6. Larry Ludwig, longtime park ranger at Fort Bowie National Historic Site, conducted an archaeological survey of both sides of what is now called Overlook Hill. He found no artillery fragments among the Indian defenses but plenty on the other side of the hill. He also found the small hill used to elevate the howitzers, confirmed by the artillery fuses dug up at its base. Infantry, not trained artillerymen, manned these guns and cut the fuses too long for bursts above the Indian positions. The exploding shells, even though missing the target, frightened the Apaches into abandoning their positions.
7. An excellent history of Fort Bowie, including chapters on the Bascom affair and the Battle of Apache Pass, is McChristian, Fort Bowie.
8. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 232–33.
9. Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, chap. 18, recounts in detail all the following events involving Mangas and documents them thoroughly from the ample original sources. Geronimo provides a reasonably accurate account in Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, chap. 13. I have treated the story from the military perspective in Frontiersmen in Blue, 249–56.
10. Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, presents the most detailed and thoroughly documented account of the slaying of Mangas. I have relied heavily on his reconstruction. See also Lee Myers, “The Enigma of Mangas Coloradas’ Death,” New Mexico Historical Review 41 (October 1966): 287–304. This article quotes from all the relevant sources but reaches no conclusion. My version, in addition to Sweeney, is taken from the same sources.
CHAPTER 7. COCHISE: WAR AND PEACE, 1863–72
1. Geronimo mentions a number of clashes with soldiers following the death of Mangas Coloradas, although the details do not coincide with the military reports. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 119–20. Sweeney, Cochise, 209–10.
2. Griswold, “Fort Sill Apaches,” under named individuals.
3. Edwin R. Sweeney, From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874–1886 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 19. Sweeney to Utley, June 20, 2007.
4. Official correspondence documenting this series of campaigns may be found in War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1, vol. 34, part 3; and vol. 60, part 2. See also Sweeney, Cochise, 218–23; and Steck Papers.
5. Annual Report of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell, San Francisco, October 18, 1866, SW, Annual Report (1866), 34–36.
6. Griswold, “Fort Sill Apaches,” under named individuals, including Geronimo.
7. These conflicts are detailed in McChristian, Fort Bowie, chap. 6.
8. Cochise’s year of birth is speculative. After careful analysis of contemporary evidence, Sweeney, Cochise, 6–7, arrives at the year 1810.
9. The agent, Lt. Charles E. Drew, fought hard for rations but could not move superiors. They supported him but lacked the resources to back him. Appointed in May 1869, he was removed a year later and died of exposure pursuing Mescaleros across the Jornada del Muerto. The correspondence between Drew and his superiors is printed in CIA, Annual Report (1869), 104–9. The circumstances of his death are recounted in W. F. M. Arny, Indian Agent in New Mexico: The Journal of Special Agent W. F. M. Arny, 1870, ed. Lawrence R. Murphy (Santa Fe, NM: Stagecoach, 1967), 54–58. The tortuous story of attempts to establish a reservation is detailed in Shapard, Loco, chaps. 2–4.
10. Sweeney, Cochise, 281ff. The post was Camp Mogollon, soon to be named Fort Apache. The officer, Maj. John Green, was undoubtedly startled to meet with the renowned Cochise.
11. Arny, Indian Agent in New Mexico, 54–58. Sweeney, Cochise, 297.
12. Sweeney, Cochise, 315. Cochise’s name for Jeffords had been learned by Gen. O. O. Howard (to be treated below), who related it to a reporter in Washington, DC. “Account of Gen’l Howard’s Mission to the Apaches and Navajos,” reprinted from Washington Daily Morning Chronicle, November 10, 1872, 10. Papers of the Order of the Indian Wars, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA.
13. Sweeney, Cochise, 324–25.
14. Ibid., 339–40.
15. Ibid., 343–44.
CHAPTER 8. COCHISE: PEACE AT LAST, 1872
1. I have tried to describe these scenes as the Indians would have experienced them. Of course, they have been reconstructed from white sources, the only sources that exist. I have drawn my narrative from Sweeney, Cochise, 356–66, based on thorough research in original sources; “Account of Gen’l Howard’s Mission,” the newspaper interview, which is far more informative than his official report; Howard’s official report, November 7, 1872, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, roll 123, frames 474–85, NARA (reprinted in CIA, Annual Report [1872], 175–78); Sweeney, ed., Making Peace with Cochise: The 1872 Journal of Captain Joseph Alton Sladen (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) (MS, Sladen Papers, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA); and (in an edition for which I wrote the foreword) Oliver O. Howard, My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians (1907; New York: Da Capo Press, 1972), chaps. 13, 14.
