Geronimo
Page 26
On the day Lawton arrived with the people, September 8, all were packed into wagons as the Fourth Cavalry Band drew up on the parade ground and played “Auld Lang Syne.” The wagons moved north down the road to Bowie Station, where a train awaited them. After a photographer took pictures, they boarded the cars—fifteen Chiricahua men (including Gatewood’s scouts Kayitah and Martine), nine women, and three children, twenty-seven in all. Captain Lawton took charge with an escort of twenty cavalrymen. Miles and his staff rode as far as the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, then changed trains for Albuquerque. The special train steamed on east, headed for Florida.10
Although a man of periodic mood swings, Geronimo had provided exceptional leadership in the days following his extended discussions with Lieutenant Gatewood on the Bavispe River. He never relaxed his inbred suspicion, never let his guard down, and remained always alert for treachery. He forced the Mexican prefect, Aguirre, to back down and return to Mexico. He followed the wise counsel of Gatewood and appeared, or pretended, to accept Captain Lawton as trustworthy. Traveling north to Skeleton Canyon in tandem with an American command posed dangers, as the murderous intent of Lieutenant Smith demonstrated, but Geronimo negotiated this journey with skill. Naiche remained in the background, letting Geronimo plot the daily course of action. In the end, Geronimo probably had more influence than Miles in persuading Naiche to surrender his following.
When he met General Miles on September 3, Geronimo discovered a general who did not “talk ugly” like Crook and gave in to him. Putting his trust in Miles proved a mistake with lifelong consequences. But by now, surrounded and outnumbered by troops, an attempt to break free would be costly and leave his people as destitute as ever. Besides, Miles seemed like a trustworthy man, and his talk about getting all the Chiricahuas together held strong appeal. Geronimo did not understand how little control Miles had over their future.
Geronimo had the good sense to recognize the truth of what Kayitah and Martine said when they finally met with him in Mexico. They described the pitiful condition of the Chiricahuas, which Geronimo could plainly see around him as the two emissaries talked. Overcoming his stubborn reluctance to meet with soldiers, he consented to go down and talk with Lieutenant Gatewood. He had long known and trusted this officer. From this point forward, his strategy was to bargain for the best terms possible, ideally a return to the old life on the reservation. When this proved impossible, he held forth the prospect of continuing the war but also gradually accepted the inevitable.
As a matter of fact, although raiding occurred repeatedly, only two clashes with the US cavalry occurred during the last two years of Geronimo’s freedom, with only minor skirmishes. Occasionally his camp was seized by scouts or soldiers, but not before Geronimo took alarm and scattered his people into the hills. The army and the scouts tried to find and destroy the Chiricahuas, without success. Geronimo and Naiche led their people through the tortuous Mexican defiles they knew so well and constantly eluded their pursuers. That in itself reflects creditably on Geronimo, whose leadership in avoiding the enemy and also providing subsistence for his people by raids on the Mexicans demonstrates superior leadership.
During the two-year period ending at Skeleton Canyon, Geronimo’s name appeared almost daily in the national press. That he became the best known of all Indian leaders sprang largely from this two-year period. For vulnerable citizens in both Mexico and the United States, he personified the Apache menace. Ironically, despite the atrocities committed during raids on civilians, his fame grew not from war but from his uncanny avoidance of war.
Although 1885–86 marked Geronimo’s preeminence as a war leader, his success in avoiding war and finally in working through the tortuous process of surrender marked his finest period as a fighting Apache.
TWENTY-FIVE
PRISONERS OF WAR, 1886–87
AS THE TRAIN RATTLED across Arizona and New Mexico on September 8, 1886, the twenty-seven Apaches pondered their future. As Naiche later explained his last breakout to General Crook, he didn’t know anything about Florida, but he didn’t think he would like it. All the travelers probably thought the same thing. Most painful, they knew they were leaving their mountain-and-desert homeland. But they had tired of running. They had looked into General Miles’s eyes and liked what they saw. He did not “talk ugly” to them like General Crook. They decided to trust his promise eventually to put all the Chiricahuas together on a reservation. (At this time, the reservation Chiricahuas were struggling through rain and mud to reach Holbrook, where on September 13 they finally boarded railroad cars that would take them to Florida, too.) Geronimo and the others lamented leaving behind their homeland for the unknown in Florida, but the promise of a reservation only for Chiricahuas held appeal. As always, they remained suspicious, but submissive instead of defiant.
