Frontier Regulars
Page 46
Actually, the order of June 1 announced a policy much more restrictive than Ord and Shafter had followed in practice, but it was the announcement more than the practice that incensed Mexicans. Indignation swept Mexico. The United States had treated Mexicans “as savages, as Kaffirs of Africa,” complained the foreign minister; a declaration of war would have been less offensive to the national honor. President Diaz had only recently sent a trusted lieutenant, Gen. Geronimo Trevino, to the northern frontier to cooperate with the Americans in calming border tensions. Now, even as Trevino amiably socialized with Ord and Shafter at Fort Clark, new instructions sped to him: “Repel force with force.”15
Ord liked the Mexican general and wanted to avoid such a confrontation. Even so, one very nearly occurred in September 1877, when Shafter tried to repeat his successful strategy of July 1876. Sending Bullis and nearly 100 cavalrymen and scouts against a Lipan camp reported 20 miles west of Zaragosa, Shafter followed with six troops of cavalry, almost 300 men. After attacking and destroying the village, Bullis rode for an appointed rendezvous—but with the Zaragosa garrison of about 100 cavalrymen on his trail. Discovery of Shafter’s formidable command, however, inspired a fortunate caution in the Mexican leader, Col. Inocente Rodriguez. The two forces maneuvered at each other for a time, but no encounter developed. Shafter, also suddenly seized by a prudence born of the explosive potential of the situation, got out of Mexico so precipitately that his officers grumbled about turning tail before “a handful of Mexicans.” The incident intensified the anti-American fever in Mexico and further impeded a settlement of the differences between the two nations.16
In Washington, the administration’s belligerent Mexican policy came under mounting attack. Democrats accused the President of trying to drum up a foreign war to divert public attention from the questionable credentials with which he had entered the White House after the disputed election of 1876. Merchants and financiers with Mexican interests fretted over the delay in resuming normal relations. When Congress convened in special session in October 1877, both the foreign affairs and military affairs committees of the House looked into the border controversy. High officials of the State and War Departments testified, as did Ord, Shafter, and Bullis. Shafter in particular came under heavy fire from Democratic interrogators, who forced him to admit that he sought opportunities to cross the border and did not adhere to the limitations of hot pursuit. He even confessed his opinion that the best solution was to demand that Mexico stop the raids, and if she failed, to declare war.17
Such uncomplicated and extreme solutions disturbed General Sherman, especially since he knew that Ord privately entertained similar views.18 In fact, Sherman had come increasingly to share Sheridan’s assessment that a large measure of the border turmoil would subside if Ord were withdrawn. “I have lost confidence in his motives,” Sheridan complained to his superior late in 1877, “and his management of his department is a confusion which is demoralizing to his subordinates.” “I am more than convinced,” Sherman confessed in reply, “that a cooler & less spasmodic man in Texas would do more to compose matters on that border than the mere increase of the Cavalry.” But to remove Ord now would seriously damage his reputation, and Sherman was not prepared to do that to his West Point classmate and long-time friend.19
Also, Ord’s removal would almost certainly be unfavorably received in Texas, and during the winter of 1877—78 Sherman found himself virtually a hostage to the Texas congressional delegation. In the special legislative session that began in October 1877, Democrats resumed their effort to emasculate the army (see Chapter Four), and Texas’ Democratic representatives held the key. “The Texas members claim that we of the Army owe them a debt of gratitude for saving the Army Bill this Extra Session,” Sherman wrote to Sheridan on November 29, 1877, “which is true for the Democrats had the power and were resolved to cut us down to 20,000 this Session and to 17,000 in the Regular Term. There is some force to this claim, and unless we can reconcile the Texas Democrats in the House, we will be slaughtered this winter.” Sherman urged his subordinate to do everything possible to reduce border irritations, “as well as to quiet the clamor of the Texas people, and of the Texas Representatives.”20 One move sure to help still the clamor could be made at once. On December 3, 1877, Sheridan ordered the return to Texas of Mackenzie and the Fourth Cavalry.21
Threatened with embarrassing congressional action, President Hayes at length relented, and in April 1878 extended recognition to the Diaz government. But Mexico still refused to treat seriously for a resolution of border problems so long as the offensive order of June 1, 1877, to General Ord remained in force. And Ord, dramatizing the administration’s determination to let the order stand, saw to it that the U.S. flag again appeared south of the Rio Grande—this time in a parade surpassing all others in ostentation. Mackenzie commanded.
