General Crook and the Fighting Apaches

Edwin L. Sabin

General Crook and the Fighting Apaches

Published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4066338064714

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FOREWORD

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK

MAJOR-GEN. OLIVER OTIS HOWARD

THE APACHE INDIANS

I JIMMIE DUNN IS BADLY FOOLED

II JIMMIE LEARNS TO BE APACHE

III THE RED-HEAD TURNS UP

IV THE CANVAS SUIT MAN

V JIMMIE REPORTS FOR DUTY

VI THE PEACE COMMISSION TRIES

VII JIMMIE TAKES A LESSON

VIII THE ONE-ARMED GENERAL TRIES

IX THE HORRID DEED OF CHUNTZ

X ON THE TRAIL WITH THE PACK-TRAIN

XI IN THE STRONGHOLD OF COCHISE

XII GENERAL CROOK RIDES AGAIN

XIII HUNTING THE YAVAPAI

XIV THE BATTLE OF THE CAVE

XV JIMMIE IS A VETERAN

XVI THE GENERAL PLANS WELL

XVII BAD WORK AFOOT

XVIII CLUKE GOES AWAY

XIX JIMMIE SENDS THE ALARM

XX THE GRAY FOX RETURNS

XXI TO THE STRONGHOLD OF GERONIMO

XXII WAR OR PEACE?

XXIII GERONIMO PLAYS SMART

XXIV PACK-MASTER JIMMIE MEETS A SURPRISE

XXV ON THE JOB WITH CAPTAIN CRAWFORD

XXVI FOES OR FRIENDS?

XXVII THE WORST ENEMY OF ALL

XXVIII THE END OF THE TRAIL

FOREWORD

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It should not be expected that an Indian who has lived as a barbarian all his life will become an angel the moment he comes on a reservation and promises to behave himself, or that he has that strict sense of honor which a person should have who has had the advantage of civilization all his life, and the benefit of a moral training and character which has been transmitted to him through a long line of ancestors. It requires constant watching and knowledge of their character to keep them from going wrong. They are children in ignorance, not in innocence. I do not wish to be understood as in the least palliating their crimes, but I wish to say a word to stem the torrent of invective and abuse which has almost universally been indulged in against the whole Apache race.... Greed and avarice on the part of the whites—in other words, the almighty dollar—is at the bottom of nine-tenths of all our Indian trouble.

General George Crook

ILLUSTRATIONS

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GENERAL GEORGE CROOK

From On the Border with Crook. By Captain John G. Bourke.

By Courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK

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Called by the Indians the Gray Fox, because of his weather worn canvas suit and his skillful methods. Admired by them also as a common man who makes war like a big chief. He first organized the army pack-mule trains, and employed Indians to fight Indians. He was noted for his dislike of show, his strict honesty, his incessant hard work, his great endurance, and his knowledge of Western animals and Indian ways.

Born near Dayton, Ohio, September 8, 1828.

Graduates from West Point Military Academy, 1852, No. 38 in his class. Assigned as second lieutenant, Fourth Infantry, and stationed in Idaho.

First lieutenant, March, 1856.

Captain, May, 1861. Meanwhile has been wounded by an arrow during campaigns against the Indians in Oregon and Washington.

Appointed Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, September, 1861, and drills it so thoroughly that it is styled the Thirty-sixth Regulars.

Brevetted major in the regular service, May, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Lewisburg, West Virginia, where he was wounded.

Brigadier general of Volunteers, September, 1862.

Brevetted lieutenant-colonel in the regular service, September, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Antietam, Maryland.

Brevetted colonel, October, 1863, for gallantry at the battle of Farmington, Tennessee.

Commands the Army of West Virginia, August and September, 1864.

Major-general of Volunteers, October, 1864.

Double brevet of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular service, March, 1865, for gallantry in the Shenandoah Valley campaign.

Commands the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, spring of 1865.

Commands Department of West Virginia, 1865.

Assigned as major of the Third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, and stationed in Northern California.

Lieutenant-colonel, Twenty-third U. S. Infantry, July, 1866, to command in the Boise district, Idaho, where he makes a reputation as an Indian campaigner against the Warm Springs Shoshones or Snakes of Oregon.

Appointed to command the Military Department of the Columbia (the State of Oregon and the Territories of Idaho and Washington), July, 1868.

Transferred to California, 1870.

Appointed to command of the new Department of Arizona, June, 1871.

By reason of his success with the Apaches of Arizona, is promoted from lieutenant-colonel to brigadier-general, October, 1873.

Transferred to command the Department of the Platte, with headquarters at Omaha, March, 1875.

Campaigns, with pack-trains and Indian scouts, against the Sioux and Cheyennes of the plains, 1875–1878; subdues them and thereafter devotes his available time to hunting and exploration.

