For typical samples of Clum’s version of history, see his “Victorio,” New Mexico Historical Review 4 (April 1929): 107–27; “Geronimo,” ibid. 3 (January 1928): 1–40; and Woodworth Clum, Apache Agent: The Story of John P. Clum (1936; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), chaps. 28–33.
17. Thrapp, Victorio, citing official records, has the clearest account of this sequence, 187–90.
CHAPTER 11. GERONIMO’S FIRST BREAKOUT, 1878
1. Clum, Apache Agent, 195. Clum recounts the story of this misadventure in chaps. 26–27. Sweeney, From Cochise to Geronimo, 67–69.
2. Ralph H. Ogle, Federal Control of the Western Apaches, 1848–1886 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1970), 178. Clum, Apache Agent, 250–56. John P. Clum, “The San Carlos Apache Police,” New Mexico Historical Review 4 (July 1929): 203–19. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 87.
3. Abbott to AAG Prescott, San Carlos, August 21, 1877, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1871–80, M666, 5705 AGO 1877, roll 366, frames 96–116, NARA.
4. Vandever to CIA, July 16, 1877, RG 75, Records of Field Jurisdiction of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1873–90, M1070, R2, NARA.
5. RG 393, E204, “Brief of Action Taken in the Matter of Indian Affairs at San Carlos A.T.,” items 12, 25, NARA.
6. Ibid., items 27ff. Although Victorio’s break from San Carlos and the events that followed are documented by much official paper, for the story more succinctly told, see Thrapp, Victorio, chap. 16.
7. RG 393, E204, “Brief of Action,” item 45. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 105, citing Mexican and Arizona newspapers.
8. Hart to Vandever, San Carlos, September 24, 1877, RG 75, M1070, R2, NARA.
9. This state of affairs can be traced throughout RG 393, E204, “Brief of Action.”
10. Ibid., item 63. Acting Agent George Smerdon to Abbott, San Carlos, August 9, 1878, RG 93, Misc. Records, DA, 1875–79, NARA. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 47–48. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 118–19. E-mail, Sweeney to Utley, April 5, 2010.
CHAPTER 12. BACK TO SAN CARLOS, 1878–79
1. (Tucson) Arizona Weekly Citizen, October 12, 1879, citing (Silver City, NM) Grant County Herald, October 8, 1879.
2. Abbott to AAG DA, Fort Thomas, December 4, 1878, RG 393, LS, Fort Thomas, NARA. Two women and two children, en route to San Carlos from the Nednhis south of Janos, stopped at Fort Thomas and related these events to Lt. Abbott, including casualties and locations and the Nednhi division into three groups. The attack on Geronimo is reported in the Sonoran Boletin Oficial, January 3, 1879, printing a military document from Arizpe of November 16, 1878. Edwin Sweeney generously provided this document in e-mail, Sweeney to Utley, April 16, 2010. In Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 105, Geronimo recounts this fight, although he got the date wrong and he did not kill all the Mexican soldiers. His location and admitted loss of twelve warriors coincides with the Mexican commander’s report. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 123.
3. Shapard, Loco, 120–23.
4. I have treated the war in “Victorio’s War,” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 21 (Autumn 2008): 20–29. The history of the events preceding has been well chronicled in Thrapp, Victorio, chaps 16–22; and Shapard, Loco, chaps. 10–17. For involvement of Juh’s Chiricahuas in the Victorio War, see Maj. A. P. Morrow to AAG Dist. NM, Fort Bayard, November 3, 1879; and U.S. Consul H. L. Scott to Second Assistant Secretary of State, Chihuahua City, November 29, 1879; both in M1495, roll 14, Special Files of Hq. Div. of the Missouri Relating to Military Operations and Administration, 1863–1885, NARA.
5. Robinson, Apache Voices, 103. These words were related to Eve Ball by Eustice Fatty, Gordo’s son.
6. A thorough account of Haskell’s little-known mission is Allan Radbourne, “The Juh-Geronimo Surrender of 1879,” English Westerners Brand Book 21 (1983): 1–18. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 138–39, is more detailed and in places differs from Radbourne.
7. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 139–45, has the best account of these activities.