This last band of holdouts consisted of some of the Chiricahuas’ finest fighting men. Naiche, Chokonen head chief since the death of Taza, had achieved the respect and confidence of his people since taking to the Sierra Madre. He was no longer the uncertain youth whose status as son of Cochise conferred legitimacy for which he was unprepared. He usually let Geronimo take the lead but did not hesitate to voice his opinions and exert his influence. Geronimo, never a chief and recognizing Naiche’s birthright, consistently put him forward even when making the decisions.
Among the rest, at thirty-seven Perico had long been considered the best of the fighting men, always loyal to his cousin Geronimo and with the courage, bravery, and determination that enabled him to carry out any mission. Not far behind was another of Geronimo’s cousins, Fun. Geronimo’s son Chappo, now twenty-two, had grown up an accomplished, intelligent, and brave young man, skilled in meeting the wishes of his father. Ahwandia, Napi, Yahnozha, Bishi, Motaos, Kilthdigai, Zhone, and Lonah bore reputations that testified to the success of the little band in eluding troops and scouts in the months before the surrender. Also on board were Kayitah and Martine, still army scouts and thus not warmly embraced by the others.1
President Cleveland having determined that all the Chiricahuas must be settled in the East, they all became prisoners of war. The War Department had exercised “police control” over the reservation Chiricahuas since 1883. In truth, the War Department now “owned” all the Chiricahuas. Chihuahua and others who surrendered to General Crook in March 1886 had been shipped to Florida as prisoners of war. The War Department decided that all the reservation Chiricahuas must go to Florida. No other category fit but prisoner of war, and they all picked up that label. These included every man who had faithfully served the US Army as a scout, taking the lead in running down Geronimo in Mexico. Chatto and his delegation held at Fort Leavenworth joined their brethren in Florida as prisoners of war. Ultimately, even Kayitah and Martine became prisoners of war.
The War Department repeatedly tried to get the Indian Bureau to assume responsibility for the Chiricahuas, find them a reservation, and administer them like all the other tribes under its jurisdiction. The bureau and its parent, the Interior Department, either flatly refused or stalled the question. These agencies had no place to put them, and Congress seemed unlikely to establish a new reservation.
Actually, the Chiricahuas fared better under the War Department than they would have under the Indian Bureau. Neither corruption nor theft dogged the army officers who cared for them, and the War Department ensured that appropriations usually provided sufficient rations and other necessities. Yet the label prisoner of war carried a humiliating stigma that could not be erased until the label itself was erased.
Both in Mexico and the United States, the Chiricahuas had committed horrid atrocities for many years, but as General Miles assured Geronimo, the slate had been wiped clean. Southwesterners passionately believed otherwise. They wanted Geronimo and his followers kept in Arizona, tried by civil authority, and hanged. So did President Cleveland. General Miles got them out of the territory before that could happen.
The train steamed through El Paso and then southea
st across West Texas toward San Antonio, new country to the Apaches. Much to their surprise, on September 10 at San Antonio the train stopped and they were ordered off. An escort conducted them to a large, high-walled enclosure with iron gates. Herded inside, they were directed to tents even then being put up. This was clearly not Florida. Probably George Wrattan told them that it was an army supply depot for the soldiers in Texas.