The Mackenzie expedition consisted of eight troops of cavalry, three battalions of infantry under Colonel Shafter, three batteries of artillery (including one of Gatling guns), Bullis’ scouts, and a train of forty wagons—more than one thousand men. Seizing the first opportunity to cross on a fresh trail, Mackenzie and advance elements of the command forded the Rio Grande above the mouth of Devil’s River on June 12, 1878, leaving the main force to follow under Shafter. They reunited on the upper Rio San Diego five days later. From here, the column marched to the head of the San Rodrigo and down that stream toward the Rio Grande. At Remolino on June 19 and again at Monclova Viejo on June 21, Mexican troops drew up to block the advance. Each time Mackenzie sent word that he was coming through; then, as the cavalry maneuvered, Shafter marched the infantry directly at the Mexican line. Each time, the Mexican force gave way rather than contend with the overwhelmingly superior aggressors. After twice humiliating the Mexicans, Mackenzie recrossed the Rio Grande.22
Blatantly violating Mexican territory, the Mackenzie expedition still further inflamed public opinion in Mexico. Rumors of impending war with the United States swept the capital. The Diaz government protested forcefully, pointing out that expeditions of this size and composition obviously had purposes other than chasing a handful of Indians. The Foreign Office made clear that the invasion had severely imperiled the progress of treaty negotiations on the border issue. But Diaz kept the crisis in hand.23
Although relations between the United States and Mexico remained tense for another two years, forces were at work that would resolve the problem. Diaz steadily consolidated his regime and gave undoubted evidence of its stability. Of compelling influence in Washington, he manifested a receptivity to American investment in Mexico that lined up American capitalists on the side of amicable relations. And on the border, raiding activity declined markedly, owing in part to the vigor of U.S. operations in Mexico under the order of June 1, 1877, and also in part to a series of campaigns prosecuted by General Trevino in 1878—the latter, American officers believed, motivated largely by humiliation at the repeated border crossings by U.S. troops. Diaz continued to insist on revocation of the June 1 order as the price of a reciprocal crossing treaty. With the conditions that had prompted it much alleviated, President Hayes finally, in 1880, paid the price. And in 1882, following consent by the Mexican senate, Diaz at last agreed to a treaty.24
Viewed as a purely military enterprise, the operations of Shafter and, later, Mackenzie attract admiration. They visited enough punishment on the offending Indians to discourage them from raiding in Texas and prompted Mexico, once the Diaz revolution had been consolidated, to make more than perfunctory efforts to restrain them. Lieutenant Bullis deserves major credit for this success, for he served as the main striking arm, first of Shafter, then of Mackenzie. He proved himself one of the frontier army’s ablest junior officers, and his Seminole-Negroes compiled a record that marked them as perhaps the most consistently effective Indian auxiliaries the army employed.
Viewed in a larger perspective than the purely military, the Mexican adventures of Ord, Mackenzie, and Shafter appear in less creditable l
ight, at least to posterity. At best, they revealed the United States taking advantage of the domestic distractions of a less-powerful neighbor to bully her into compliance with difficult demands. At worst, they partook of scarcely veiled projects for the seizure of still more Mexican territory. Such imperial aspirations, loudly articulated by Texas editors and politicians, strongly appealed to both Ord and Shafter. How far they abetted this “clamor,” as Sherman and Sheridan termed it, and how far in turn the clamor exaggerated the magnitude of border lawlessness, is not clear. The belief of Sherman and Sheridan that Ord’s departure would calm matters is at least suggestive.