2. All the sources quote the exchange in English, which nonetheless conveys the essence of what the two said in halting Spanish.
3. Actually, Sladen was a “teniente”–a first lieutenant and aide-de-camp to Howard. He held a brevet of captain and was addressed as such as a courtesy.
4. Puzzled by how Cochise and Howard communicated, I queried Edwin Sweeney. In an e-mail of December 25, 2009, he replied that the Howard Papers at Bowdoin College contained a contract with Jacob May to serve as Spanish interpreter. Also, Howard wrote an article, also in his papers, that described the exchanges. Cochise spoke in Apache, and Ponce and Jeffords translated through Spanish into English. After May arrived, of course, he translated from Spanish into English for Howard.
5. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 124. His account is badly confused but establishes his presence. A letter in the Howard Papers, cited by Sweeney, Cochise, 362, attributes the confirmation to Capt. Samuel S. Sumner, who was present at the Sulphur Springs parley on October 12.
6. Pile to Secretary of State, Santa Fe, June 19, 1871; Safford to editor, Tucson, November 9, 1871; both in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, roll 24, NARA.
7. For a history of Grant’s Peace Policy, see Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865–1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976); and Henry E. Fritz, The Movement for Indian Assimilation, 1860–1890 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963). For the origins of the Colyer mission, see Grant to Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano, Long Branch, NJ, July 18, 1871; Grant to SW W. W. Belknap, Long Branch, July 29, 1871; both in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, Correspondence Relating to Vincent Colyer, roll 123, frames 37–38, 40–41, NARA.
8. Peace with the Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona: Report of Vincent Colyer (Washington, DC: GPO, 1871), 9–11 (Reprint, Tucson: Territorial Press, 1964). Colyer to Superintendent of Indian Affairs Nathaniel Pope, Camp Tularosa, August 29, 1871, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, Correspondence Relating to Vincent Colyer, roll 123, frames 85–87, NARA. Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano to SW W. W. Belknap, September 4, 1871, transmitting Colyer to Delano, Cañada Alamosa, August 18, 1871, and Colyer to Delano, Ojo Caliente, September 2, 1871, ibid., frames 66–70. Pope to Col. Gordon Granger, Camp Apache, AZ, September 6, 1871, ibid., frames 81–82. CIA, Annual Report (1872), 295–302.
9. An authoritative biography is Charles M. Robinson III, General Crook and the Western Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001). General George Crook: His Autobiography, edited by Martin F. Schmitt (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1946), contains much of value that does not appear in official reports. Crook’s reputation rests in large part on the excellent hagiographic book by his longtime aide: John G. Bourke, On the Border with Crook (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891).
10. Exhaustive documentation of the handling of the Colyer mission by the Interior and War Departments, and the president’s
final approval of Colyer’s reservations, is contained in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, Correspondence Relating to Vincent Colyer, roll 123, for August 1871 to February 1872. See also Crook, Autobiography; and Robinson, Crook.
11. Howard’s lengthy report, dated June 1872, with attachments, is printed in CIA, Annual Report (1872), 148–75. His statement to Crook is in Crook, Autobiography, 169. Extensive official documentation leading to and during the Howard mission is in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, Correspondence Relating to Vincent Colyer, roll 123, NARA.
12. Howard to CIA, November 7, 1872; Pope to CIA, October 10, 1872; both in CIA, Annual Report (1872), 176, 295–302. Sladen, Making Peace with Cochise, 32–35. Appendix A reprints the transcript of the September 12 council. Sweeney, Cochise, 352–53. Howard, My Life and Experiences, relates his experiences at Tularosa and Cañada Alamosa, and the circumstances of his meeting with Jeffords, in a number of ways that are contradicted by contemporary evidence.
13. Sladen, Making Peace with Cochise, 89–93.
14. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 124.
