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!
Victory with Dishonor
When General Nelson A. Miles relieved Crook,
April 12, 1886, there were still at large
thirty-six Chiricahua hostiles seventeen
men, including Geronimo and Nachez, and
nineteen women and children. In addition to
this murderous band, led by Geronimo and
Nachez, Mangus was still somewhere in the
Sierra Madre with a party of eleven men,
women, and children. (October 18, 1886,
Mangus, two other warriors, three women, and
seven children were captured in the White
Mountain by Captain Charles L. Cooper of the
Fourth Cavalry, and sent to Florida.) He
had, however, cut himself off from all
contact with the other renegades in August,
1885; and, so far as was known, had
committed no depredations since that time.
On the other hand, of the five hundred and
twelve Chiricahua and Warm Spring Apaches
whom Crook had brought back and placed on
the reservation, three-fourths had remained
loyal and were still living at or near Fort
Apache.
The orders issued to Miles by
Lieutenant-General P. H. Sheridan at the
time he was placed in command were more
drastic than those under which Crook had
operated. Crook's instructions were "to
secure the surrender of the hostiles without
conditions, if possible; with conditions, if
necessary." Miles was ordered to carry on
ceaselessly "the most vigorous operations
looking to the destruction or capture of the
hostiles." He was never able either to
capture or to destroy the renegades; and the
fact that he failed to carry out the exact
orders of President Cleveland and General
Sheridan at the time he accepted Geronimo's
surrender led later to almost endless
dispute and his own discomfiture as a result
of criticisms aimed at him by his superiors,
President Cleveland and General Sheridan. He
had been ordered to capture these Indians,
without any promise of mercy whatsoever, or
to kill them.
Sheridan specifically urged upon Miles "the
necessity of making active and prominent use
of the regular troops" under his command.
This order concerning the "active and
prominent use of regular troops," together
with other implied criticisms of Crook's
military methods, was deeply resented by
Crook and the other able officers who with
him had borne the stress of the long war
with the Apaches. In December, 1886, after
Nachez and Geronimo and their followers had
been finally disposed of, Crook wrote a
letter to the Adjutant-General of the Army,
entitled "Résumé of Operations against
Apache Indians, 1882-1886," in which he
vindicates his course of action in dealing
with Geronimo and the other hostiles and
ably defends his methods of Indian warfare.
At this point in my narrative it seems
desirable to introduce passages from this
strong and illuminating document, for it
deals vitally with Miles' military policies
and operations as dictated to him by
Sheridan.
Crook writes: "The policy pursued by me in
the operations mentioned above has been
criticised as one 'of operating almost
exclusively with Indian Scouts.' I am
unwilling that such a summary should be
placed on official record without a protest,
lest by my silence I should seem to
acquiesce in the justice of a criticism
which would seem to imply that the regular
troops at my disposal were not used at all,
or were used to little advantage.
"A further criticism is implied in the
suggestion of the Lieutenant-General that
the troops be used defensively for the
protection of life and property. The
hostiles were in Mexico; it was therefore
necessary to secure this protection, to
prevent, if possible, their recrossing the
line. To attain this end, troops were
stationed in detachments along the frontier.
To each detachment was assigned five Indian
scouts to watch the front and detect the
approach of the hostiles. These troops were
stationed at every point where it was
thought possible for the hostiles to pass.
Every trail, every water-hole, from the
Patagonia Mountains to the Rio Grande was
thus guarded. The troops were under the
strictest orders, constantly to patrol this
line, each detachment having a particular
section of country assigned to its special
charge.
"In addition to this, a second line was
similarly established in rear of the first,
both to act as a reserve and to prevent the
passing of the hostiles who might elude the
vigilance of the first line. Behind this
again were stationed troops on the railroad
who might be sent to any desired point on
the whole front, forming thus a third line.
"The posts of Fort Thomas, Grant, and
Bayard, with troops stationed at various
points on the Gila, at Ash Springs, in the
Mogollon Mountains, and other places, formed
in reality a fourth line.
"The approach of the hostiles toward any
point on the border was telegraphed to all
threatened points and the citizens warned in
advance. In no case did the hostiles succeed
in passing the first line of troops without
detection and pursuit. All troops, wherever
stationed, had orders to pursue vigorously,
and as long as possible, any hostiles who
might come within striking distance. In
spite, however, of all the efforts of the
troops the hostiles did pass these lines,
and the pursuits that ensued, though they
were persistent, indefatigable, and
untiring, and frequently successful in
capturing the Indians' stock, resulted in no
other loss to the enemy. Troops never worked
harder or more deserved success, but during
the entire sixteen months of these
operations, not a single man, woman, or
child of the hostiles was killed or captured
by the troops of the regular Army." (From a
photostat copy made by Charles Morgan Wood.)
