While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
During the march toward the border Miles
himself was on the anxious seat. Much was
expected of him. He had promised much. Yet
for four months his army of five thousand
men had been employed against these
thirty-eight Chiricahuas. His troops had
suffered serious fatalities and casualties,
yet not a single renegade had been killed or
captured. Now they were coming to surrender
to him. Would they hold fast to their
intention? And would they yield on terms
that matched his promises to the public and
that fulfilled the requirements laid upon
him by the President and the commanding
General of the Army?
To Gatewood, Lawton, and other officers who
were bringing in the hostilities the
uncertainty as to the outcome became
agonizing, for Miles refused for several
days to meet Gatewood, Lawton and the
Indians for the conference that had been
agreed upon. He ordered Lawton not to bring
the Chiricahuas on American soil unless they
delivered hostages into his hands. But
Lawton had promised them safe conduct into
Miles' presence. He was bound by the honor
of an American officer! Miles would not
stir. The Indians were growing very restive
and suspicious. More than once they had
urged Gatewood to run away with them through
the mountains toward Fort Bowie so that they
could get into direct contact with Miles;
but knowing that Miles was not then at Fort
Bowie and fearing that if he left them to go
in search of the General, they might be
attacked either by the Mexicans or by one of
our own commands operating in that
neighborhood, Gatewood refuse their pleas.
Lawton at last, in desperation, said to
Lieutenant Abiel Smith, next in command,
that he saw no way out but to let them go,
give them a start of twenty-four hours in
accordance with a promise made to them, and
then go after them again. Smith's soldierly
honor did not irk him to the degree Crook's
did, or Gatewood's, or Lawton's. He said
with a grim and knowing smile:
"I haven't promised them anything. You stay
here [at the San Bernardino Ranch] and
communicate with Miles and I'll take
command." Days went by and still Miles
refused to come to meet the Indians. Lawton
wrote to his wife, September 2: "I am too
anxious and worried to write you much. I
cannot get the General to come out and see
them and they are very uneasy about it. What
will occur, no one can tell." (For this
quotation and many additional details, see
Hagedorn, op. cit., Vol. I, chap. 5.) Lawton
being temporarily absent, there was talk of
attacking the Indians and killing Geronimo.
The renegades got wind of this, and mounting
their horses, took the back trail. But
Gatewood followed them at once and was able
to restore their confidence. Abiel Smith was
rather strong for direct action. Geronimo
asked Gatewood what he would do if the
soldiers fired upon his people. Gatewood
said he would try to stop it, but that, if
he could not do so, he would run away with
them. Nachez then said: "Better stay right
with us lest some of our men believe you
treacherous and kill you." Gatewood was in a
very difficult situation, indeed. He was so
sensitive to any mention of attacking the
Indians that he asked to be transferred to
some other command; but Lawton gave him to
understand that, if necessary, he would use
force to compel him to remain with his
command. At last, at Skeleton Canyon on
September 3, Geronimo's brother having been
sent to Miles as a hostage, the General met
Gatewood and Lawton for the promised parley
with the renegades.
September 4 Miles met Geronimo and Nachez
and agreed upon the terms of surrender.
There was tremendous commotion in
officialdom following Miles' report that the
hostiles had surrendered. It developed into
a "battle above the clouds," and ended in a
Senate investigation during which every
order, report, telegram, and comment dealing
with the event was introduced. The language
of war is best adapted for the elucidation
of the matter. It began with a machine-gun
chatter of telegrams from such high
officials as President Cleveland,
Lieutenant-General Sheridan, the Secretary
of War, and General O. O. Howard, Commander
of the Division of the Pacific. This was
replied to by a smoke screen of rhetoric on
the part of General Miles: "their surrender
as prisoners of war to the troops in the
field," "the last hereditary chief of the
hostile Apaches," "direct result of the
intrepid zeal and indefatigable efforts of
the troops in the field," "Skeleton Cañon, a
favorite resort of the Indians in former
years and well suited by name and tradition
to witness the closing scenes of such an
Indian war." Then came the camouflage that
led the effete gentlemen of the East to
suppose that Geronimo and his band had been
captured or had surrendered without
conditions; the disappearance of one
telegram--"sunk without trace"--and the
temporary suppression of another one at a
very crucial moment by Miles'
Adjutant-General--these are some of the
colorful aspects of this battle of words.