In 1882 is reassigned to the Department of Arizona, where the Apaches are unruly again.

Fails to succeed in holding Geronimo, the Apache war leader; is relieved at his own request, April, 1886, and reassigned to the command of the Department of the Platte.

Appointed major-general, April, 1888, and assigned to the command of the Military Division of the Missouri, with headquarters in Chicago.

Dies March 21, 1890, in his sixty-second year, at Chicago. Interred with high honors at Oakland, Maryland, pending the transfer of the remains, soon thereafter, to the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.

MAJOR-GEN. OLIVER OTIS HOWARD

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A man distinguished for his deep religious spirit and his benevolence, as well for his bravery upon the field of battle and his friendship with the Indians.

Born at Leeds, Maine, November 8, 1830.

Graduates at Bowdoin College, Maine, 1850.

Graduates at West Point Military Academy, 1854, No. 4 in his class. Assigned as second lieutenant of ordnance at Watervliet Arsenal.

Assigned to command of the Kennebec Arsenal, 1855.

In 1856 transferred to Watervliet again.

December, 1856, ordered to the Seminole Indian campaign in Florida.

First lieutenant and chief of ordnance, Department of Florida, 1857.

Assistant professor of mathematics at West Point, 1857–1861.

Expected to resign from the army to enter the ministry, but in June, 1861, accepts the colonelcy of the Third Maine Volunteer Infantry.

Commands a brigade at the battle of Bull Run.

Brigadier-general of Volunteers, September, 1861.

Loses his right arm, from two wounds, at the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, June, 1862.

Major-general of Volunteers, November, 1862.

Commands an army division at the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg.

Commands an army corps at the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, and elsewhere, and has the right wing in Sherman’s march to the sea.

Thanked by Congress, January, 1864, for services at Gettysburg.

Brigadier-general in the regular army, December, 1864.

Brevetted major-general in the regular army, March, 1865, for gallantry.

Chief of the Freedman’s Bureau, at Washington, for the education and care of the negroes and refugees, 1865–1874.

Sent by President Grant to New Mexico and Arizona, as special peace commissioner to treat with the Indians, 1872, and wins the trust and love of the various tribes.

Assigned to the command of the Department of the Columbia, August, 1874.

Campaigns against the Nez Percés of Chief Joseph, 1877.

Campaigns against the Bannocks and Pai-Utes, 1878.

Superintendent of West Point Military Academy, 1880–1882.

Commands the Department of the Platte, 1882–1886.

Major-general, March, 1886, and appointed to the command of the Division of the Pacific.

Awarded medal of honor, by Congress, March, 1893, for distinguished bravery in the battle of Fair Oaks, where he lost his arm.

As commander of the Department of the East is retired, November, 1894.

Devotes his energies to religious and philanthropic work, and dies at Burlington, Vermont, October 26, 1909, aged seventy-nine.

THE APACHE INDIANS

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A large collection of Indian tribes inhabiting the Southwest. They first are mentioned in 1598 by the early Spanish explorers in New Mexico.

The name Apache is derived from the Zuni word Apachu, meaning enemy. Their own name was Tinde (Tinneh) and Dine (Dinde), meaning men or the people.

They always were bitter enemies to the Spanish and Mexicans, who offered high rewards in money for Apache scalps, and enslaved captives. They were not openly hostile to the Americans until, in 1857, a Mexican teamster employed by the United States party surveying the Mexican boundary line shot an Apache warrior without just cause. The survey commissioner offered thirty dollars in payment, which was refused, and the Apaches declared war.

In 1861 Cochise, chief of the Chiricahuas, who had been friendly, was confined, on a false charge, by Lieutenant Bascom of the army, at the army camp at Apache Pass, Arizona. He cut his way to freedom. His brother and five others were hanged by the Americans. Cochise hanged a white man, in return, declared war, and almost captured the stage station where the troops were fortified.

Beginning with the Civil War, the Apaches ravaged all southern Arizona and the stage line in New Mexico also. Terrible tortures were committed upon settlers and travelers.

In 1863 Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves), an old Mimbreño chief related by marriage to Cochise, was treacherously imprisoned and killed by soldiers, at Fort McLane, New Mexico.

Thenceforth the Apaches and whites in Arizona had little common ground except that of no quarter. There was constant fighting.

In March, 1871, a number of Arivaipa Apaches gathered peacefully under the protection of Camp Grant are killed, captured or put to flight by a vengeful party of Americans, Mexicans and Papago Indians from Tucson.

In the fall of 1871 the Government peace commission tries to adjust the differences between the white people and the red. The Apaches are offered reservations and guaranteed kind treatment. They have little faith in the words.

