I cannot even express them.
In another paragraph of the report special praise is given to Scout W. N. Edwardy, "who made an unprecedented ride after information, going on the same animal over 450 miles in a mountainous country in less than seven days and nights."
A supplemental report was made at the same time by Surgeon Wood, who told very interestingly some of the details of the chase after the Apaches, who up to that time had done an immense amount of injury both in Sonora and Arizona. He told of little towns of the Sierras walled for fear of the Apaches and each with its history of sacks and repulses. Leading into each little town usually was a pack trail only. The heat was intense, often reaching 120 degrees. The command of Americans stood up well, men being sent back only when they were worn out. He wrote that the Apaches "are excellent walkers and make great distances on foot. Their muscular development is excellent, especially that of the foot, leg and thigh. Lung power remarkable. In short, they are a tough. hardy, well-developed race of men; fighting in a country where every- thing was in their favor, and against a regular organization. Their raiding parties were continually obtaining fresh mounts, while the command in pursuit had to get along with the same mount or on foot. . The Indian scouts were
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very efficient and hard workers and were constantly in the advance, always willing and ready, and physically the equals of the hostiles. .. . The greatest good feeling existed between our scouts and soldiers and I can say from my own experience, that they are obedient and kind to their officers."
RUNNING DOWN THE QUARRY
The hostiles in the field in Mexico had been clinging to the idea that if worst came to worst nothing more serious would be done than sending them back to their old pleasant hunting grounds near Fort Apache, where they had many tribal friends and well-wishers. This last crutch was stricken from them, however, by the deportation of July. They then appreciated that they were between the devil and the deep blue sea and they became more than willing to treat with General Miles' special representative, Lieutenant Gatewood, guided to them by two friendly Chiricahuas. Gatewood's entrance, August 25, into the camp of the hos- tiles, where he was well known personally, was one of the pluckiest things ever done by any American officer. Undoubtedly he found the Indians with their minds already made up, yet there was the customary season of talk with old Geronimo before an agreement that the hostiles would surrender to Lawton, who had quietly drawn up very near.
According to Connell, Lawton at Fort Bowie gave the credit for Geronimo's capture to Gatewood. Yet no small degree of acrimony was created by the oper- ations of this campaign; in which it would appear that there was glory enough for everyone. In the first place, there was jealousy between the Fourth and Sixth regiments of cavalry, as represented by Lawton and Gatewood. It is also told that there was an exchange of personal views of uncomplimentary nature betwixt these two officers at Huachuca and that there were many unfortunate and unpleasant features surrounding the whole affair. Sidney R. De Long, a well- known Tucson pioneer, about that time was post trader at Fort Bowie. In later years he told that he heard Captain Lawton, when he gave large credit to Gate- wood, rather chided by another officer of his regiment, who told him, "It must not be ; the Fourth Cavalry must have the credit."
Gatewood must have been well esteemed by Miles, or he would not have been given the honorable, though dangerous, mission to visit the hostiles. He was made an aide-de-camp to the General, but soon went back to duty with his regi- ment. In Wyoming he was severely burned in a post fire, was compelled to retire with a rank of first lieutenant and soon thereafter died. Throughout the whole affair there would appear to run a thread of attempted belittlement of the work of many of the gallant men who followed the Apaches so tirelessly and who finally penned up a band of the most bloody murderers ever known to history.
Especial credit is due to Lieut. Wilber E. Wilder, who in August seized the · opportunity at Fronteras for a conference with one of the squaws of the hostile band, sending word through her that the Indians had better not try to make terms with the Mexicans, but should attempt to reach General Miles direct.
Another sidelight on the last Geronimo campaign is a story that Judge A. H. Hackney, the venerable editor of the Silver Belt at Globe, indirectly may have been responsible for the surrender. The story runs that Geronimo had sent word by courier to his friends on the San Carlos reservation that he wanted to quit and that this information was taken to Judge Hackney by Mickey Free. The
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Judge wrote Herbert Welch, secretary of the Indian Friends Society at Philadel- phia. Welch went to Washington and laid the information before the War De- partment and Miles then was instructed to send an officer down into Mexico to get into communication with the hostiles.
