Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  Not for the first time, the Chiricahua survivors of Alisos Creek found refuge in the impenetrable fortress of the Sierra Madre.

  Despite the disasters at Enmedio and Alisos Creek, the Apaches had conducted their flight more skillfully than the army had conducted the pursuit. The pursuit ended in failure. For one thing, the Chiricahua retreat ranged across two military jurisdictions, Arizona and New Mexico. Confusion of command complicated planning for heading off the outbreak. As Colonel Forsyth pursued his course, therefore, reporting to Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie in Santa Fe. General Willcox, headquartered at Fort Whipple in Prescott, conceived his own strategy for heading off the Chiricahuas. He had assigned command of all his troops in southeastern Arizona to Major David Perry, based on the railroad in Willcox, Arizona.

  As soon as he learned of the outbreak, Major Perry had units of the Sixth Cavalry, accompanied by Indian scouts, probing for the Chiricahuas all the way from Fort Thomas to the New Mexican line and south to the railroad. But he could get no reliable information of where the Apaches were. On April 24 one of his units, a troop of cavalry and a company of Indian scouts under Captain Tullius C. Tupper, were at San Simon Station of the Southern Pacific preparing to patrol the railroad. At nightfall a citizen from Galeyville galloped in and reported large numbers of Indians around his town, near the northern end of the Chiricahua Mountains. Perry at once telegraphed Tupper to hasten to Galeyville, where he would be joined by another troop and scout company under Captain William A. Rafferty, coming from Fort Bowie.

  At 3:00 a.m. on April 25 Tupper reached Galeyville and found the citizen’s report correct. His scouts discovered the Indian trail pointing southeast across the San Simon Valley. Shortly after daybreak Captain Rafferty with his troop and company of scouts arrived after a night march from Fort Bowie. As senior captain, Tupper took command. At once the battalion moved out on the trail—unaware that Forsyth had fought the Indians two days earlier in Horseshoe Canyon and was also looking for them. Reaching the Mexican boundary where the Chiricahuas had crossed, Tupper continued on the trail. Chief of Scouts Al Sieber accompanied the command, and on the night of April 27, as the Apaches danced through their second night of celebration west of the Enmedio Mountains, he and some of the scouts found the camp.

  Tupper and Rafferty worked out a plan for surprising the festive ranchería at dawn on April 28. They would post the two troops of cavalry in the foothills of the Espuelas Mountains west of the objective and the two companies of Indian scouts in the valley on the east to block any attempt to escape into the Enmedio Mountains. When all the units reached their positions, the scouts would open fire, signaling the cavalry on the other side to open fire also.

  The plan went awry when the sergeant of scouts took it on himself to shoot the young woman who ventured out to the mescal pit early in the morning of April 24. The cavalry had not yet reached their positions, but the battle had begun. Tupper mounted his two troops and charged from northwest and southwest toward the camp. Had the scout not precipitated the fight prematurely, Tupper may well have seized or destroyed the entire camp. Because not yet positioned, however, the troops had to cover too great a distance and then, confronted with heavy fire from the Apaches in their new defensive positions, dismount and settle into a long-distance exchange of fire that lasted all morning. When a few Apaches turned the flank of the scouts, the people slipped out into the Enmedio Mountains.

  Almost out of ammunition and awaiting the arrival of an expected pack train, Tupper withdrew to the north eleven miles, back into New Mexico. Here to his astonishment he met Colonel Forsyth and his command. As Tupper declared, he had no idea any troops were closer than a hundred miles. His battalion at once came under Forsyth’s command.16

  On April 30 Forsyth moved out on the Indian trail with his entire command and Tupper’s units. They paused at the Enmedio battlefield and then continued on the trail for two miles until they came across Lieutenant Colonel Lorenzo García of the Sixth Mexican Infantry. García and his adjutant crossed the Alisos Creek bed and met the American officer. García demanded to know why US troops had violated the boundary. Forsyth lamely responded that he had been pursuing the Indians, and later in the day he wrote a letter to the colonel explaining his motives and actions and agreeing to return at once to the American side of the boundary.