Unfortunately, Cleveland, Sheridan, the
Secretary of War, and Howard all interpreted
Miles' account of the submission of the
hostiles as meaning that they had been
captured or had surrendered unconditionally.
The news was immeasurably gratifying to
Cleveland and Sheridan. As early as August
23 Cleveland had telegraphed to the War
Department: "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."
September 7 he telegraphed to the Secretary
of War urging that "all the hostiles should
be very safely kept as prisoners until they
can be tried for their crimes or otherwise
disposed of." The same day, September 7,
Sheridan telegraphed Miles as follows: "As
the disposition of Geronimo and his hostile
band is yet to be decided by the President
and as they are prisoners without
conditions, you are hereby directed to hold
them in close confinement at Fort Bowie
until the decision of the President is
communicated to you." This same day,
September 7, Sheridan telegraphed Cleveland
recommending "that Geronimo and all the
adult males that have surrendered with him
to General Miles be held as prisoners by the
military at such point in the Department of
Arizona as General Miles may determine,
subject to such trial and punishment as may
be awarded them by the civil authorities of
the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico."
In reply to the above telegram came one from
Cleveland, September 8, saying: "I think
Geronimo and the rest of the hostiles should
be immediately sent to the nearest fort or
prison where they can be securely confined.
The most important thing now is to guard
against all chances of escape."
Now what Miles had actually reported to his
superior officers was this: "I informed
[them] should they throw down their arms and
place themselves entirely at our mercy we
should certainly not kill them, but that
they must surrender absolutely as prisoners
of war to the Federal authorities, and rely
upon the Government to treat them fairly and
justly. I informed them that I was removing
all the Chiricahuas and Warm Springs from
Arizona, and that they would all be removed
from this country at once and for all time."
Did Cleveland and Sheridan misinterpret
Miles' words because they lacked adequate
training in logic and the correct use of the
English language, or did Miles report an
unconditional surrender and the conditions
upon which the surrender was made in one and
the same breath? It is for the reader to
decide. What is plain is that Miles was
handling a very hot potato and desired to
pass it on just as soon as possible. In
reality, on the morning of September 8,
before he had read Sheridan's telegram of
September 7, he had entrained the hostile,
and started them for San Antonio in charge
of Lawton, Wood, and a strong escort.
Howard, Miles' immediate superior in
command, charged Miles with starting the
hostiles for Florida "in direct
contravention of the LieutenantGeneral and
without waiting to hear the decision of the
President or of the War Department." Miles
denied this. But there are other ways of
killing a cat than by choking it with
butter. Hagedorn, basing his statement upon
an entry in Leonard Wood's Diary for
September 8, 1886, says: "The acting
adjutant-general on Miles' staff [ Captain
William A. Thompson] . . . received the
telegram as the troops were preparing to
take the Indians to the railroad, read it,
tucked it in his pocket. . . . Wood,
arriving with Lawton and the balance of the
hostile, with orders to go with them as far
as San Antonio, had time only to refresh his
tattered wardrobe before the escort wagons
drew up. . . . Captain Thompson, riding down
to the railroad at Wood's side, very mellow
and friendly, patted his pocket. 'I've got
something here which would stop this
movement, but I am not going to let the old
man see it until you are gone.'" (Ibid., pp.
102-103.)
Miles must have drawn a long breath of
relief the moment that the entrained Indians
crossed the limits of his Department.