SURRENDER AND PROMPT DEPORTATION
After the theoretical surrender, Nachis and Geronimo, insisting upon their procedure in former like cases, kept their arms and started independently for the border. Lawton, however, fearing a repetition of the circumstances of the famous march with Crook, practically enclosed the hostile band in a cordon of cavalry- men and scouts, who maintained unceasing vigilance in camp and on the march to prevent the escape of a single Indian. However, progress was made to a point in the San Simon Valley, at the mouth of Skeleton Canon. September 3 General Miles arrived at Lawton's camp and there was met by Nachis and Geronimo. There was considerable talk but no concessions were made by Miles, except that the Indians should be joined soon by their families.
On the day of the Skeleton Canon treaty, Lawton built a large cabin of rough stones on the spot, putting within a bottle containing a paper on which had been written the names of the officers. A year later the monument was torn down by curious cowboys.
Five days after the surrender the band, by that time disarmed and held under close guard, was marched into Bowie and almost immediately dispatched east- ward to be held for a while at San Antonio and thence taken to Florida. Civil officers were not allowed access to the prisoners, against whom there were war- rants charging murder in at least four counties. One of these warrants, against Geronimo, in Pima County, was not dismissed until 1909, after assurance that the old rogue was dead.
On the journey eastward a large force of cowboys gathered at the station at Deming to welcome the train bearing the Apaches, but word concerning their activities must have been telegraphed into Arizona. . When the train stopped, from it poured a large number of soldiers, whose determined attitude prevented a lynching party of the largest sort, one that had been carefully arranged. Dem- ing had local crimes to avenge, for the Geronimo band had been active around that town for years.
One of the Chiricahuas, named Wasse, jumped down from the train in Texas and escaped and made his way through the Sierra Madres to the Janos band, which then was supposed to embrace about fifteen.
Besides the dispute between the War Department and the civil authorities, there was trouble between the Interior and War Departments concerning the proper custody of the prisoners. The former claimed that the Indians were sim- ply eseapes from the reservation, while the army held that in reality they were escapes from a phase of military imprisonment. General Sheridan voiced the opinion of Arizonans generally in stating, concerning Geronimo, that, "He is entitled to no merey," continuing to the effect that as there seemed no prospect of dealing with him summarily, possibly the next best thing would be confinement on a reservation, such as the Dry Tortugas.
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"TEN LITTLE INDIANS" AT SCHOOL
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The controveries concerning the last Geronimo campaign got to a stage when it should have had official rebuke, recriminations even appearing in the service journals.
President Cleveland, August 23, 1886, advised the Secretary of War: "I hope nothing will be done with Geronimo which will prevent our treating him as a prisoner of war, if we cannot hang him, which I would much prefer." General Sheridan concurred in this. The President later suggested sending the remnant of all Apache reservation Indians to Florida and refused to move any west of the Mississippi.
GERONIMO
The way of the captured Indians eastward was to San Antonio and thence to Fort Pickens, Florida, where they were held a couple of years before being allowed to rejoin their families from Fort Apache at Fort Marion, Florida. Thence the band was taken to Alabama and latterly to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, these transfers, more or less on a sentimental basis, in the East called "humanitarian." Indeed, there were many misguided and soft-headed people who even pleaded with the President and the War Department that Geronimo and his people might be per- mitted to return to their loved home in Arizona, on the argument that all their misdeeds had been merely defense against a ruthless invader and that henceforth, on the word of the Indians, peace would be assured. Geronimo himself was per- mitted to make his appeal for return direct to the President in March, 1905, when he and chiefs of the Sioux, Comanche, Blackfeet and Ute were in Washington to ride in the inaugural procession as representatives of the aboriginal Americans. Roosevelt gave him scant sympathy. It is to be deplored that the Interior Depart- ment saw fit to exploit the miserable old savage, exhibiting him as a curiosity at several national expositions, where his vanity was fed to repletion and where his autographs found ready sale at 10 cents each. At Sill he was kept employed in various capacities, he and a number of the other Indian leaders drawing pay from the Government. He professed religion, probably because profession gave him an opportunity for more talk. He died February 17, 1909.