8. Haskell reported these and later events in great detail in two long telegrams from Camp Rucker to Willcox in Prescott, December 14, 21, 1879, RG 393, LR, DA, 3995 DA 1879, 8294 AGO 1879, NARA.
9. Tucson dispatch of May 24, 1880, in New York Times, June 4, 1880, contains the item about Geronimo killing the dissident leader. It is part of a long and surprisingly accurate account of Haskell’s mission.
10. Telegram, Haskell to ADC DA, Fort Bowie, December 31, 1879, RG 393, LR, DA, NARA. The entire Haskell episode is treated in Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 138–43.
CHAPTER 13. GERONIMO’S SECOND BREAKOUT, 1881
1. Sweeney, “In the Shadow of Geronimo: Chihuahua of the Chiricahuas,” Wild West 13 (August 2000), 25–28, 67. For the views of Asa Daklugie (Juh’s son) and Eugene Chihuahua (Chihuahua’s son), see Ball, Indeh, 31, 43, 47.
2. This paragraph has been distilled from Collins, Great Escape, 21–34. Ample documentation in both Indian and white sources confirms this portrait.
3. Albert E. Wrattan, “George Wrattan: ChiefApache Scout and Interpreter [for] Geronimo and His Warriors,” MS, n.d., intended as a book. Albert was George’s son. MS loaned by Henrietta Stockel.
4. Affidavit by Chatto, Opler Papers, box 36, folder 23.
5. Daklugie made this point in Ball, Indeh, 11.
6. The Cibicue affair and its aftermath generated reams of official documentation, both civil and military, which I have examined. Relevant in this study is the effect of Cibicue on Geronimo and the Chiricahuas, and the details need not be laid out. An authoritative history of Cibicue is Charles Collins, Apache Nightmare: The Battle at Cibicue Creek (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).
7. Ibid. chronicles the Cibicue story in well-documented detail.
8. Opler Papers, box 35, folder 4.
9. Chihuahua and Naiche throw some light on this council, although nothing we do not know from other sources. Statement of Naiche to Capt. Emmet Crawford at San Carlos, November 5, 1883; and Chihuahua, November 19, 1883, RG 393, Records of San Carlos, NARA.
10. The official military and civil reports are self-serving. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 182–83, presents the best interpretation. See also Collins, Great Escape, 26–28; and CIA, Annual Report (1881), vii–x.
11. Maj. George B. Sanford to AAG DA, Willcox, October 15, 1881, SW, Annual Report (1881), 146–47. John F. Finerty, “On Campaign after Cibicue Creek,” Chicago Times, September 18–October 21, 1881, in Peter Cozzens, ed., Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865–1890, Vol. 1, The Struggle for Apacheria (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2001), 256–59.
12. My account of the breakout is based mainly on Collins, Great Escape, chaps. 3–7; and Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 182–83.
CHAPTER 14. GERONIMO ABDUCTS LOCO, 1882
1. James Kaywaykla, Nana’s grandson, was present and described the conference. Ball, In the Day of Victorio, 123–28. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 192–93.
2. Shapard, Loco, 143, discusses motivations, including the traditions of Loco’s descendants. Shapard is also a prime authority for the following narrative. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 195–96. Geronimo recalled that Mexican troops had grown stronger, creating a need for more men to fight them. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 107.
3. Shapard, Loco, 146–48. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 211–14. Willcox’s annual report, August 31, 1882, SW, Annual Report (1882), 147.
4. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 56. Sam Hauzhous, another of Loco’s people, identified the shouting leader as Geronimo. Sam Hauzhous interview, Opler Papers, box 37, folder 36.
5. Shapard, Loco, 158. His account, based on official records, differs from Sweeney’s account, also drawing on official records. The officer, Lt. George Sands, puzzled his superiors over his readiness to give up the pursuit, but he contended that he expected reinforcements and was running short on rations.
6. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 58.