September 10 the Secretary of War
telegraphed to General D. S. Stanley at San
Antonio, commanding the Department of Texas:
"You will take charge of these Indians and
securely confine them at San Antonio
barracks and hold them until further
orders." The same day Stanley replied by
wire: " Geronimo and party have arrived and
are quartered in quartermaster's depot under
guard. There is no permanent or safe
guardhouse and no place of security at the
post proper, which is only now in course of
construction." Miles' disposition of the
hostiles was playing hob with the plans of
the President and the higher Army officials.
Not until September 11 was Sheridan informed
that the Indians had been stopped at San
Antonio. September 13 he instructed Miles
"to forward without delay a special report
of the capture of Geronimo and the hostile
Apaches." Evidently Miles did not report
promptly. September 17 General Howard sent
this telegram to the AdjutantGeneral at
Washington: "The special field order of
General Miles directing that Geronimo and
his band be sent to Fort Marion, Florida,
states it is issued in obedience to
telegraphic instructions from the Acting
Secretary of War, dated September 4. Will
you please furnish me with a copy of these
instructions?" September 18 the Acting
Adjutant-General replied to Howard: "There
is no record of a telegram of September 4,
or any other date, from the Acting Secretary
of War to General Miles, directing him to
send Geronimo and band to Fort Marion,
Florida. No such order has been given."
September 23 the Acting Secretary of War
sent the following telegram to Howard: "The
President desires you, without delay, to
send him by telegraph a full report of the
capture of Geronimo and the Apaches who were
with him." The same day Howard replied: "
GeneralMiles was ordered by telegraph on the
13th instant to forward without delay a
special report of the capture of Geronimo
and the Apaches who were with him. On the
18th instant he acknowledged the receipt of
the telegram, and stated the report would be
forwarded by mail." September 24 the
President wired Howard that he would "be
satisfied with a detailed account of the
immediate circumstances attending the
capture." That same day Howard replied in a
dispatch of considerable length that
concluded with this paragraph:
"I believed at first from official reports
that the surrender was unconditional, except
that the troops themselves would not kill
the hostiles. Now from General Miles'
dispatches and from his annual report . . .
the conditions are plain: first, that the
lives of all the Indians should be spared;
second, that they should be sent to Fort
Marion, Florida, where their tribe,
including their families, had already been
ordered."
Howard's telegram was referred to Sheridan,
and September 25 he returned it to the
Secretary of War with this endorsement: "It
was my understanding that Geronimo and the
hostiles surrendered unconditionally, and it
was on that account that I recommended that
they should be turned over to the civil
authorities of Arizona and New Mexico for
trial and such punishment as might be
awarded them."
September 24 Miles made his belated special
report. It contained nothing that had not
already been included in the annual report
summarized above by Howard. September 25 the
Secretary of War wired Miles: "It would
appear from disdispatches received through
division headquarters that Geronimo, instead
of being captured, surrendered, and that the
surrender, instead of being unconditional,
was, contrary to expectations here,
accompanied with conditions and promises.
That the President may dearly understand the
present status of Geronimo and his band, he
desires you to report by telegraph direct
the exact promises, if any, made to them at
the time of surrender." In reply, on the
twenty-fifth, Miles telegraphed to the
President requesting that he might report to
him in person. The following day Cleveland
wired denying this request on the ground
that it was important for Miles to remain
with his command at that time. He also
emphatically repeated his request of the
previous day. At last poor Miles
telegraphed, September 29: "On the 6th
instant, I forwarded telegraphic report of
153 words, and on 19th forwarded special
report, together with report in full of
Captain Lawton, also my annual report. These
give as full an account of facts,
circumstances, and conversations as language
can express, and as this matter involves the
lives of men, I beg that they may be
carefully read before any further action is
taken."
The President was a man slow to get
impressions, but determined in his efforts
to learn. So, September 29, the following
telegram was sent by the Secretary of War to
Stanley at San Antonio: "That there may be
no misunderstanding here as to the status of
Geronimo and the Indians who surrendered
with him, the President desires you to
ascertain, as fully and clearly as possible,
the exact understanding of Geronimo and
Nachez as to the conditions of the surrender
and the immediate circumstances which led to
it."