  García informed Forsyth that the day before he had met and crushed the retreating Apaches, and he gave Forsyth and his officers a tour of the battlefield. The bloodied dead of both Apaches and soldiers shocked the Americans. With fewer than 250 Mexican infantrymen, García had smashed the Apaches, who left seventy-eight dead on the field and lost thirty-three women and children as captives. García conceded his loss as two officers and nineteen men killed and three officers and thirteen men wounded. His command had no medical officers, and Forsyth offered his own to tend to the Mexican wounded. This allowed more time for the Americans to tour the battlefield.

  Late in the morning Forsyth turned his command around and marched back north. By May 2 he was back in the United States, released Tupper and Rafferty to return to their Arizona posts, and continued the march back to his New Mexico stations.17

  The Loco campaign did not display the US Army at its finest. The efforts to find, much less intercept, the fleeing Chiricahuas proved fumbling at best, both from Arizona and New Mexico. Forsyth mismanaged the battle at Horseshoe Canyon and allowed the Indians to escape unharmed. The blunder of a single Apache scout cost Tupper the complete victory at Enmedio that lay within his grasp. Only the García ambush at Alisos Creek cut off and almost destroyed the quarry. Then the army suffered the embarrassment of intruding unlawfully on Mexican territory, which brought diplomatic protests to the State Department.

  In Arizona, General Willcox had played little part in the campaign, leaving operations to Major Perry. For weeks after the escape, on Willcox’s initiative all the generals, up the chain of command to General Sherman, burdened the official record with petty quibbling over where Geronimo entered the United States, Arizona or New Mexico—that is, the Department of Arizona or the District of New Mexico. At the same time, Willcox and Colonel Eugene A. Carr carried on a highly visible feud, both official and public, over where the blame for Cibicue belonged. Offended by an order issued by General Sherman, Willcox even went around the entire chain of command and complained to the president. Failing to get satisfaction, he went political.

  In July 1882 Willcox received notice from the War Department that he would be relieved of command of the Department of Arizona. On September 4, 1882, Brigadier General George Crook assumed command.

  FIFTEEN

  MEXICO: Massacres and Raids, 1882–83

  DESPITE THE EFFORTS OF some rivals to portray Geronimo as a coward at Alisos Creek, he had emerged from the massacre with enhanced reputation. He had proved the ablest leader and fighter in the bloody combat in the ravine, and he had steered the pathetic survivors out of the trap. In the aftermath of Alisos Creek, he continued to provide strong leadership in guiding the survivors through the Carcay and other mountains to the south. After Alisos Creek, no one questioned his role as the dominant leader. Finally, traveling forty laborious miles, about May 5 they reached Juh’s camp in a secluded stronghold on the western slope of the Sierra Madre, at the head of the Bavispe River in Sonora. The Apaches called the hideout Bugatseka. Geronimo now, as in the past, shared leadership with Juh.

  Geronimo’s achievements in 1882 are especially notable because of family distractions. Among the captives seized by the Mexicans at Alisos Creek was Chee-hash-kish, his second wife. They had been married since about 1852, shortly after the massacre of his first family by Mexicans. She was the mother of Chappo and Lulu, born in 1864 and 1865, respectively. In Mexico, after her capture, Chee-hash-kish married another Chiricahua captive and never saw Geronimo again.

  In 1880 Geronimo had taken a fifth wife, Zi-yeh, a Nednhi, who in 1882 gave birth to a son, Fenton. Eva would follow in 1889. Like all Apaches, Geronimo loved his famil
y, and the loss of a wife and the gain of a son occurred at the same time as he employed his most brilliant leadership.1

  Bugatseka afforded an ideal refuge for the Chiricahuas to rest, hunt, dance, and renew old friendships. Hundreds of people from several bands had gathered, and they could muster about seventy-five fighting men. Never content to remain long in one place, however, they began to grow restless and quarrelsome. The thoughts of their leaders, especially Juh and Geronimo, turned to a course of action that had proved fatal numerous times in the past.2

  Chihuahuan towns such as Janos, Corralitos, and Casas Grandes repeatedly attracted the Apaches under the guise of seeking peace and rations from Mexican officials. Apaches never trusted or eased their hatred of Mexicans. Juh and Geronimo were particularly hostile. But Mexican authorities encouraged the Indians to come in and trade, make a treaty, and above all gain access to whiskey. Such visits had usually proved fruitless in concluding a treaty and on occasion had led to the massacre of inebriated Apaches. In 1851, near Janos, Geronimo had lost his entire family to such wanton treachery. Juh had just returned from Casas Grandes. Now he and Geronimo led about 200 to 250 of their people across the Sierra Madre and set up a base camp four miles southwest of Casas Grandes. Mexican authorities and merchants welcomed them.