15. Schofield to AGUSA, San Francisco, December 26, 1872, enclosing Crook to AAG San Francisco, Camp Grant, December 13, 1872; Crook to AAG San Francisco, Florence, AZ, February 11, 1873; Crook to AAG San Francisco, Prescott, April 12, 1873; GO 12, by command of Bvt. Maj. Gen. Crook, Prescott, April 7, 1873; GO 13, by command of Bvt. Maj. Gen. Crook, Prescott, April 8, 1873; all in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, AGO 2465 1871, Correspondence Relating to Vincent Colyer, roll 123, frames 519–27, 570–72, 595–601, NARA.
CHAPTER 9. THE CHIRICAHUA RESERVATION, 1872–76
1. Sweeney, Cochise, 369.
2. Ibid., 374. Crook to AAG San Francisco, Hq. DA Camp Grant, December 13, 1872, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 3383 AGO 1873, roll 24, frames 523–27, NARA.
3. Sweeney covers these events in Cochise, 363. However, he narrates them in greater and somewhat different detail in Cochise to Geronimo, 24–25, based on a variety of Arizona newspapers. He prepared this account long after publication of Cochise, and it reflects further research. See also Jeffords to CIA, Chiricahua Agency, Sulphur Springs, August 31, 1873, CIA, Annual Report (1873), 291–93; and Jeffords to CIA, Pinery Canyon (now agency headquarters), November 30, 1873, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 3383 AGO 1873, roll 24, frames 61–64, NARA.
4. Indian Inspector William Vandever to CIA, Washington, January 23, 1874 (repeating a report of October 18 gone astray), RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 3383 AGO 1873, roll 24, frames 70–78, NARA.
5. Sweeney, Cochise, 386–87. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 39. The Chiricahua Agency was located at Sulphur Springs, in the valley of the same name, until August 1873. It then moved across the Chiricahua Mountains to San Simon, where sufficient arable land afforded agricultural potential. But this location proved so unhealthy that the agency was moved in November 1873 to Pinery Canyon.
6. Howard’s report of June 1872, CIA, Annual Report (1872), 155.
7. Crook to AAG San Francisco, December 13, 1872, January 24, February 11, 1873, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2465 AGO 1871, roll 123, frames 519–21, 557–58, 570–72, NARA. GO 10, Hq. Military Division of the Pacific, San Francisco, November 21, 1871, ibid., frames 209–10. Charles Robinson, Crook, 130–31. John G. Bourke, The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke, Vol. 1, November 20, 1872–July 28, 1876, ed. Charles M. Robinson III (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2003), 63–64, 468–70.
8. Charles J. Kappler, comp., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, 7 vols. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1902–3), 1:813–14.
9. Vandever to CIA, Washington, January 23, 1874.
10. Smith to Jeffords, December 29, 1873, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 3383 AGO 1873, roll 123, frames 56–59, NARA.
11. Jeffords to CIA, May 31, 1874, RG 75, BIA NM, 1849–89, MT-21, roll 23, 1874, NARA.
12. Dudley to CIA, Santa Fe, June 30, 1874, CIA, Annual Report (1874), 300–302.
13. Sweeney, Cochise, 395–97, deals with Cochise’s last days and burial.
14. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 30.
15. Shapard, Loco, chaps. 4–10, deals with the tortuous events that led to this outcome.
16. CIA, Annual Report (1874), 59, 63, 302–4, 310–11. Jeffords’s annual report, August 21, 1875, ibid., 209–10. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 39.
17. Jeffords to CIA, Apache Pass, August 21, 1875, CIA, Annual Report (1875), 209–10.
18. Clum’s annual report, September 1, 1875, ibid., 215–20. Events on the White Mountain Reservation, which involved incessant feuding with the military, are traced in a lengthy series of official documents in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 2504 AGO 1875, roll 194, on frames starting at the beginning of the roll. The White Mountains (or Coyoteros) were mountain Indians, and their homes starkly contrasted with the low-lying Gila Valley in the Howard extension.
19. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 47, citing Arizona newspapers. Jeffords to CIA, Apache Pass, October 3, 1876, CIA, Annual Report (1876), 3–4.
20. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 47, citing Jeffords to CIA, April 27, 1876, RG 75, M234, R16, NARA, and Thomas E. Farish, History of Arizona, 8 vols. (San Francisco: Filmer Brothers, 1915–18), 2:238–39.
21. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 49–50, including citations.
22. (Tucson) Arizona Citizen, April 15, 1876.