Stanley's report showed that Geronimo and
Nachez had clearly understood all that Miles
promised them--and quite a little more.
"Both chiefs say they never thought of
surrender until Lieutenant Gatewood,
interpreter George Wratten, and the two
scouts came to them and said the Great
Father wanted them to surrender; that they
believed this, but did not believe Crook,
because he talked ugly to them, and that
they thought he would put them under Chatto,
and that when Geronimo met Miles at Skeleton
Cañon, the latter said: 'Lay down your arms
and come with me to Fort Bowie, and in five
days you will see your families, now in
Florida with Chihuahua, and no harm will be
done.' "
October 11 the Secretary of War directed
Stanley to supply by telegram the name, age,
sex, and condition of health of each one of
the hostile Apaches in his custody at San
Antonio. Stanley replied the same day giving
details concerning the fifteen men, eleven
women, and six children in the band, and
also the names of the two enlisted scouts
who had gone with Gatewood into their camp
to demand their surrender. October 19 the
Secretary of War issued an order to Sheridan
to send the fifteen adult male hostiles
under proper guard to Fort Pickens, Florida,
to be kept there in close custody. The same
order decreed that the eleven women, six
children, and two scouts should be sent to
Fort Marion, Florida, to be placed with the
other Chiricahua and Warm Spring Indians who
had been taken there in September. (There is
a discrepancy between this report and that
of Lieutenant Gatewood. Stanley reports
thirty-two Apaches in all. Gatewood states
the thirty-eight surrendered. The
contradiction is accounted for by the fact
that the night before Lawton reached Fort
Bowie with his prisoners, three men and
three women slipped out of his camp and
escaped into the mountains.)
October 20 L. Q. C. Lamar, the Secretary of
the Interior, gave his approval of the above
order. The prisoners for both Fort Pickens
and Fort Marion left San Antonio by special
train, October 22. October 25 General
Schofield telegraphed the Adjutant-General
that the fifteen male hostiles had been
delivered at Fort Pickens.
At the same time that Miles was pressing the
campaign against the renegades in Mexico he
was deeply employed in an attempt to remove
forever from Arizona the Chiricahua and Warm
Spring Indians located on the military
reservation near Fort Apache. Men, women,
and children, they numbered four hundred and
forty. Their status was that of prisoners of
war. They were kept under strict
surveillance by the military, but had never
been disarmed or dismounted. Among them were
Chatto, Loco, Ka-ya-ten-na, and many other
scouts who had served faithfully and
efficiently under Crook in his campaigns
against Nachez, Chihuahua, Mangus, and
Geronimo in 1885, and in 1886. These four
hundred and forty prisoners of war had been
more or less industriously cultivating
little farms near Fort Apache, accumulating
cows, sheep, horses and mules, and cutting
and selling hay and wood to the Government.
The leaders seemed to be doing their best
under the very difficult circumstances to
live the life of the white man so earnestly
pointed out to them by Crook. They were
intensely hated and feared by the citizens
of Arizona and heartily disliked by the
White Mountain and other Apaches.
In July Miles went to Fort Apache for the
purpose of working out some plan by which
these Indians could be removed to a remote
location in the East. He talked with the
leading men, holding before them rosy
pictures of what the Government might be
persuaded to do for them in money and farms
and stock if they would consent peaceably to
leave their native mountains and mesas and
give up their plots of ground for Larger and
more productive holdings in some new land.
He was able to induce a delegation of ten or
twelve of the principal men to go to
Washington for the purpose of inquiring what
the Government would be willing to do for
them if they moved. It was an ill-advised
step on the part of Miles; there was no good
ground to believe that the Government would
or could relocate them satisfactorily on an
Eastern reservation. However, about the
middle of July, the delegation journeyed to
Washington in charge of Captain J. H. Dorst,
with Mickey Free, Concepcion, and Sam Bowman
as interpreters. Chatto was the leading man
in the delegation.