“As soon as the Indians were within the depot enclosure,” stated Brigadier General David S. Stanley, department commander, “all San Antonio turned loose, crazy to see them, and the same afternoon a mob, ill-mannered, insolent, and clamorous, pressed against the iron gates demanding to rush in and see the prisoners.” The Apaches had never seen such throngs of white people, all trying to get close to them. They remained stoic behind the locked gates, although puzzled by what Wrattan probably explained to them were simply curious, not menacing, people. In fact, Geronimo’s renown, the frequent appearance of his name in newspapers all over the country during the past two years, had aroused intense curiosity among the American people. At San Antonio, some had a chance to see the “bloodthirsty red savages.” They were the first Geronimo confronted, but they would not be the last. When the throng grew calmer, the soldiers let small groups enter under escort to look at the Apaches.2
Geronimo had another serious worry. Would any of his people be killed? “They are not going to kill me,” he assured Wrattan. “I have the promise of Usen [the Apache deity], but my warriors are not so protected. Usen promised that neither my sister nor Daklugie [Juh’s son] would die, and he promised that I should live to be an old man and have a natural death. But he made no stipulations regarding the braves. It is for them I fear.”3
Three weeks later, on September 29, Geronimo and Naiche were conducted into the presence of an army general, who met with them separately. Wrattan probably introduced the officer as General Stanley. Another officer was also present. The general quizzed each in turn about their understanding of the terms, if any, on which they had surrendered. Both gave the same account. At Skeleton Canyon, Miles 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 with be done you.” Later, at Fort Bowie, Miles said, “We are all brothers; don’t fear anyone, no one will hurt you; you will meet all the Chiricahuas; … you will have a separate reservation with your tribes, with horses and wagons, and no one will hurt you.” In his interview, Geronimo leaned over and cleared a piece of ground with his hand, then stated that at Fort Bowie Miles did the same thing and said, “Everything you have done up to this time will be wiped out like that and forgotten, and you will begin a new life.”4
The Chiricahuas remained in their tents, with nothing to do but play cards, chew and smoke tobacco, and talk. On the day after the interview with General Stanley, Wrattan read a synopsis of General Miles’s report to Washington. Geronimo repeatedly interrupted with grunts of approval. Every morning Geronimo inquired of the officer in charge whether any word had been received from the Great Father and also asked frequently about his wives in Florida, whom he wanted very much to see as well as others of his family.5
Day after day, however, the officer’s answer was the same: no word from the Great Father in Washington. As time passed and boredom deepened, the officer took two of the Chiricahuas and the two scouts, Kayitah and Martine, for walks around San Antonio. The Apaches saw large numbers of white people and many buildings; whether they registered any reaction is unrecorded.
At last, on October 22, forty-two days after entering the compound at San Antonio, General Stanley informed the Chiricahuas that in a few hours they would be placed on railroad cars, the men in one, the women and children and the two scouts in another. The men would be taken off at a place called Fort Pickens, while the women and children would go on to Fort Marion, where Chihuahua and his people had been for more than six months and where the reservation Chiricahuas had arrived on September 20.
At once Geronimo and Naiche requested an interview with General Stanley. With two other officers standing by and Wrattan interpreting, the two Chiricahuas protested vociferously that this was contrary to what General Miles had promised. He had positively guaranteed that they would be united with their families at Fort Marion. They repeated what they had already told Stanley about the surrender but added that Miles had placed three stones on the ground—Geronimo, Chihuahua, and the reservation Indians—and put them one on top of the other. “That is what the President wants to do,” Miles concluded, “get all of you together.” Wrattan had not interpreted at Skeleton Canyon, but he vouched for the truth of the Apache account of what happened at Fort Bowie.6
At trainside the men were separated from the women and children and placed on separate cars, Kayitah and Martine on the car destined for Fort Marion. The train pulled out of San Antonio full of disgruntled, betrayed Apaches.
The long detention in San Antonio sprang from two circumstances. First, President Cleveland and General Sheridan wanted the Apaches turned over to the civil authorities in Arizona and tried for murder. Second, General Miles, who knew that his superiors expected the surrender to be unconditional, was a master at dissembling—at composing wordy dispatches that avoided the central question and kept the telegraph wires humming as the chain of command tried to discover if he had in fact granted terms.