Crook had had under his command three
thousand troops, and had considered this
number all that could be used advantageously
under the conditions. Miles was assigned two
thousand additional men. The most noteworthy
deviations in policy that Miles made from
the methods employed by Crook were: first,
the introduction of the heliostat for
purposes of signaling; second, the
stationing of troops at all ranches most in
danger of attack; and third, the limitation
of enlisted Apaches to service as scouts and
trailers in cooperation with picked cavalry
and infantry commands who were to pursue and
fight the renegades wherever they might go.
Much credit is due Miles for introducing and
successfully operating the heliograph --a
telegraphic device for communicating over
great distances by means of long and short
flashes of the sun's rays reflected from
mirrors, in accordance with the code of the
Morse telegraphic system. At Miles' request
General William B. Hazen, Chief Signal
Officer of the Army, sent a body of officers
and men highly skilled in the use of this
instrument to establish and operate the
heliograph in the Department of Arizona.
Twentyseven intercommunicating stations were
established on high mountain peaks in
Arizona and New Mexico. (Miles Nelson A.
Personal Recollections, pp. 481-485.
Chicago, Werner, 1896.) His mobile infantry,
Miles used to search out the enemy's common
resorts and lurking places in the nearer
mountain ranges, to occupy strategic
mountain passes, and to guard the supplies.
The cavalry he proposed to use in light
scouting parties, with a sufficient force
always in readiness to make the most
determined and effective pursuit.
These cavalry commands, in reality, were to
take the place of the Indian scouts as
utilized by Crook. Commanding officers were
ordered to continue the pursuit until the
quarry was captured or until certain that a
fresh command was on the trail. Miles
selected Captain H. W. Lawton, Fourth
Cavalry, to lead his crack cavalry pursuit
column; and with Lawton went Acting
Assistant Surgeon, young Leonard Wood.
Lawton was chosen for this most crucial and
difficult part in the campaign, not only
because of his exceptional record during the
Civil War and his general high qualities as
an officer, but also because of his
extraordinary strength and toughness of
physique and his confident belief that the
Apaches could be outmaneuvered, worn down,
and subjugated by white soldiers. This
attempt to make use of regular troops for
pursuit of the Apaches in their wildest and
most distant mountain fastnesses in Mexico
was such a service as few white men could
possibly endure, and such as should not have
been required of regular troops. Lawton and
Wood, however, were not the first officers
to pit themselves against the savage
Chiricahua on his own ground and in his own
manner. An account has been given in the
previous chapter of the almost superhuman
hardships in this kind endured by Crawford,
Gatewood, Wirt Davis, Britton Davis, Maus,
Bourke, and Crook himself. But now, for the
first time, an effort was made to engage in
such a campaign with a whole command of
white men; and the outcome was very
disappointing. Lawton and Leonard Wood
undertook thus to match the Apache in his
own primitive way in his own wild habitat
with a sort of grim, yet buoyant daring.
They were out to show that white men were
more than a match for savages, catch as
catch can. Wood, like Lawton, was picked by
Miles on account of his combined qualities
of keen intelligence, physical endurance,
and resoluteness of spirit. When it came to
the supreme test in the campaign through
June, July, and most of August, 1886, during
which they passed over one mountain range
after another, nine and ten thousand feet
above sea level, and through canyons where
the July and August heat was of scorching
intensity, Lawton and Wood alone of the
white soldiers were able to endure to the
end. The command, as organized at that time,
consisted of one company of infantry,
thirty-five picked cavalrymen, twenty select
Indian scouts, one hundred pack mules, and
thirty packers. This organization was to
operate only in Mexico. Britton Davis
writes: "Five days in the mountains of
Northern Sonora finished the mounted
cavalry. They were dismounted, the horses
were discarded, and the men joined the
infantry." (Ibid., p. 219.)