Ord continued to give dissatisfaction to Sheridan, who resented his habit of writing personal letters to Sherman on official subjects and who complained on December 12, 1879:
General Ord’s eccentricity of character and the devious methods he employs to accomplish his ends, some time since forced me to doubt his motives in some of his official actions and so much has this impression gained on me that for a long time I have reluctantly avoided any personal correspondence with him. I have doubted his motives in some of his recommendations for expenditures of public money and even in his calls for and disposition of troops; and the facility with which revolutions, raids, murders and thefts are generated on the Rio Grande border whenever an emergency demands the temporary withdrawal of troops or even a special officer from the Department of Texas is somewhat remarkable.25
With border troubles subsiding, Sherman probably would have found a way to transfer Ord gracefully to another assignment. But late in 1880, in a move that outraged Sherman and sent shock waves through the army, President Hayes forcibly retired Ord in order to give his star to Nelson A. Miles. Easing the blow somewhat, a grateful Texas congressional delegation secured passage of an act elevating Ord to full major general on the retired list.26
If Texans could complain of Indian incursions from Coahuila, so with equal bitterness could Chihuahuans and Sonorans complain of Indian incursions from New Mexico and Arizona. Military pressure on the Mescalero Apaches in 1870–71, General Howard’s pact with Cochise and the Chiricahua Apaches in 1872, and General Crook’s Apache and Yavapai campaigns of 1872–73 gave New Mexico and Arizona an interval of near peace. But Mexicans did not share in it. Mescaleros based on the Fort Stanton Reservation, New Mexico, continued to raid in Chihuahua. More devastating were plundering expeditions launched into both Chihuahua and Sonora from the Chiricahua Reservation, whose southern boundary conveniently coincided with the border between Sonora and Arizona. Moreover, although clouded with uncertainty, the Howard-Cochise agreement seems to have included a promise that the army would stay away from the Chiricahua Reservation, and Cochise, at least, understood further that continued marauding in Mexico would not be regarded in the United States as a breach of the peace. Mexican officials, viewing both ends of the border, could be forgiven an inability to reconcile United States policies on the Arizona frontier with those pursued so intransigently on the Texas frontier.27
Actually, United States policies were aimed at controlling the Apaches—not so much to end the raiding in Mexico as to prevent its resumption in the United States. How best to insure this control sorely plagued—and badly divided—civil and military officials. Army officers insisted that only military force could guarantee control, and General Crook, enjoying high prestige among both Arizonans and Indians as a result of his victorious campaigns of 1872–73, ruled the Apache reservations in fact, if not in form. Incensed civil officials contested his dictatorial methods, and the resulting friction kept the reservations in turmoil. Not until 1875, after Crook had transferred to the Department of the Platte, was civil authority successfully asserted.
Leading the challenge was John P. Clum, a pugnacious, bombastic, and utterly uninhibited youth of twenty-three who became agent at San Carlos Reservation in 1874. Through a combination of honesty, trust, courage, and shrewd judgment, backed by an Indian police force to supply coercion when needed, Clum succeeded simply by managing the Apaches without military help. At the same time, he confounded his military detractors with an unceasing barrage of charges, threats, and denunciations. An especially favored target was Crook’s successor, August V. Kautz, colonel of the Eighth Infantry but assigned to departmental command in his brevet grade of major general—as Sherman explained it, through President Grant’s “natural and proper predilection to his old comrades.” Although something of a controversialist himself, Kautz met his match in Clum.28
The civil-military conflict sounded a dominant theme throughout a series of moves that, although not initially conceived as a comprehensive policy, still in sum added up to one. Designed to promote both control and economy, these moves brought about the concentration of the scattered Apache groups on the furnace-like patch of rocky desert at San Carlos, on the upper Gila River. Fifteen hundred Aravaipas and Pinals moved there from Camp Grant in 1873. In March 1875 the Indian Bureau closed out the Camp Verde Reservation and sent its residents, some 1,400 Yavapai and associated peoples, to San Carlos. Four months later, about 1,800 Coyoteros moved down from the high country around Fort Apache.29
Next to go were the troublesome Chiricahuas, whose reservation had continued to provide a base for raids into Mexico not only by Chiricahuas but by visiting Apaches from other reservations. Agent Tom Jeffords’ influence on the Chiricahuas had diminished after the death of Cochise in June 1874. Taza and Nachez lacked their father’s strength, and the tribe began to break into factions. Jeffords, never popular with the Indian Bureau, came under mounting attack both from Arizona officials and from his own superiors. Finally, early in 1876, Clum received orders to move the Chiricahuas to San Carlos. They feuded bitterly over whether to go peacefully. General Kautz concentrated the entire Sixth Cavalry to help them make up their minds. After the peace and war factions had fought out the issue, with eight killed, the tribe acquiesced. On June 12, 1876, Clum led 325 Chiricahuas northward to new homes.30
Abolition of the Chiricahua Reservation not only failed to bring relief to Mexican frontier settlements, but also precipitated a revival of hostilities in Arizona and New Mexico. Clum had removed less than half the Chiricahuas to San Carlos. The balance, about 400, went to New Mexico or faded into the Sierra Madre, the massive, towering mountain range dominating western Mexico that offered Apaches a fortress and a refuge. These Chiricahuas, aided by friends from the Ojo Caliente Reservation in southwestern New Mexico, murdered and plundered on both sides of the border. Their principal leaders were Juh, Noglee, and a cunning, vicious fighter whose squat, thick-set figure would soon become the terror of the Southwest—Geronimo.