7. The literature of Horseshoe Canyon and
its aftermath is extensive: RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1749 AGO 1882, Papers relating to the outbreaks of violence, including several murders in New Mexico and Arizona, by Chiricahua Apaches who escaped from the San Carlos Reservation and to their pacification, NARA. Rolls 96 and 97 contain this entire file of official records from the outbreak of April 1882 to the denouement in Mexico. Forsyth tells his version of Horseshoe Canyon in Thrilling Days of Army Life (1900; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 79–120. His account includes one by Lt. David N. McDonald recounting his own experience. A biography is David Dixon, Hero of Beecher Island: The Life and Military Career of George A. Forsyth (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.). “Record of Events during the Expedition under Lt. Col. G. A. Forsyth, 4th Cavalry, from Fort Cummings, N.M., on April 18, ’82, against the Hostile Apache Indians,” Papers of the Order of the Indian Wars, box 10, folder X18, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. Scout Al Sieber tells his version, critical of Forsyth, in (Prescott) Weekly Courier, May 27, 1882, in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 290–94. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 62–66. Shapard, Loco, 159–63. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 215–17.
Neither Indian nor white accounts deal with McDonald’s foray into the canyon, only with the following battle. McDonald himself told the story in detail in Forsyth’s book, cited above. Much of the Apache actions during this phase must be inferred from this account. Betzinez recounts only the battle.
8. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 65.
9. Forsyth’s official report to AAAG Dist. NM Santa Fe, Stein’s Pass, April 25, 1882, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1749 AGO 1882, roll 96, NARA. Reports of the troop commanders are appended.
10. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 63.
11. The Indian movements are traced both in Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 217–18; and Shapard, Loco, 162–64.
12. Scout Sherman Curley was next to the sergeant of scouts who shot the young woman at the mescal pit. He also tells of the party that got behind the force of scouts blocking the way to the Enmedio Mountains. Grenville Goodwin Papers, autobiography of Sherman Curley. Hauzous interview. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 68–69. See also Shapard, Loco, chap. 13; and Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 219–21.
13. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 79–71. See also Shapard, Loco, 176; and Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 222.
14. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 72. Hauzous interview.
15. Shapard, Loco, 181–82, accepts this accusation. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 226–28, analyzes all the evidence and concludes that the charge is groundless. Sweeney also has details of the battle drawn from Mexican official sources.
16. The entire sequence recounted here is based on an extensive report of Maj. Perry to AAG DA, Willcox, May 16, 1882. The report annexes Tupper to Perry, Fort Huachuca, May 8, 1882, and Rafferty to Perry, Fort Bowie, May 15, 1882. Tupper’s first dispatch, telegraphed to Perry from “East Side of Animas Mountains,” on April 28, located the battle site only as thirty-five miles east of Galeyville, omitting any mention of crossing the border. The army’s official list of engagements places the battle in the Hatchet Mountains, New Mexico. Interestingly, Capt. Rafferty in 1890 received a brevet of major for gallantry in the battle in the Hatchet Mountains. These documents appear in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 97, NARA. Rafferty kept a daily diary, the relevant part printed in the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star, May 17, 1882, in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 286–89. Perhaps sanitized for public consumption, the journal concedes no mistake in the battle nor admits crossing into Mexico. Lt. Stephen C. Mills commanded a scout company. He described the battle in detail in a letter to his mother, Fort Huachuca, May 8, 1882, Stephen C. Mills Papers, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. See also Al Sieber in (Prescott) Weekly Courier, May 27, 1882, ibid., 290–94.
17. Forsyth’s penetration of Mexico is drawn from Record of Events during the expedition of Lt. Col. G. A. Forsyth, 4th Cavalry, from Fort Cummings, New Mexico, on April 18, 1882, against hostile Apache Indians, box 10, folder X18, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA; and from his autobiography, Thrilling Days of Army Life, 114–20. Colonel Mackenzie, who a decade earlier had led a similar American foray into Mexico, returned Forsyth’s official report with the explanation that if the Mexicans made a big issue of the crossing into Mexico, Forsyth might find himself in trouble—“the result justified the end, but the less said about it the better.”
CHAPTER 15. MEXICO: MASSACRES AND RAIDS, 1882–83
1. Griswold, “Fort Sill Apaches,” under Geronimo.
2. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 75–77. Betzinez followed Geronimo for nearly a year. He had a remarkable memory, which is validated by Mexican military records examined by Sweeney and set forth in Cochise to Geronimo, 233–37. Much of what follows is based on these two sources.
3. Barrett, Geronimo, His Own Story, 106. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 78.
4. Sam Hauzous biography, Opler Papers, box 36, folder 37.
5. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 234–35, citing Mexican military sources.
6. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 81.