CHAPTER 10. REMOVAL TO THE GILA RIVER
1. The threat to Jeffords’s life is recounted only in his final report, which strangely has not turned up in official records. It was printed in the Silver City Grant County Herald, July 22, 1876.
2. Schofield to AGUSA, citing telegram from Kautz, Fort Bowie, June 7, 1876, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, 2576 AGO 1876, M666, Correspondence relating to the removal of the Chiricahua Apaches to San Carlos, roll 265, frame 338, NARA. Kautz to AAG San Francisco, Hq. DA Prescott, June 30, 1876, ibid., frames 363–71. John P. Clum annual report, San Carlos, October 1876, CIA, Annual Report (1876), 10–12. Jeffords to CIA, Apache Pass, October 3, 1876, ibid., 3–4. Jeffords’s final report is in Grant County Herald, July 22, 1876. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 56–57.
3. (Tucson) Arizona Weekly Citizen, June 17, 24, 1876.
4. Kautz to AAG San Francisco, Hq. DA Prescott, June 30, 1876. Kautz annual report, September 15, 1876, SW, Annual Report (1876), 98–104. Clum annual report, San Carlos, October 1876. John P. Clum, “Geronimo,” New Mexico Historical Review 3 (January 1928): 18–19. In the 1920s, Clum wrote a series of long articles for this journal, all designed to portray himself as hugely important. Because Clum exaggerated and sometimes fabricated, the articles must be used with extreme caution. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 57–59.
5. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 69, citing Mexican and Arizona newspapers and RG 75, NARA.
6. Ibid., 75–77, citing newspapers. Also Thrapp, Victorio, 183.
7. Geronimo, scrambling chronology and facts, describes this fight in Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 121. Detailed military reports are cited below. Perico Interview, Sol Tax Papers, box 19, folder 15, University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center.
8. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 122. Balatchu Account, “Chiricahua Bands,” Opler Papers, box 35, folder 3. Sam Haozous told Opler that the peace at Ojo Caliente was shattered by the presence of these fugitives. Ibid., box 37, folder 36.
9. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 78–79. (Tucson) Arizona Weekly Citizen, February 10, 17, March 17, 1877.
10. The charges and countercharges, and the articles in the Tucson newspapers, are treated in Army and Navy Journal, April 7, 1877, 563. See also Kautz annual report, August 15, 1877, SW, Annual Report (1877), 133–49. Kautz to Gen. W. T. Sherman, Prescott, April 9, 1877, Sherman Papers, Library of Congress.
11. (Tucson) Arizona Daily Citizen, January 6, 1877.
12. Rucker to Post Adjutant Fort Bowie, January 14, 1877, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, roll 265, frames 507–10, NARA. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 121–22. Sweeney, Coch
ise to Geronimo, 76–77. Rucker counted ten dead men. Geronimo recalled five women, seven children, and four men.
13. (Tucson) Arizona Weekly Citizen, March 17, 1877.
14. Andrew Wallace, “General August V. Kautz in Arizona, 1874–1878,” Arizoniana 4 (Winter 1963): 54–65. Kautz annual report, 135.
15. Telegram, CIA J. Q. Smith to Clum at Camp Grant via Tucson, March 20, 1877, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–89, M666, 1927 AGO 1877, roll 326, frame 252, NARA.
16. This seems the best version that can be recovered, and it coincides closely with the first account Clum penned, on April 24—not to his superiors but to his friend, the editor of the (Tucson) Arizona Weekly Citizen; it appeared in the edition of May 8, 1877; another version was published on May 19, 1877. In a chain of magazine and newspaper articles, together with speeches and a pamphlet, ending only in 1929, Clum exaggerated and fabricated an increasingly dramatic account of his courageous and dangerous encounter with Geronimo. He repeatedly labeled it “the first capture of Geronimo.” Andrew Wallace, “General August V. Kautz in Arizona, 1974–1878,” Arizoniana 4 (Winter 1963): 62, is a more reliable rendering, as is a collection of documents entitled “All about Courtesy,” in “Documents of Arizona History, Selected from the Archives of the Society: ‘All about Courtesy’: In a Verbal War, John P. Clum Has a Parting Shot,” Arizoniana 4 (Spring 1962): 11–18. Wallace’s conclusion, which I share, is that Clay Beauford deserves most of the credit for subduing Geronimo. So abundant are Clum’s vainglorious rants over half a century that they provide the basis for most accounts of Geronimo’s arrest.
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