The official reports of Miles and Lawton, and Miles’ subsequent autobiographical publications, described success in terms of Lawton’s tenacious pursuit and Miles’ own persuasiveness at Skeleton Canyon. Gatewood, a Crook protégé, received scant recognition. As Miles advanced, so too did Lawton and Wood, both of whom possessed undoubted abilities. Lawton rose to brigadier and was killed in the Philippines in 1899. Wood, colonel of the regiment Theodore Roosevelt led up San Juan Hill in 1898, reached the top of the army ladder in 1910. By contrast, Gatewood sank into obscurity. His health broken by the rigors of the Sierra Madre, and injured in a dynamite explosion, he died in 1896, still a first lieutenant. But there were many in the army who believed Gatewood was the victim of grave injustice and some, indeed, who conceived Geronimo’s surrender as due exclusively to Gatewood’s peace mission. These officers inspired a still-growing body of literature that challenges Miles’ version and asserts Gatewood’s claims.
Both versions contain elements of truth. Lawton’s persistent campaigning almost certainly helped put Geronimo in a frame of mind conducive to peace talks. So, most assuredly, did Miles’ removal of the reservation Indians, which badly discouraged the hostiles when they learned of it from Gatewood. Moreover, a wrong attitude or demeanor in Miles at Skeleton Canyon could easily have provoked another stampede back to the Sierra Madre. But to Gatewood belongs a large credit that has come to him only posthumously. At enormous risk of life, he went into the hostile camp and talked Geronimo into giving up. Probably no other officer available to Miles could have done this. No other was known and trusted by the hostiles. No other better knew the mind of these particular Indians. Miles and his adherents are to be faulted less for their significant part in ending the Geronimo hostilities than for excluding Gatewood from the fruits of victory.
Although widely cited as discrediting Crook’s methods, Miles’ strategy did not differ fundamentally from his predecessor’s. The final surrender was brought about in the same way as those of March 1883 and March 1886—by wearing down the quarry and then inducing him to give up. Miles gave greater public visibility to Regulars than had Crook, as indeed his orders and Sheridan’s expectations required, but Apache auxiliaries went along. Lawton demonstrated that white troops could endure and persevere in the Sierra Madre, but in this he merely confirmed what Adna Chaffee, Wirt Davis, and others had already shown with less ostentation. Lawton did not demonstrate that Regulars could compete with Apaches in tracking down and ferreting out other Apaches; Gatewood’s peace mission tacitly acknowledged the emptiness of this hope. Miles thus differed from Crook only in emphasis. He used fewer Indian scouts, drew them from tribes other than Chiricahua, and made sure that public attention did not stray from the Regulars to the scouts.
In truth, Miles’ conduct of the Geronimo campaign deserves a better judgment than history has rendered. He undertook an extremely difficult assignment in unfamiliar territory against an unfamiliar enemy under unfavorable circumstances. That he succeeded with methods similar to Crook’s is less a reason for criticism than for tribute to his perception of reality and his versatility in making his superiors think he was following other methods. His removal of the reservation Chiricahuas, cruel and unjust though it was, proved to be the vital factor in assuring the finality of Apache warfare. Miles’ selfish bid for glory at the expense of others, though perhaps rich in immediate benefits, left him highly vulnerable to adverse judgment by posterity and thus, in the long view, obscured his genuine achievements.
But the real hero of the army’s Apache campaigns remains George Crook. He devised and carried out the only military techniques that ever seriously challenged Apaches in warfare, and he articulated principles of dealing with Apaches and managing their reservations that, if consistently applied, could not have failed to give a brighter aspect to the dismal record of relations with these tribes in the final decades of the nineteenth century. With only slight exaggeration, correspondent Charles F. Lummis wrote prophetically from Fort Bowie upon Crook’s departure in April 1886:
… When the doings of this decade have been refined from prejudice into history, when the mongrel pack which has barked at the heels of this patient commander has rotted a hundred years forgotten—then, if not before, Crook will get his due. In all the line of Indian fighters from Daniel Boone to date, one figure will easily rank all others—a wise, large-hearted, large-minded, strong-handed, broad-gauge man—George Crook.47
NOTES
1. For characterizations of the Apache leaders see especially Lockwood, The Apache Indians; Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo; Britton Davis, The Truth about Geronimo (New Haven, Conn., 1929); and Eve Ball, “The Apache Scouts: A Chiricahua Appraisal,” Arizona and the West, 7 (1965), 315–28. A recent and creditable biography of Geronimo is Alexander B. Adams, Geronimo: A Biography (New York, 1971).