The Indians met the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Interior and were presented
to President Cleveland. But no decision was
reached concerning a new location, nor was
anything important accomplished. Chatto was
presented with a large silver medal, and
Secretary Endicott of the War Department
gave him a certificate to carry away. These
gifts pleased Chatto and set his disturbed
mind at rest, for he supposed, naturally,
that they were marks of approval from the
highest officers of the Government and
carried with them the assurance that he and
his people were not to be removed from the
Apache reservation. He was soon
disillusioned. While the delegation was
still in Washington, Cleveland and Sheridan
had made up their minds that all of the
Chiricahuas, both the delegation in
Washington and those at home on the
reservation, should be sent to Fort Marion,
Florida, and held there as prisoners.
Sheridan telegraphed to Miles, July 31: "The
President wishes me to ask what you think of
the proposition to forcibly arrest all on
the reservation and send them to Fort
Marion, Florida, where they can be joined by
the party now here." Miles replied by wire,
August 2, giving his reactions, pro and con,
to the President's proposal. On the whole,
he favored it; but he pointed out this
serious objection: "As the delegation went
to Washington by authority of the Government
with a view of making some permanent
arrangement for their future, I fear it
would be charged that the Government had
taken advantage of them, and believe the
Indians would consider it an act of bad
faith. . . ." However, he protested against
the return of the delegation to Arizona; for
he had already taken steps for the forcible
removal of the Chiricahuas in Arizona.
Colonel Wade, in command at Fort Apache, had
been directed to keep them completely under
his control. Accordingly, Chatto and his
party were delayed at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, for five days; and then,
notwithstanding Miles' request that they be
detained still longer, were again started on
their way to Arizona. By the time they
reached Kansas, the War Department, yielding
to Miles' repeated request, ordered that
they be stopped and taken to Fort
Leavenworth; and there they were held, in
fear and great anxiety of mind, until
September 12. The Secretary of War then sent
the following order to the Commanding
General of the Division of the Missouri:
"You will cause the Apache Indians now at
Fort Leavenworth to be sent under charge of
Captain Dorst, Fourth Cavalry, by the most
direct and expeditious route to St.
Augustine, Florida, and upon arrival to be
turned over to the commanding officer at
that post for confinement with other Indian
prisoners now there." This disposition of
the delegation met the approval of President
Cleveland, Endicott, the Secretary of War,
L. Q. C. Lamar, the Secretary of the
Interior, and Lieutenant-General Sheridan.
During August and September, while the
delegation was confined at Fort Leavenworth,
Miles had made ample military preparation
for the removal of the four hundred and
twenty-eight Indians on the reservation. He
had added to Colonel Wade's five troops
stationed at Fort Apache a troop from San
Carlos, two from Fort Thomas, and one from
Alma, New Mexico. The Indian men were placed
under guard and disarmed; and on September 7
the whole camp--men, women, and
children--were started for Holbrook, one
hundred miles away, where they were put on
the Atlantic and Pacific Railway train and
sent by way of Albuquerque, St. Louis, and
Atlanta, to Fort Marion, Florida, which they
reached on September 20, the same day that
Chatto and his party arrived.