Complicating this effort was the custom of high officials to escape Washington’s summer heat in more agreeable climes: President Cleveland vacationed at a resort in New York’s mountains, while Secretary of War Endicott took refuge in New Hampshire’s mountains. Another complication centered in San Francisco, where General O. O. Howard failed to receive all the telegraphic exchanges between Miles and Washington.
Still another issue got tangled in the verbiage and met with the obfuscation at which Miles was so talented. What messages did Miles receive and when? On September 6 he issued field orders directing Captain Lawton, in obedience to telegraphic instructions of September 4 from the acting secretary of war, to take charge of the Chiricahua prisoners and proceed with them to Fort Marion. But the War Department denied that any such instructions had been sent on September 4 or any other date. The issue became further clouded on September 7, as telegrams sang back and forth among Miles, Howard, Sheridan, the secretary of war, and the president. The president wanted the prisoners held at Fort Bowie, but Miles pointed out that it was not secure enough. A telegram on the eighth informed Miles that the president therefore had directed that the prisoners be taken to the nearest fort or prison where they could be securely confined. Miles did not receive this before entraining, but his aide telegraphed it to him as the train crossed New Mexico. Miles replied to this on the ninth from Engle, New Mexico: He was carrying out the president’s wishes. No fort in Arizona could securely confine the Indians, and they were now traveling between El Paso and San Antonio. As directed by the acting secretary of war (the lost or nonexistent dispatch of September 4), they would be taken directly to Fort Marion, Florida. If stopped, they could be confined in the Quartermaster Depot at San Antonio or the military prison at Fort Leavenworth. From Miles’s perspective, most importantly they were out of his department; at Engle he was on his way to Albuquerque to get the reservation Apaches through to Florida.7
President Cleveland knew no more than that Miles had promised to get the Chiricahuas out of the country. That meant the surrender had not been unconditional. But exactly what more, if anything, had been promised he could not get a clear answer from Miles. Therefore, on September 10 he had orders issued to Brigadier General David S. Stanley, commanding the Department of Texas, to take the prisoners off the train at San Antonio and confine them in the Quartermaster corral until more answers could be obtained. Frustrated by Miles’s wordy dispatches that provided no more answers, he directed that General Stanley interview Geronimo and Naiche to obtain their understanding of what had been promised.8
On October 25, 1886, the train stopped and the cars
containing Geronimo and his men were uncoupled. George Wrattan probably explained that they had halted at Pensacola, Florida. Fort Pickens, where General Stanley had explained Geronimo and his men would be imprisoned, stood on a sandy island at the mouth of a large bay.
Of more interest to the Indians was a mob such as had greeted them at San Antonio, some two thousand citizens swarming around the railroad coaches. The cars were run down to the railroad wharf to place the Apaches on the excursion boat Twin, which would take them across the bay to the island. There another crowd had gathered, surging closer to see the Indians. “Dozens of small boats, filled with people, bobbed about in the choppy waters of Pensacola Bay,” wrote a newsman. “The press of the large crowd forced the soldiers to form a double file to the Twin. The Apaches alighted and marched between the double file to the steamer. They moved quickly and without fear.” The experience at San Antonio, and Wrattan’s counsel, had taught them not to fear such throngs. They may have enjoyed the attention.9
Wrattan went with the men to the old fort and explained all he could of what they saw and experienced. The massive fortification, long abandoned by the army, presented a dismal scene. Weeds, brush, and even trees choked the masonry walls, the parade ground, and a surrounding ditch. Inside, soldiers conducted the men to strange damp rooms Wrattan called casemates, where cannon had once been mounted to command the ocean approaches. Two rooms had been cleaned and bedding laid out on rough wooden bunks. Soldiers issued brown canvas suits such as they wore on work details, together with underclothing, shoes, and socks. In each casemate, one man served as cook, preparing food at a fireplace. They received army rations that at first seemed inadequate. Geronimo complained, but Naiche silenced him. Later the rations were increased. At once the men were put to work, clearing brush, cleaning the parade ground, and doing other manual chores. They worked six hours a day except Sunday and performed without complaint.10