2. Betzinez, p. 58.
3. John G. Bourke, An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre (2d ed., New York, 1958), p. 108.
4. Ogle, Federal Control of the Western Apaches, p. 198 n. SW, Annual Report (1880), pp. 206–7.
5. Ibid., chap. 7. Chaffee’s experiences are recounted in Carter, The Life of Lieutenant General Chaffee, chap. 12.
6. George Crook, Resumé of Operations against Apache Indians, 1882 to 1886 (p.p., 1886; reprint with notes and introduction by Barry C. Johnson, London, 1971), p. 10.
7. For Nakaidoklini and the Battle of Cibicu, see SW, Annual Report (1881), pp. 121, 140–45, 153–55; (1882), pp. 144–46; Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, chap. 17; Ogle, pp. 203–6; Cruse, Apache Days and After, chaps. 9–14; King, War Eagle, chaps. 8–9; Dan L. Thrapp, General Crook and the Sierra Madre Adventure (Norman, Okla., 1972), chaps. 1 and 2; and Carter, From Torktown to Santiago with the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, pp. 210–21. Nakaidoklini’s religion is briefly described and compared with others in James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, 14th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C., 1896), pp. 704–5.
8. Sept. 16, 1881, in SW, Annual Report (1881), p. 144.
9. The controversy is treated in King, pp. 220–26.
10. SW, Annual Report (1881), pp. 140–41. King, p. 224.
11. CIA, Annual Report (1881), pp. ix-x. Ogle, pp. 208–10. Lockwood, pp. 243–47. Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 231–34. The Battle of Cedar Springs is described by a participant in Anton Mazzanovich, Trailing Geronimo (3d ed., p.p., 1931), chaps. 9–10. See also SW, Annual Report (1881), pp. 146–47.
12. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, chap. 18; General Crook and the Sierra Madre Adventure, chaps. 6–8; and Al Sieber, chap. 14, contain the most detailed accounts. See also Ogle, pp. 213–15; Clendenen, Blood on the Border, chap. 5; Lockwood, pp. 246–48; SW, Annual Report (1882), p. 72; and Sheridan, Record of Engagements, p. 101. Forsyth relates his experiences in Thrilling Days of Army Life (New York, 1902), pp. 79–121; and Indian movements are detailed by Betzinez, who participated, in chaps. 7–8. Although the evidence is conflicting, probably 700 people, including 175 fighting men, made this dash from San Carlos back to Mexico. A captured woman told Forsyth that thirteen warriors had died at Horseshoe Canyon and six more in the Tupper fight, but General Crook’s Indian informants reported only one killed by Forsyth and fourteen by Tupper.
13. Davis, The Truth about Geronimo, pp. 10–28; Will C. Barnes, “The Apaches’ Last Stand in Arizona, The Battle of Big Dry Wash,” Arizona Historical Review, 3 (1931), 36–59; Carter, chap. 13; Cruse, chaps. 16–17; Thrapp, Al Sieber, chap. 15; Lockwood, pp. 248–55 & map opp. p. 247; and SW, Annual Report (1882), pp. 72, 150–51.
14. Crook, Résumé of Operations, p. 8.
15. Crook’s annual report, Sept. 9, 1885, SW, Annual Report (1885), p. 169. Willcox’s annual report, Aug. 9, 1883, CIA, Annual Report (1883), p. 8. Ogle, pp. 217–18.
16. SW, Annual Report (1883), pp. 160–61. Crook, Résumé of Operations, pp. 10–11. Davis’ Truth about Geronimo gives a fascinating account of this process.
17
. It was to remain in effect for two years—reduced to one year by a supplementary agreement of Sept. 21, 1882—and applied only when a unit was in “close pursuit” and in “unpopulated or desert parts” of the boundary. The pursuers were to give notice of their presence to local authorities and and retire as soon as they had fought the enemy or lost the trail. 22 Stat. 934–36 (July 29, 1882). Gregg, The Influence of Border Troubles on Relations between the United States and Mexico, pp. 152–53.
18. Crook, “The Apache Problem,” p. 263.
19. SW, Annual Report (1883), pp. 161–62. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 262–66. Hostile movements that winter are recounted by Betzinez, who was there, chaps. 9–11.
20. SW, Annual Report (1883), pp. 141–42, 162, 173. Bourke, An Apache Campaign, pp. 26–27. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 267–71. Lockwood, p. 264. Most sources, repeating Crook, say Chato rode 400 miles in six days, but about 200 miles in seven or eight is more accurate. Sources also conflict on the number of victims; there may have been as many as twenty-six.