The Apaches, with the exception of the White Mountain in Arizona and the Warm Spring in New Mexico, and some smaller bands, decline to gather upon reservations. In 1872 General O. O. Howard arrives as special peace commissioner, and by his talks and actions wins the trust of the Indians. The reservation idea seems a success. Cochise and his Chiricahuas agree to remain in their own country of the Dragoon Mountains, southern Arizona.

In the winter of 1872–73 General George Crook proceeds against the outlaw Apaches of Arizona, especially the Tontos and the Apache-Mohaves or Yavapais. His cavalry, infantry, pack-trains and enlisted Indian scouts trail them down and subdue them.

General Crook’s plans to make the Indians self-supporting on their reservations appear to have brought peace to Arizona.

In 1874 the control of the reservations passes from the War Department to the Indian Bureau. Reservations given to the Indians forever, by the President, are reduced or abolished, and various tribes are removed against their protests. Agents prove dishonest, the Indians are not encouraged to work, and are robbed of their rations.

The Chiricahuas are generally peaceful, although Mexico complains that stock is being stolen and run across the border into the reservation. Chief Cochise, who has kept his word with General Howard, dies in 1874. Taza his son succeeds him, as leader of the Chiricahua peace party, until his death in 1876.

In April, 1876, whiskey is sold to some Chiricahuas, at a stage station on the reservation. A fight ensues, and killings occur. The great majority of the Chiricahuas refuse to join in any outbreak.

In June, 1876, it is recommended by the governor of Arizona that all the Chiricahuas be removed to the San Carlos reservation. They do not wish to go, but the majority follow Taza there. Chiefs Juh, Geronimo, and others escape.

The policy of the Indian Bureau contemplates putting all the Apaches together upon the San Carlos reservation. The White Mountain Apaches, who have voluntarily lived upon the White Mountain reservation, their home land, adjacent, and have supplied the government with scouts, decline to go to the low country. When forced, they drift back again, and finally are allowed to stay.

In 1877 the Warm Spring Apaches and the Geronimo Chiricahuas who had taken refuge there are ordered from the Warm Spring reservation in New Mexico to San Carlos. Some escape; the remainder escape a little later. Thereafter, Chief Victorio and his Warm Springs are constantly on the war-path, out of Mexico.

In January, 1880, Chiefs Juh and Geronimo of the Chiricahuas agree to stay upon the San Carlos reservation. In August Victorio is killed by Mexican troops.

In September, 1881, Juh and Nah-che (a son of Cochise and a lieutenant of Geronimo), break from the reservation, for Mexico.

In April, 1882, Geronimo and Loco of the Chiricahuas follow.

General Crook is now recalled to the command in Arizona. He talks with the Apaches on the reservations, finds a marked state of mistrust and misunderstanding, and places his troops to guard the border against the outlaws.

In March, 1883, Chato, or Flat-nose, a young captain of Geronimo’s band, with twenty-six men breaks through, raids up into New Mexico and Arizona, and murders settlers. With forty cavalry, about two hundred Apache scouts, and pack-trains, Crook overhauls the Chiricahuas in the wild Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico two hundred miles south of the boundary, and persuades the whole band to return peaceably to the reservation.

The Chiricahuas are placed under the control of General Crook, and he locates them upon good land on the White Mountain reservation. Both reservations are policed by the army. The Apaches seem to be content, under the Crook plan that they shall work for an independent living. In 1884 they raise over four thousand tons of produce. There have been no outbreaks.

In February, 1885, disagreements arise between the War Department and the Interior Department, of which the Indian Bureau is a function. General Crook’s powers are interfered with by civil interests at Washington and in Arizona, liquor is being permitted upon the reservations and the Indians grow uneasy.

In May, 1885, after a controversy with the agent over the right to dig an irrigating ditch, and having obtained a supply of liquor, one hundred and twenty-four men, women and children under Geronimo and Nah-che, his lieutenant, escape again into Mexico. During their raids they kill seventy-three whites and a number of Apache scouts.

General Crook secures an international agreement that United States troops may operate in Mexico, and Mexican troops in the United States, and sends a column on the trail of Geronimo.

In March, 1886, Geronimo signifies that he desires to talk. The general meets him, Chihuahua and other chiefs, and they accept the terms of two years’ imprisonment, with the privilege of the company of their families.

On the march north a vicious white man by the name of Tribollet supplies whiskey to the Chiricahuas, at ten dollars (silver) a gallon, alarms them with lies by himself and his unscrupulous associates. Geronimo and Nah-che, with twenty men, thirteen women and two children, disappear. Chihuahua and eighty others remain.

The general’s action in making terms with the Chiricahuas, and in not so guarding them that they would be forced to remain, is indirectly censured by General Sheridan, commanding the army. Crook explains that no other methods on his part would have met with any success, under the circumstances, and asks to be relieved from the command of the department.