General Kautz believed that the seriousness of the depredations was exaggerated, part of an effort to force him to move department headquarters from Prescott to Tucson. This campaign he attributed to the “Tucson Ring,” that sinister combination of contractors and their political friends that the army blamed for many of its Arizona frustrations. Whether or not such a “ring” really existed, Kautz, like his predecessors and successors, fulminated against it. Rancorous feuds with Governor Safford, Agent Clum, and other public figures preoccupied Kautz and led to demands for his removal.31
But the renewed border violence compelled attention. Kautz energized his garrisons and established two new posts—Camp Thomas on the Gila River upstream from san Carlos Agency and Camp Huachuca, close to the border southeast of Tucson. Working out of Fort Bowie, Lts. Austin Heneley and John A. Rucker of the Sixth Cavalry performed especially notable service during the winter of 1876–77.32 Col. Edward Hatch, commanding the District of New Mexico, set troops from Forts Bayard, Cummings, Selden, and McRae to policing the border. But it remained to the brash young San Carlos agent to neutralize, however temporarily, the menace of Geronimo and the Chiracahuas.
Clum’s feat, of which he boasted loudly the rest of his long life, resulted from a growing understanding of the role of the Ojo Caliente Reservation in fostering hostilities. The Indians on this reservation—about 400 Southe
rn or “Warm Springs” Apaches, representing a mix of the Mimbres, Gila, and Mogollon groups—had long been close friends and allies of the Chiricahuas. Some of the Chiracahuas had settled here after the removal of their kinsmen to San Carlos in June 1876. Also, Geronimo and the Chiricahuas from Mexico made Ojo Caliente a rest, supply, and recruiting depot for raiding expeditions. Ordered to abolish the reservation and take its occupants to San Carlos, Clum arrived at Ojo Caliente Agency on April 20, 1877. The eight troops of the Ninth Cavalry sent by Colonel Hatch to assist had not appeared yet, but the presence of Geronimo and his band made it imperative to act at once. In a tense and perilous confrontation, Clum and his Indian policeman faced down the Apache leader. When Maj. James F. Wade and his column marched in on April 22, they found Geronimo and sixteen other hostile leaders shackled in the agency jail. Rounding up all the Indians who could be located, 343 Warm Springs Apaches and 110 Chiricahuas, Clum headed them west on the trail to San Carlos.33
The Warm Springs Apaches did not remain long at San Carlos. They had not wanted to leave their New Mexico homeland, and indeed, rather than do so, many of the men had simply slipped away to the mountains. For those who went, San Carlos proved every bit as uncongenial as expected. The military-civil conflict, which caused Clum’s resignation in July 1877, and a growing antipathy among the diverse tribes now collected there contributed to the unrest. The principal Warm Springs chief was not one to tolerate a disagreeable situation. A worthy successor of the great Mangas Coloradas, Victorio was a dynamic, aggressive leader, impatient of any form of restraint, highly skilled in the methods of Apache warfare. On September 2, 1877, he led his people and some Chiricahuas, 310 in all, in a break from San Carlos.