Miles' order to the troops in the field,
reiterating that of Cleveland and Sheridan,
was brief and peremptory: "Capture or
destroy." Lawton and Wood and other brave,
vigilant officers and detachments, did all
that mortal men could do to carry out this
command; but the months of April, May, and
June went by and still Miles' army of five
thousand men had failed either to capture or
to destroy Nachez, Geronimo, and their
fellow demons. Lawton and Wood were the most
enduring among those in active pursuit. Wood
equaled Lawton as an heroic figure during
these months of indescribable hardship. (Hagedorn
Hermann. Leonard Wood, A Biography, Vol. I,
p. 78. New York, Harper, 1931.) Lawton wrote
concerning him: "I found Wood the most
remarkable man in the command on all
occasions, doing the work of three men,
surgeon, commander of infantry, and
commander as well as personal leader of
scouts and trailers." And in his official
report at the end of the campaign he refers
to Wood as "the only officer who has been
with me through the whole campaign. His
courage, energy, and loyal support during
the whole time, his encouraging example to
the command when work was the hardest and
prospects the darkest . . . has placed me
under obligations so great that I cannot
even express them." At the end of the summer
Wood was garbed in nothing "but a pair of
canton flannel drawers, and an old blue
blouse, a pair of moccasins and a hat
without a crown." Lawton, six feet five
inches in stature, presented a more stately
appearance, costumed "in a pair of
over-alls, an undershirt, and the rim of a
felt hat."6
Lawton, Wood, Captains T. C. Lebo and C. A.
P. Hatfield, and Lieutenants Leighton
Finley, R. D. Walsh, R. A. Brown, H. C.
Benson, A. L. Smith, and other officers, as
well as packers, scouts, and privates who
had grimly continued the chase far into the
wilds of Mexico, had done their work well;
but to no one of these goes the credit of
the final surrender of the hostiles. That
distinction was reserved for First
Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, though he
was long denied the full meed of honor he
deserved through Army jealousies and through
the pettiness and vanity that marred the
really great soldierly qualities of Miles.
Gatewood, a very reticent and sensitive man,
though indignant at the treatment accorded
him, never entered into controversy over the
matter nor related the full and intimate
facts in the case even to his closest
friends; for to have done so would have been
to wound and embitter other officers who
reaped an undue share of the glory of the
event.
July 1, from a Chiricahua who had been with
Nachez and Geronimo, but had recently made
his way back to the reservation, Miles
learned that the renegades could not hold
out much longer and might consider terms of
surrender. Acting upon this hint, on July
13, Miles ordered Gatewood to go into
Sonora, taking with him two Chiricahuas then
at Fort Apache, Kayitah and Martine, find
the hostiles, demand their surrender, and
make known to them the terms upon which it
would be received. Though still a young man,
Gatewood, for about nine years had served
continuously in campaigns against the
Apaches, usually as commander of Indian
scouts in the field, though for a
considerable time he acted as Indian agent,
under Crook at Fort Apache. He knew nearly
every warrior and scout personally and was
known and trusted by all the Indians,
hostile and friendly alike. He was an
officer of the highest valor and discretion
and was as humane and honorable as he was
brave.
Gatewood hastened to Fort Bowie, with
written orders from Miles to secure an
escort of at least twenty-five men from the
commanding officer at Fort Bowie. Indeed,
his authority extended so far as to require
these men from any commanding officer in the
department. At Fort Bowie he picked up the
necessary animals for the expedition and
added to his party (so far consisting of
only the two Indian guides) George Wratten
as interpreter, and Frank Huston as packer.
Later he hired a rancher, "Old Tex" Whaley,
as courier. But the commanding officer at
Fort Bowie was unwilling to detach from his
small command twenty-five men to serve as an
escort. Gatewood did not press his demand,
as he was assured that Captain Stretch at
Cloverdale would provide the necessary
soldiers. But Captain Stretch had such a
small force that it seemed to the courteous
Gatewood improper to ask his old West Point
instructor to turn over to him what would
amount almost to his entire command. So he
proceeded across the border and soon fell in
with a small command of thirty or forty men
under Lieutenant James Parker. As Parker's
force was too small to divide, Parker
accompanied Gatewood with his entire command
in search of Captain Lawton and his troops.
It was thought that of all the officers in
the field, Lawton would be most likely to
know the whereabouts of the hostiles. Lawton
was located on the Arros River in the high
Sierra Madre about a hundred and fifty miles
south of the border. He had lost track of
the renegades and was now seeking their
trail to the southward; though the Indians
at that time were more than a hundred miles
northwest of him. Releasing Parker and his
command, Gatewood voluntarily placed himself
under Lawton; though with the understanding
that at his discretion he should be free to
pursue his mission independently. From first
to last Gatewood was at the head of an
independent expedition. Indeed, Gatewood was
in some doubt, and wrote to Miles asking
rather anxiously whether he was at fault in
thus voluntarily subordinating himself to
Lawton. The fact is, Lawton himself had only
about twenty-five men.
News came now that the hostiles were more
than one hundred miles away, not far from
Frontéras. About the middle of August, with
his own little party and six men supplied
him by Lawton, Gatewood moved rapidly toward
Frontéras. Marching eighty miles in one day,
he camped near Frontéras. The next day he
visited that town and learned that two
Indian women from the company of the
hostiles had recently been there and had
hinted to the Mexicans that Geronimo wanted
to make terms. While these women were in
Frontéras, Lieutenant Wilder of our Army had
talked with them about the surrender of
their band.