  Throughout April 1882, while Geronimo raided and fought south from San Carlos with Loco and his people, Juh had traded at Casas Grandes. His motive seems to have been strong drink. Increasingly, as often as not, he was drunk. The new initiative that took him and Geronimo with their people to Casas Grandes, supposedly to make peace with the Mexicans, may have had similar origins in Juh.

  On May 18, 1882, Geronimo and Juh met with officials in Casas Grandes. “We shook hands and promised to be brothers,” recalled Geronimo. “Then we began to trade, and the Mexicans gave us mescal. Soon nearly all the Indians were drunk.” For a week people circulated between their camp and the town. More Chiricahuas came down from the mountains, until the camp contained families from groups not only of Geronimo and Juh but also of Naiche, Zele, and Chatto. Geronimo and Juh, ever suspicious, made sure both did not enter the town at the same time, and the talks continued while the people continued to trade and get drunk.3

  On the morning of May 24, city officials sent two wagons to the Chiricahua camp. One contained bottles of whiskey, the other shelled corn, the prime ingredient of tiswin. That should have been warning enough, but throughout the day and all night the Indians staged a glorious binge. Jason Betzinez had the good sense to spend the night at a distance from the main camp. “During the night I could hear the drunken Indians in their camp, howling and dancing,” he remembered. As early as 2:00 p.m., recalled Sam Hauzous, “the whole camp—everybody singing away and just running around. All—they seem like very happy. But they don’t know what’s coming to them.”4

  They didn’t. An hour before dawn on May 25 a volley of shots shattered the darkness. Juh, Geronimo, and others not too drunk to rouse themselves gathered the women and children and, abandoning their horses, fled the camp. In fact, some soldiers had fired before other elements were in place, and a well-planned attack from four directions failed. Nonetheless, soldiers swarmed into the camp and fell on all who had been too intoxicated to escape, killing ten and capturing thirty-seven. Geronimo and Juh rallied the men who had escaped and fought off the soldiers until they gave up the pursuit.5

  Watching from a distance, Hauzous saw the soldiers load the captives in three wagons and haul them into town. More soldiers arrived. One was Lieutenant Colonel Lorenzo García, who had taken such heavy casualties at Alisos Creek. Twenty-five of the captives fell into his hands, and he had them slaughtered. The Chiricahuas returned to their original camp, gathered their belongings, and journeyed back to the Sierra Madre to Juh’s favorite stronghold in rugged terrain north of the Aros River, across from the village of Guaynopa, in Chihuahua near the Sonora boundary. They took unassailable positions on the heights above what Betzinez termed a “Great Canyon.”6

  One of the motives for seeking peace at Casas Grandes lay in the increasing concentration of Mexican troops in both Chihuahua and Sonora. Part of these troops, of course, inflicted the disaster at the Chiricahua base camp near Casas Grandes. In Juh’s stronghold at the Guaynopa Great Canyon, the leaders worried about being trailed by soldiers, as in fact they were. Juh and Geronimo decided to launch a savage raid to the west, toward the Yaqui River in Sonora. After the first day’s journey through a series of difficult canyons, they sent a party forward to scout several targets that had been contemplated. The scouts returned to report units of soldiers moving around Sonora. Undaunted, Geronimo resolved to continue to raid. More cautious, Juh wanted to withdraw to secure mountain refuges. The two decided to divide. Juh turned around with about five hundred people, including Loco, Nana, Naiche, Chatto, and Bonito. Thirty men and teenage boys capable of bearing arms elected to follow Geronimo, supported by Chihuahua and Kayatena. The separation occurred in late June 1882. For the next four months, Geronimo would rip up and plunder one Sonoran village or ranch after another, one freight-laden pack or wagon train after another, waylay and kill one luckless traveler after another. He hated all Mexicans.7

  Geronimo had been raiding in Sonora and Chihuahua all his adult life. Other Chiricahuas raided, too, but Geronimo brought special vehemence to raids in Mexico because of the massacre of his first family by Mexicans in 1851. Raid seems an inadequate word to describe what happened when a town, ranch, freight train, or traveler was victimized. Besides plunder, raiders butchered people, often in the most brutal fashion. Thirty years of such barbaric slaughter, often involving torture and mutilation, form a major characteristic of Geronimo’s persona. Barbarous as raiding was, however, Apaches almost never scalped or raped.