7. Betzinez went with Geronimo and chronicled his movements and actions in detail. Mexican sources examined by Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 239–48, confirm Betzinez’s narrative. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, chap. 9.
8. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 90.
9. Ibid., 91.
10. Ibid., chap. 10. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 252–53, citing Mexican sources. (Silver City) New Southwest and Grant County Herald, December 2, 1882.
11. Interview of “Peaches” by Lt. John G. Bourke, in Bourke’s diary, April 7, 1883, US Military Academy Library, West Point, NY. Peaches was the anglicized name for a Chiricahua who lived with Geronimo throughout the winter of 1882–83 and was familiar both with these Chiricahuas and the country in which they roamed. He will appear later in this narrative. Betzinez accompanied the raiders into Sonora and described the victims as well as the route, again corroborated by Mexican sources. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 99–101, and map. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 284–85.
12. Daklugie, in Ball, Indeh, 70–73, 101–2. Peaches interview, Bourke diary. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 286–89.
13. Betzinez accompanied Geronimo and Chihuahua so does not describe the Chatto raid. The best source is Peaches interview, Bourke diary. Peaches, a Cibicue White Mountain Apache, wanted to return to San Carlos, so went with the raiders in hopes of slipping away. The best account of the raid is Marc Simmons, Massacre on the Lordsburg Road: A Tragedy of the Apache Wars (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997).
14. Brig. Gen. George Crook to AG MDP, Hq. DA Whipple Barracks Prescott, September 27, 1883, SW, Annual Report (1883), 159–70ff. See also Brig. Gen. R. S. Mackenzie to AAG DM, Santa Fe, September 26, 1883, ibid., 137–45. RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 173, NARA, during March and April 1883 is laden with army reports of operations seeking the raiders.
CHAPTER 16. GERONIMO CONFRONTS CROOK IN THE SIERRA MADRE, 1883
1. The officer was retired Brig. Gen. James Parker. He wrote an informative book entitled Old Army Memories (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1929). The observations in my text, however, are drawn from “Extracts from Personal Memoirs of Brig. Gen. James Parker,” Papers of the Order of the Indian Wars, x38/2, box 11, folder X-40, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. A competent recent biography is Robinson, General Crook and the Western Frontier. Other sources: Crook, Autobiography; Joseph C. Porter, Paper Medicine Man: John Gregory Bourke and His American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); and especially Bourke, On the Border with Crook. This book, by Crook’s longtime aide, has had more influence in shaping public perceptions of Crook than any other and has gone through many editions. Despite Bourke’s hagiographic portrayal of the general, Crook treated his aide shabbily.
&n
bsp; 2. Crook to AG, MDP, Prescott, September 27, 1883, SW, Annual Report (1883), 160. He shared his thinking with all his subordinates in GO 43, Hq. DA, October 5, 1882, ibid., 170–71.
3. Ibid., 160–61.
4. Britton Davis, The Truth about Geronimo (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929, 1963), 31–32.
5. Ibid., 32. M. Salzman Jr., “Geronimo, the Napoleon of Indians,” Journal of Arizona History 8 (Winter 1967): 240.
6. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 57–59. Crook to AAG MDP, Prescott, July 23, 1883, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, roll 174, NARA. This is Crook’s initial report after his return from Mexico. He expanded on it in his annual report. As soon as he crossed the border, on June 11, he telegraphed an abbreviated report to DA headquarters. As forwarded to MDP, it is contained in ibid. In Washington in July, Crook gave an interview to a correspondent that provided some details of the expedition. New York Herald, July 9, 1883, in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 396–404.
7. Simmons, Massacre on the Lordsburg Road, 109–12, describes the event in detail. This book also is the most authoritative treatment of not only the McComas story but also the Chatto-Bonito raid.
8. Crook to AAG MDP, July 23, 1883, as cited in note 4, describes the force he assembled. Lt. Bourke kept a daily diary, May 1–23, which is reprinted in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 346–85. Another officer, thought to be Lt. William Forsyth, kept a diary reprinted in the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star, June 17, 1883, ibid., 391–93. Still another diary, by A. Frank Randall (a photographer whose equipment smashed when a mule fell off a trail), appeared in the El Paso Times, June 20, 1883, ibid., 394–95. See also Dan L. Thrapp, Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), chap. 17.
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