Geronimo later told Gatewood that he had no
intention of giving up to the Mexicans but
purposely had the hint dropped that he was
eager to surrender so that his party could
get supplies, secure a little time for rest,
and have a glorious drunk on the mescal they
had secured. On his part, the Prefect of the
district thought he saw a chance to lure the
renegades into Frontéras, get them drunk,
and then kill all the men and enslave all
the women. He did his best to get rid of the
American troops in Frontéras so that the
Mexicans might have the glory of capturing
the hostiles. The Prefect forbade Gatewood
to follow the trail of the women who had
visited the town. However, with two
additional interpreters, Tom Horn and José
Maria, whom Lieutenant Wilder allowed him to
take, Gatewood set out as if to rejoin
Lawton's command, which had by this time
come up within twenty miles of Frontéras.
Then as soon as he could do so without being
discovered, he turned northward again,
picked up the trail of the Indian women
about six miles east of Frontéras, and
cautiously followed it over very rough
country for three days, advancing always
with a white piece of flour sack attached to
a stick as a flag of truce. The third day
Gatewood came to the place where the fresh
tracks of the Indian women joined the main
trail made by the renegades. From this point
the way led down a narrow canyon to the
Bavispe River. So dangerous seemed the
situation that Martine and Kayitah, who were
ahead, hesitated. However, they soon moved
on and the white men after them, and crossed
the Bavispe River in safety, where at the
farthest point in its northward course it
makes a great bend to the eastward before
flowing south. Camp was made for the night
in a canebrake, a sentinel keeping watch on
a near-by mound that commanded a view of the
entire surrounding country.
The next day the two Indians scouted ahead,
with the flour sack always conspicuously
displayed. Martine returned at nightfall
with word that the hostiles had been located
about four miles in advance, high up in the
rocks of the Torres Mountains. Geronimo kept
Kayitah in his camp, and sent Martine back
to say that he would talk with Gatewood, but
with no one else. Gatewood said later that
he would hardly have trusted himself in the
hostile camp had not word come also from
Nachez, who was the real chief, telling
Gatewood to come on and assuring him that he
would be safe unless trouble should be
started by his men. Nachez had more
influence with the renegades than had
Geronimo or anyone else, so Gatewood now
felt that he might venture into their camp
with some degree of safety.
During the past three days Gatewood had kept
Lawton informed through couriers of the
state of affairs. Lawton's thirty Indian
scouts had already reached Gatewood's camp,
and Lawton himself was reported to be not
far away. On the morning of August 24
Gatewood moved out toward the hostile camp,
with Lawton's thirty scouts under Command of
Lieutenant R. A. Brown. When they had
approached to within a mile of Geronimo's
stronghold, an unarmed Chiricahua met them
and repeated the reassuring message of the
previous evening. Then came three armed
members of the band with a request from
Nachez for Gatewood to meet him and the
other renegades in the river bend and for
Brown, his scouts, and any soldiers who had
come up, to return to Gatewood's camp and
there remain. Shots and smoke signals were
exchanged between Gatewood and the hostiles
to give notice that the agreement was
understood. Gatewood and his own little
party went down to the bank of the river,
where they were soon joined by members of
the outlaw band. Geronimo was among the last
to arrive. Depositing his rifle about twenty
feet from Gatewood, he came forward to shake
hands. Gatewood had brought an ample supply
of tobacco in his pack saddles and soon the
smoking began, with Geronimo seated so close
to Gatewood that the latter could feel the
revolver that Geronimo carried in his coat
pocket pressing against his thigh. When a
semicircle had been formed, Geronimo, always
the voluble spokesman, said they were ready
to listen to General Miles' message.
Gatewood very tersely delivered it in these
words:
"Surrender, and you will be sent with your
families to Florida, there to await the
decision of the President as to your future
disposition. Accept these terms or fight it
out to the bitter end." (Lieutenant Charles
B. Gatewood, 6th U. S. Cavalry, and the
Surrender of Geronimo. Compiled by Major C.
B. Gatewood, U.S.A., Retired. Edited by
Brigadier General Edward S. Godfrey.
Copyrighted 1929. Copy supplied by Charles
Morgan Wood.)
There was great silence and tension for a
long time---as it seemed to Gatewood.