21. For Crook’s Mexican expedition, see Bourke, An Apache Campaign; SW, Annual Report (1883), pp. 162—63; 173–78; Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 272–94; Thrapp, Al Sieber, chap. 17; Thrapp, General Crook and the Sierra Madre Adventure, chaps. 11–14; Betzinez, chaps. 12–13; and Lockwood, chap. 13.
22. The fight with Colonel Garcia on April 29, 1882, had been devastating. See p. 376. Also, in the summer of 1882 citizens of Casas Grandes had lured Apaches into town to make peace, plied them with liquor, and slaughtered a large number—Bourke (Apache Campaign, p. 23) says ten or twelve were killed and twenty-five or thirty women were captured, but Betzinez (pp. 77–78) implies considerably heavier losses.
23. Davis, pp. 79–101.
24. SW, Annual Report (1885), pp. 184–85. Ogle, pp. 221–22.
25. Davis, chaps. 7–8, gives an excellent account of Chiricahua affairs in 1884–85. See also Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, chap. 23; and SW, Annual Report (1884), pp. 131–36; (1885), pp. 169–79.
26. Ogle, pp. 222–31. SW, Annual Report (1884), pp. 128–29; (1885), pp. 171–75, 180–84.
27. Again Davis, chap. 9, is the best source, but see also both Thrapp books and Crook’s report, April 10, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 147–48. Crook later wrote: “I am firmly convinced that had I known of the occurrences reported in Lieutenant Davis’ telegram of May 15, 1885, which I did not see until months afterward, the outbreak of Mangus and Geronimo, a few days later, would not have occurred.” Crook, Résumé of Operations, p. 11.
28. Gregg, p. 159.
29. For Crook’s campaign of 1885–86, see SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 1–12, 72–73, 147–64; Crook, Résumé of Operations; Davis, chaps. 11–13; Crook, Autobiography, pp. 254–66; Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, chaps. 24–25, and Al Sieber, chap. 19; Odie B. Faulk, The Geronimo Campaign (New York, 1969), chaps. 4–5; Betzinez, chap. 14; H. W. Daly, “The Geronimo Campaign,” Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, 19 (1908), 247–62; Charles P. Elliott, “The Geronimo Campaign of 1885–86,” ibid., 21 (1910), 211–36; W. E. Shipp, “Captain Crawford’s Last Expedition,” ibid., 5 (1892), 343–61; Lummis, chap. 9; and Marion P. Maus, “A Campaign against the Apaches,” in Miles, Personal Recollections, pp. 450–71.
30. SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 7, 71.
31. U.S. participants persuasively contended that the Mexicans knew they were attacking a U.S. military force and persisted in the attack even after the fact had been repeatedly demonstrated. (See especially SW, Annual Report [1886], pp. 152–53, 155–75; Shipp, pp. 355–56, 358–59; and Maus, pp. 457–64.) Mexican investigators so confused the affair that the United States at length accepted their finding that it had been an accident. (Gregg, pp. 160–65.) In any case, the Mexican irregulars were not inclined to distinguish between Chiricahua scouts and Chiricahua hostiles. Villagers in Sonora and Chihuahua believed the scouts guilty of depredations, and official complaints had been lodged with Crook even before Crawford’s death.
32. Crawford lingered unconscious for seven days before dying. His body, buried at Nacori, was recovered two months later and shipped to his Nebraska home. Still later it was reburied in Arlington National Cemetery.
33. The transcript of the conference, recorded by Captain Bourke, together with related correspondence, is published in Senate Docs., 51st Cong., 1st sess., No. 88. Davis, chaps, 12–13, reproduces much of it. See also Bourke, On the Border with Crook, pp. 478–79.
34. This correspondence is reproduced by Davis, Miles, and in Crook, Résumé of Operations. The command shakeup incident to the death of General Hancock and the retirement of General Pope facilitated the transfer. Howard, promoted to major general, replaced Pope as commander of the Division of the Pacific (thus becoming the immediate superior of Miles, his old rival for Nez Percé honors). Crook took Howard’s place as commander of the Department of the Platte. Schofield relinquished the Division of the Missouri to Terry, also newly promoted to major general, and followed Hancock in the Division of the Atlantic.
35. SW, Annual Report (1886), p. 72.
36. Drum to Miles, April 3, 1886, ibid., pp. 72–73.
37. Miles to Mrs. Miles, April 12, 1886, in Johnson, Unregimented General, p. 231.
38. SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 164–67. Miles, Personal Recollections, pp. 481–84.
39. SW, Annual Report (1886), p. 167. Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 351–52. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers, pp. 243–44. Army and Navy Journal, 46 (July 3, 1909), 1240–41.