  Raids in Mexico and New Mexico and Arizona had become a way of life, blurring the distinction between raid and war. Chiricahua culture held raids to be for provisions and subsistence, war for revenge. Raiding was constant, justified by need but not always confined to need. It could also be rationalized as war, since hostilities provided constant justification for revenge. Clearly, for Geronimo the motivation for raids did not stamp him as a hero fighting for his homeland. No part of Mexico formed his homeland. North of the border, the upper Gila River and Mogollon Mountains comprised his actual homeland, but it could be broadened into southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

  Sonoran troops tracked the raiding parties and occasionally skirmished with them. The soldiers posed a constant threat that worried the Chiricahuas, but not enough to stop the raids. Finally, however, in September Geronimo again demonstrated his Power, as described by Betzinez:

  That night Geronimo told us that Mexican soldiers were on our trail. He prophesied as to the exact moment they would appear. The next morning the women and children were, as usual, on the mountain top while the men were watching the back trail. Sure enough, just as Geronimo had predicted Mexican soldiers appeared in the very place and at the exact time that Geronimo had foretold. The Mexicans went on to the creek then retraced their steps toward Oputo. Our warriors followed and attacked them about sunset. Our men captured all the enemy’s horses and did considerable other damage.8

  This encounter persuaded Geronimo to reunite with Juh, and early in October 1882 his raiders reached the Great Canyon near Guaynopa.

  Juh and his followers had hardly been inactive. Throughout the summer, they too had conducted devastating raids, though not on the scale of Geronimo’s party. They had also fought with Mexican troops, once decisively. Jason Betzinez learned the details from participants. After two days of fighting and nearly out of ammunition, the Apaches could not shake the enemy. So Juh resorted to a stratagem:

  The Indians made a plain zig-zag trail up a steep mountain to a point just below the summit where the trail ran parallel to the ridge line. … [Juh] had the men roll a line of big rocks into place along the trail, ready to be dislodged down the mountainside. The warriors took their positions as the enem
y appeared on a ridge across the ravine. The Indians were well concealed with brush, grass, and leaves. They lay there motionless but impatient for the Mexicans to get within the danger zone. The latter confidently marched up the zig-zag trail. When they reached the summit the Apache warriors sprang out and attacked them. The Mexicans started to withdraw down the mountainside whereupon at Juh’s command the Indians began rolling the great boulders on them. Some of those rocks were so big that they knocked down pine trees. Many soldiers were crushed by the tumbling boulders and falling trees. Not many escaped.9

  Together once again, Geronimo and Juh discussed their next venture. They knew the names of the two leading officers who had massacred many of their people near Casas Grandes in May. They had negotiated with them in the town. They also knew where one, Juan Mata Ortíz, kept a ranch, near Galeana, on the Rio Santa María southeast of Janos, Chihuahua. They conceived a scheme for luring the officers and any troops they could muster into an ambush in nearby Chocolate Pass, scene of earlier ambushes. Abandoning Guaynopa late in October, the entire body moved to the northeast and in early November camped about thirty miles from Galeana. The fighting men numbered between 130 and 140.

  Raiders struck twice in the vicinity but could decoy no pursuers into Chocolate Pass. The third raid hit the ranch of Mata Ortíz himself. Infuriated, he assembled twenty-two citizens from Galeana and on November 14, 1882, trailed the raiders to Chocolate Pass. The entire Chiricahua fighting force lay in wait, arranged in two groups designed to spring a trap from in front and the rear. The trap misfired when Mata Ortíz encountered the first contingent and led his men to a high hill and dug in. Even so, Geronimo and Juh brought all their men to bear on the position. They stormed up the slope in the face of intense fire and swarmed among the defenders, fighting hand to hand. Mata Ortíz and all but one of his men perished. As the sole survivor fled on a horse, Geronimo shouted to let him go. He would bring more Mexicans to be slaughtered.10