Geronimo asked for liquor, but Gatewood
replied that they had brought no whisky with
them. Then, in reply to the terms offered by
Miles, Geronimo said they would continue to
fight unless they were returned to their old
status on the reservation and promised
exemption from punishment. Gatewood answered
that he could offer nothing more than the
ultimatum already quoted from Miles; that,
if he made promises he could not fulfill, it
would only make matters worse; that most
likely this was the last chance they would
have to surrender; that if they continued on
the warpath they would all be killed; or, if
they surrendered later, would have to do so
on more severe terms. This led to much talk,
and finally to an hour's conference among
themselves. After that, as it was now noon,
everyone ate dinner. Then Geronimo said,
with a savage glint in his eye as he looked
straight in Gatewood's face:
"Take us to the reservation--or fight!"
Here Nachez spoke up and said that, whether
or not hostilities continued, Gatewood and
his companions should be safe so long as
they made no trouble. As they had come in
peace, they should depart in peace. Now for
the first time Gatewood made known to them a
crushing bit of news. He told them that all
the Chiricahuas had already been removed
from the Apache Reservation, the mother and
daughter of Nachez among them, and had been
sent to Florida. They well knew that all the
remaining Apaches in Arizona were their
enemies; so for them to return to the
reservation would bring them no happiness.
This was a grievous and unexpected blow and
in view of this new aspect of the matter
they again went apart for private
conference. They conferred for an hour and
then came back to Gatewood and talked on
until sunset. Then Gatewood said he would
return to this camp. But Geronimo wanted him
to wait, as there was a request he desired
to make; and after further beating about the
bush, he said to Gatewood:
"We want your advice. Consider yourself not
a white man but one of us; remember all that
has been said today and tell us what we
should do."
Gatewood earnestly replied: "Trust General
Miles and surrender to him." (Ibid.)
They were all very solemn at this. They said
they would hold another council that night
and make their final reply in the morning.
Then after a friendly shaking of hands all
around, Gatewood and his attendants went
back to their own camp, where, meantime,
Lawton had arrived. From the picket line
next morning came a call for Gatewood. With
his interpreters, he met Nachez, Geronimo,
and several others of the band about a
quarter of a mile from the camp. They had
decided that they would all go to Miles and
surrender. They stipulated, however, that
Gatewood should accompany them continually
and sleep in their camp; that they should
retain their arms until they had finally
surrendered to Miles; and that Lawton's
troops should march near enough to their
band to protect them from other troops as
they proceeded toward the border. Both
Gatewood and the Indians now entered
Lawton's camp, explained the agreement to
him, and obtained his approval. A courier
was at once sent to Miles, notifying him of
the situation and naming a time and place
where they would meet him; and on that very
day, August 25th, Gatewood and the Indians,
thirty-eight in all--twenty-four men with
fourteen women and children--started for the
border.
Gatewood and Lawton, as they began their
march toward the border, were faced by
difficulties similar to those that
Lieutenant Maus had to deal with after
Crawford's death. The Chiricahuas were
heavily armed and unsubdued. They were not
prisoners. They refused to march with
Lawton's troops and were always distant two
miles or more from Lawton's flank. They
invariably made camp for the night in places
where it would have been impossible to take
them by surprise. But there was this
difference: the escort consisted of officers
as grim and capable and seasoned as any in
the field during that generation; and at the
end, Miles had Crook's experience to profit
by. On the first day's march, a very
exciting incident occurred: just as Gatewood
and the Indians were about to make camp, the
Mexican commander from Frontéras, with two
hundred Mexican infantry, made his
appearance at no great distance. Now that
the renegades seemed within their reach, the
Mexicans demanded the right to effect their
capture. While Lawton and his command
disputed the matter with them, Gatewood fled
northward about ten miles with the
renegades, and then halted to see how Lawton
would make out. A courier soon came up to
say that the Mexicans demanded a conference
with Geronimo in order to assure themselves
that the renegades intended actually to
surrender to General Miles. The Indians
wanted nothing to do with the Mexicans; and
it was very difficult to bring about the
desired meeting. But it was at last agreed
that the Mexican officer with an escort of
seven men should meet the hostiles for a
talk. Geronimo and his party met them-alert,
suspicious, and fully armed.
Gatewood writes in his official report: "The
Prefect asked Geronimo why he had not
surrendered at Frontéras. 'Because I did not
want to be murdered,' retorted the latter.
"'Are you going to surrender to the
Americans?'
"'I am; for I can trust them not to murder
me and my people.'
"'Then I shall go along and see that you
surrender.'
"'No,' shouted Geronimo, 'You are going
south, and I am going north.'"
However, a Mexican soldier was sent along
and later reported to the officer that the
Chiricahuas had surrendered and had been
sent by Miles to Florida.
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