In April, 1886, General Nelson A. Miles takes the command in Arizona. He increases the number of heliostat signal stations, discharges the reservation-Apache scouts (whom he suspects of treachery), employs a few trailers from other tribes, and by a very energetic campaign which permits Geronimo no rest, in September induces his surrender upon only the conditions that his life shall be spared and that he shall be removed from Arizona.

Without delay the Geronimo and Nah-che remnant of hostiles, and all the Chiricahua and Warm Spring Apaches, four hundred in number, at the Fort Apache (White Mountain) reservation, are removed, whether friendly or not, to Florida. This is deemed the only practicable measure of freeing the Southwest from the menace of Apache outbreaks. The expenses of the Department of Arizona are lessened by $1,000,000 a year.

The climate of Florida is unfavorable to the Apaches. Geronimo complains that he and Nah-che had understood that their families were to accompany them. Many of the Apaches die from disease and homesickness.

In May, 1888, the Apaches are removed from Florida to Mt. Vernon barracks, Alabama; and in October, 1894, as prisoners of war to Fort Sill Military Reservation, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

The principal reservations of the Arizona Apaches are the Fort Apache and the San Carlos, each containing between two and three thousand Indians. There are still over two hundred of the Chiricahuas and Warm Springs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo died February 17, 1909, at Fort Sill. Nah-che succeeded him as chief.

APACHE ARIZONA

and the principal places in General Crook’s time

GENERAL CROOK AND

THE FIGHTING APACHES

I

JIMMIE DUNN IS BADLY FOOLED

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Tinkle, tinkle, placidly sounded the bell of the old bell-wether, to prove that he and the other sheep were grazing near at hand in the stiff brush.

All right, thought Jimmie Dunn, whose business it was to keep tab on the whereabouts of that bell.

For this was a simmering hot summer afternoon of the year 1870, far, far down in southern Arizona Territory; and here on a hill-slope of the Pete Kitchen big ranch about half-way between Tucson town and the Mexican line Jimmie was lying upon his back under a spreading crooked-branched mesquite tree, lazily herding the ranch sheep.

The Kitchen ranch really was not Jimmie’s home. He lived with his uncle Joe Felmer (not really his uncle, either), who was the blacksmith for Camp Grant, the United States army post ninety miles northward, or fifty-five miles the other side of Tucson.

But the region close around Camp Grant was a sandy pocket famous for fever and ague as well as for other disagreeable features, such as scorpions, tarantulas, ugly Gila monsters (thick, black, poisonous lizards), heat and sand-storms; so that Joe had sent Jimmie down to their friend Pete Kitchen, on a vacation.

Everybody, American, Mexican and Indian, in southern Arizona, knew the Pete Kitchen ranch. It was noted for its battles with the Apaches who, passing back and forth on their raids out of the mountains of Arizona and Mexico both, were likely to plunder and kill, at any time. Sturdy Pete had not been driven away yet, and did not propose to be driven away.

Jimmie himself was pretty well used to Apaches. They prowled about Camp Grant, and attacked people on the road from Tucson, and frequently the soldiers rode out after them. Joe Felmer had married an Apache woman, who was now dead; he spoke Apache and Jimmie had picked up a number of the words; but there were plenty of unfriendly Apaches who every little while ran off with Joe’s mules or filled his hogs with arrows.

On his back under the mesquite tree Jimmie was not thinking of Apaches. He was idly surveying the country—at the same time having an ear open to the musical tinkle of the bell-wether, who told him where the sheep were straying. And a delightful, dreamy outlook this was, over all those quiet miles of mountain and desert Arizona which only the Southern stage-line traversed, and which, so thinly settled by white people, the roving Apache Indians claimed as their own.

In his loose cotton shirt and ragged cotton trousers Jimmie felt very comfortable. Presently his eyes closed, his head drooped, and he nodded off, for forty or so winks.

He dozed, he was certain, not more than five minutes; or perhaps ten. Then he awakened with a sudden start. Something had told him to awaken. He sat up and looked to see that the sheep were all right. He could not see one animal, but he heard the tinkle, tinkle. He twisted about to find the old bell-wether—and he gazed full into the grinning face of an Apache boy!

The Apache boy, who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen years old, was not more than five yards from him—standing there beside a giant cactus, naked except for a red cloth band about his forehead, and a whitish cotton girdle about his middle, with the broad ends hanging down before and behind, and regular Apache moccasins reaching like leggins half way up his thighs for protection against the brush: standing there, grinning, in his left hand a bow, in his right the wether’s bell!

He had been tinkling that bell! And a smart trick this was, too: to sneak up on the wether, get the bell, and