It has seemed to citizens of sensitive
honor--particularly to men like Captain John
G. Bourke, Lieutenants Charles B. Gatewood
and Britton Davis, and General George Crook,
humane and chivalrous soldiers--that these
Chiricahua and Warm Spring Reservation
Indians were dishonorably dealt with by the
Government. In the closing pages of his
excellent book, Britton Davis, with caustic
force, arraigns the Government for its
treatment of these Indians; and the valiant
John G. Bourke, at the close of Chapter XXIX
of his great book, On the Border with Crook,
has this to say about Miles' campaign
against the outlaw Chiricahuas and
concerning the final disposition of the
well-behaved Indians who had remained on the
reservation:
"Not a single Chiricahua had been killed,
captured, or wounded throughout the entire
campaign--with two exceptions--unless by
Chiricahua-Apache scouts who, like ' Chato,'
had kept the pledges given to General Crook
in the Sierra Madre in 1883. The exceptions
were: one killed by the White Mountain
Apaches near Fort Apache, and one killed by
a white man in northern Mexico. Yet every
one of those faithful scouts--especially the
two 'Ki-e-ta' and 'Martinez,' who had at
imminent personal peril gone into the Sierra
Madre to hunt up 'Geronimo' and induce him
to surrender, were transplanted to Florida
and there subjected to the same punishment
as had been meted out to 'Geronimo.' And
with them were sent men like 'Goth-Kli' and
'Toklanni,' who were not Chiricahuas at all,
but had only lately married wives of that
band, who had never been on the war-path in
any capacity except as soldiers of the
Government, and had devoted years to its
service. There is no more disgraceful page
in the history of our relations with the
American Indians than that which conceals
the treachery visited upon the Chiricahuas
who remained faithful in their allegiance to
our people. An examination of the documents
cited [on a preceding page] will show that I
have used extremely mild language in
alluding to this affair."
General Crook, in a report dated January 6,
1890, to the Secretary of War (who had asked
him to assist in finding a suitable
reservation for these Chiricahua Apaches
after they had suffered four years of
blighting confinement in Florida), with his
usual gravity and calm clarity, shows just
how callous and unjust was the action of
Cleveland and the military authorities in
their dealings with Chatto and his fellow
scouts:
"In the operation against the hostiles,
Chatto and others of his band were enlisted
as scouts in the service of the United
States and rendered invaluable services in
that capacity. It is not too much to say
that the surrender of Nachez, Chihuahua,
Geronimo, and their bands could not have
been effected except for the assistance of
Chatto and his Chiricahua scouts.
"The final surrender of Geronimo and his
small band to General Miles was brought
about only through Chiricahuas who had
remained friendly to the Government.
"When the services were no longer required
Chatto received an honorable discharge and
returned to his farm. He planted wheat and
barley, raised sheep and owned horses and
mules. Before his crops had ripened he was
summoned to Washington. After an interview
with the President he left the capital
expecting to return to his farm at Camp
Apache. On the way he was stopped at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, and kept there for two
months. At the end of this time he was taken
to St. Augustine, and placed in confinement
with the captive hostiles, whose surrender
he had been so instrumental in securing.
Ever since, he has been continued in
confinement with them on the same terms, and
with the yet more guilty band of Geronimo,
which subsequently joined them. . . ."During
my interview with him at Mount Vernon
Barracks, Chatto took from his breast a
large medal that had been presented to him
by President Cleveland and holding it out,
asked, 'Why was I given that to wear in the
guard-house? I thought that something good
would come to me when they gave it to me,
but I have been in confinement ever since I
have had it.' I submit that this Indian has
received but scant encouragement from the
Government in his efforts to become a
self-sustaining citizen."And Chatto is not
alone in this experience. By far the greater
part of the tribe remained true to the
Government in the outbreak of 1885, and the
most valuable and trustworthy of the Indian
scouts were taken from among them. For their
allegiance all have been rewarded alike--by
captivity in a strange land." (Fifty-first
Congress, First Session, Executive Document
No. 83.)
Bibliography
Bourke John G. On she Border with Crook.
New York, Scribner, 1896.
Crook George. Résumé of Operations against
Apache Indians from 1892 to 1996.
Washington, 1886.
Davis Britton. The Truth about Geronimo. New
Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
Gatewood Charles B. The Surrender of
Geronimo. Ed. by General Brigadier Edward S.
Godfrey . 1929.
Hagedorn Hermann. Leonard Wood, A Biography,
Vol. I. New York, Harper, 1931.
Miles Nelson A. Porsonal Recollection.
Chicago, Werner, 1896.
Senate Executive Document No. 117, 49th
Congress, 2d Session.
Senate Executive Document No. 83, 51st
Congress, 1st Session.
War Department Reports, 1886- 1887.
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