In 1906, under grudging consent given by the War Department, S. M. Bart- lett, Superintendent of Instruction, Lawton, Okla., issned "Geronimo's Story of His Life." In general, the contents of the volume are claimed to have been from dictation by the aged and unrepentant old murderer. He is quoted as telling that his birth occurred in June, 1829, in No-doyohm Cañon, Arizona, on the head- waters of the Gila-which happens to head in New Mexico. He was, he said, of the Be-don-ko-he tribe, living to the northward of the Chiricahuas-a statement rather at variance with his membership within the Janos people, who lived well to the south and eastward of the Chiricahuas. At the date of writing, he claimed that only four other full-blooded Bedonkohe Indians yet were living, all of them held as prisoners at Fort Sill. He claimed that his grandfather, Maco, had been chief of the Nedni people (the Ojo Caliente ?) and that Maco had been succeeded by Mangas Coloradas. Geronimo's father, a Nedni, had married a Bedonkohe woman, thus allying himself with the minor tribe. Geronimo calmly laid claim to the title of War Chief of all the Apaches, on the basis of service rendered when no more than a boy, against Mexican troops in the Sierra Madres. This, of course, could not have been true and in fact was not. Geronimo was rather bitter in his Vol. 1-18
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criticisms of Crook, who, he declared had lied to him. From other sources is learned that Geronimo's tribal name was Pee-ah-ly, which has otherwise been interpreted as Goyathlay, meaning "the one who yawns." His father's name was given as Zaklishim, "the gray one," not a chief.
A story was told with all seriousness back east that Geronimo went on the warpath because the whites murdered his wife. It is not specified just which wife it was that was killed. He had a squaw, a Mescallero, who, Connell states, beat him rather severely when he was a hanger-on around the old Chiricahua agency at Sulphur Springs. He claimed to have been in the Apache Pass fight in 1862.
GENERAL MILES HONORED AT TUCSON
Following the time of deportation of the Geronimo band, Albuquerque tem- porarily was made headquarters for the military department of Arizona, this undoubtedly on the basis of the shipment of the larger band from Fort Wingate. Albuquerque was most hospitable and the quality of its entertainment still is a matter of appreciative remark from many of the older officers of the army. General Miles possibly resented the feeling in northern Arizona in favor of his predecessor and it may be that on this account headquarters of the military department not so long thereafter were moved to Los Angeles.
While no personal animosity is known to have existed between Generals Crook and Miles, northern Arizona as a whole was ever partisan in its admira- tion of the former, while in southern Arizona the latter's fame was much the greater. This feeling led to the signal honoring of General Miles by the people of Tucson, who, on November 8, 1887, presented the distinguished officer a handsome Tiffany saber, wherein the blade and grip were about the only parts of the sword and scabbard not made of gold. The presentation was made in the name of Arizona and New Mexico generally, in recognition of the soldier's serv- ice in the capture of Geronimo, as leading to the removal from the Territory of the entire Chiricahua tribe. General Miles and his party were met at the depot by what appeared to be the larger part of the city's population and were escorted to Levin's Park hy a lengthy procession, which included the Society of Arizona Pioneers, representatives of the Mexican government and Mexican societies, the local fire department, the school children, mounted Mexican citi- zens and mounted Papago Indians. The presentation speech at the park was made by Judge W. H. Barnes and the response by the honored guest was re- ported as eloquent. In the evening there was an elaborate reception at the San Xavier hotel.
A Tucson newspaper writer, rather bitterly comparing Crook and Miles to the latter's advantage, has told that Crook and his staff were too busily engaged in social diversion in Whipple Barracks at Prescott to keep busy in the field. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Crook and his wife were far from ambitious socially and had the simplest of domestic equipment. The Gen- eral himself never was happy unless out in the field mounted on a mule, with a shotgun across the pommel of his saddle, looking for game, all the way from quail to Apaches, careless of his personal appearance and of his own safety. Miles, on the contrary, was a military dandy. That he was a good soldier there can be no doubt, as shown by his campaigns against the Sioux and the Apache and by the magnificent manner in which the Porto Rican campaign was handled,
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