40. The various Apache tribes that lived around the San Carlos Agency had become known as San Carlos Indians to distinguish them from the Chiricahua and White Mountain Apaches around Fort Apache.
41. For Lawton’s operations, see his report, Sept. 9, 1886, in SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 176–81; Wood’s narrative in Miles, Personal Recollections, pp. 505–17; Wood’s diary in Jack C. Lane, ed., Chasing Geronimo: The Journal of Leonard Wood, May-September 1886 (Albuquerque, N.M., 1970); H. C. Benson in Army and Navy Journal, 46 (July 3, 1909), 1240–41; and Lawrence Vinton (Lawrence Jerome), “The Geronimo Campaign: As Told by a Trooper of ‘B’ Troop of the 4th U.S. Cavalry,” Journal of the West, II (1972), 157–69. See also Hermann Hagedorn, Leonard Wood: A Biography (2 vols., New York, 1931), 1, 67–103.
42. Wood in Miles, p. 517.
43. SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 14–15, 73–74, 170–71. Johnson, Unregimented General, pp. 239–44. Miles, pp. 495–505.
44. For Gatewood’s mission and the surrender of Geronimo, see Senate Ex. Docs., 49th Cong., 2d sess., No. 117; SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 172–75, 179–80; Charles B. Gatewood, “The Surrender of Geronimo,” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting and Dinner of the Order of Indian Wars of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1929); Faulk, pp. 111–31; Parker, The Old Army Memories, chap. 8; Lane, ed., part 3; Miles, chap. 40; Davis, chap. 13; and Thrapp, The Conquest of Apacheria, pp. 354–67.
45. SW, Annual Report (1886), pp. 12–15, 144–46. Miles contended that a misunderstanding had arisen through the failure of General Howard to relay the full report of the surrender, in which the terms were set forth. Johnson, p. 253.
46. House Ex. Docs., 49th Cong., 2d sess., No. 117. Herbert Welsh, The Apache Prisoners at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida (Indian Rights Association, 1887). CIA, Annual Report (1913), p. 34; (1914), pp. 56–57. The story is well summarized by Schmitt in Crook, Autobiography, pp. 289–300.
47. Lummis, pp. 56–57.
Ghost Dance, 1890–91
THE SURRENDER OF GERONIMO and his handful of followers marked the collapse of the last significant Indian group ranging free of reservation restraints. In the short span of two decades, the final surge of the westward movement had overwhelmed all the tribes of the trans-Mississippi West. Their territory appropriated, their traditional food sources destroyed, they had yielded to military coercion and diplomatic persuasion and accepted the proffered substitute—reservations and governmen
t dole.
Ever since the inauguration of Grant’s Peace Policy, the army had played a fairly well-defined role in the reservation program—to make war on all Indians off the reservation and, upon application of the agent, to put down disorders on the reservation. Most of the large-scale military operations of the 1870s had, in fact, been mounted against reservation Indians forcefully resisting or fleeing from the reservation process. The Modoc, Nez Perce, Paiute, Bannock, and Ute wars all grew out of reservation troubles. Even the Red River War of 1874–75 and the Sioux War of 1876–81 involved relatively few Indians who had never been on a reservation. And the Apache hostilities of the 1880s occurred with people who had tried and rejected reservation life.
Officers bitterly objected to their exclusion from reservation affairs until after violence had erupted. In their view, this gave them the unenviable task of fighting a war they had been denied any part in preventing. Col. Orlando B. Willcox expressed the army’s resentment in these words: “After depriving the Indian of his lands and proper means of subsistence, at what point in his subsequent career of starvation, misery, and desperation shall you regard him as a public enemy? For it is only at some such point that the military can come in without being regarded as an intruder.”1 Not with complete consistency, Sherman identified the same problem: “The Indian Bureau keeps feeding and clothing the Indians, regardless of their behavior, till they get fat and saucy, and then we are only notified that the Indians are troublesome, and are going to war, after it is too late to provide a remedy.”2
The Little Bighorn catastrophe of 1876 gave point to such complaints and dealt the death blow to Grant’s already thoroughly discredited Peace Policy. But the label, more than the substance, was destroyed. The basic aims of the reservation program endured through succeeding administrations, Democratic as well as Republican. These were, first, to control the Indian and keep him from disturbing settlers, and second, to indoctrinate him in the white man’s civilization and care for him while teaching him to care for himself. The army’s mission, too, remained basically unchanged. However, with the increasing effectiveness of the reservation as a means of control, if not of civilization, the army’s Indian service focused less on chasing Indians off the reservation and more on guarding them on the reservation.
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