Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  To the officers who had charge of them, the men seemed satisfied, cheerful, and contented, possibly a pose to get their families returned. But Geronimo appeared to contradict that theory when he had Wrattan write a letter to his two wives, son, and daughter at Fort Marion. He declared that everyone at Pickens was happy and contented. “I am very satisfied here, but if I only had you with me I would be more so.” Talking by paper was good, but when one saw lips move and heard the voice, it was much better. “I saw Gen. Miles, heard him speak, and looked into his eyes, and believed what he told me, and I still think he will keep his word. He told me I would see you soon; also a fine country and lots of people. The people and the country I have seen, but not you.” Geronimo wanted the Great Father to let them be together again. “If the government would give us a reservation, so we could support ourselves—Oh! wouldn’t it be fine?”11

  On November 6 the fifteen men at Fort Pickens gained two more prisoners—Chief Mangas, son of Mangas Coloradas, and a companion. Mangas, so instrumental in the breakout of May 1885, had separated from Geronimo and Naiche and taken no part in the events that led to their surrender. In mid-October a cavalry patrol had trailed Mangas and two men with several women and children from Chihuahua through the Black Range and into the Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico. Twenty cavalrymen from Fort Apache got on the trail and captured the party. The men (one died en route) were sent to Fort Pickens, the women and children to Fort Marion.12

  Only a week after Mangas arrived, a three-day convention of shipping magnates met in Pensacola and, when not conducting shipping business, flooded the fort with sightseers—459 on the last day of the convention. The parade continued for months, as visitors and townspeople by the hundreds trooped through the fort each day. Many journeyed to Pensacola for the sole purpose of glimpsing Geronimo and his “red-handed butchers.”13

  Geronimo and his cohorts made the best of the situation by selling craft-work to the visitors. Wrattan had taught Geronimo to print his name, and he sold many autographs. In early June 1887 the Apaches consented to stage an all-night dance for visitors. An excursion boat towing barges full of people, who had paid twenty-five cents each, flew a banner proclaiming GRAND INDIAN WAR DANCE. Actually, it was a medicine dance, but it served the same purpose. Four to five hundred people crowded around as Chappo, painted entirely white and wearing only a breechclout, led off. Other painted men joined him, and to the beat of drums they chanted wildly and gyrated in contortions that greatly entertained the crowd and probably recalled earlier times to the dancers. Geronimo sat quietly watching. Not until dawn did the festivities end.14

  “Excursionists” would continue to form an important part of the prisoners’ lives so long as they remained in the East. Many of the visitors were newspaper editors, and they returned home to give national publicity to Geronimo and the celebrity prisoners of war.

  For Geronimo and his little band, Fort Pickens provided more than ample space. It was one of a series of masonry coastal forts built before the Civil War, one of two erected to command the gateway from the Gulf of Mexico to Pensacola Bay and its navy yard. It occupied the tip of Santa Rosa Island facing Fort Barrancas across the entry to the bay on the mainland, also commanding the entrance to the bay. Barrancas fell to the Confederates at the beginning of the Civil War, but the Union garrison took refuge in Fort Pick-ens and held it throughout the war. After the war, artillery units garrisoned Barrancas but abandoned Pickens.

  Fort Marion, on the east coast of Florida at Saint Augustine, did not provide such spacious accommodations for the prisoners. It, too, had been a coastal fortification, a classic Vauban star-fort design, erected of coquina (seashells compressed into stone) by Spaniards as Castillo de San Marcos and renamed Fort Marion in 1821. Like Fort Pickens, it had not been regarrisoned; the troops occupied nearby Saint Francis Barracks in Saint Augustine. Originally a Franciscan monastery, the barracks had been rebuilt as a US military installation and headquarters.

  By the time Geronimo and his comrades arrived at Fort Pickens in October 1886, the officers who commanded on the Gulf Coast had ample experience with Apache prisoners. Brevet Major General Romeyn B. Ayres, colonel of the Second Artillery, ably assisted by his executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Loomis Langdon, viewed their charges with compassion and treated them as well as the limited space and stocks of food, clothing, and other necessities permitted.

  Chihuahua and his people, seventy-seven in all, had reached Saint Augustine on March 31, 1886, five months before Geronimo surrendered. They were immediately confined in the casemates of Fort Marion, which Colonel Ayres had tried to rid of dampness by maintaining fires in the stoves. By the end of the month, he had erected floored tents on the fort’s upper deck, or terreplein.

  Throughout the summer, with Colonel Ayers on leave, Colonel Langdon made many improvements for Chihuahua’s people, in wall tents rather than A-tents, in sufficient rations, in better clothing, and in more freedom. They could walk at will outside the fort, play ball games in the surrounding ditch, and under escort a few at a time visit shops in Saint Augustine. The city’s Sisters of Charity began a school for the children at the fort. Langdon consistently reported the Indians cheerful and obedient and seemingly satisfied. But by August 23 he began to worry about how long they were to be kept as prisoners, crowded and with almost nothing to occupy them. He urged that they be given a more permanent abode and even suggested Captain Richard H. Pratt’s Indian school at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Langdon’s superior, Major General John M. Schofield, agreed, although without mentioning Carlisle. General Sheridan’s blunt response: where and when they went would be decided by the Interior Department; meantime, hold them as prisoners of war.15

  In September crowding at Fort Marion became worse. On the twentieth Captain Dorst arrived from Fort Leavenworth with Chatto’s delegation of sixteen. On the same day Colonel Wade showed up with the reservation Chiricahuas, 381 men, women, and children. On September 29 Langdon received a list of seventeen Indian scouts transferred to his care. Only fifteen came because the other two, Kayitah and Martine, were now in San Antonio with Geronimo. What should be done with the scouts? Again Sheridan demonstrated his disdain for the scouts: muster them out and keep them at Fort Marion. In other words, make prisoners of war scouts who had loyally served the United States in chasing Geronimo. When Kayitah and Martine arrived, they suffered the same fate. The reservation Chiricahuas, of course, had committed no offense that justified the label of prisoner of war.16

  Throughout the winter of 1886–87, with Geronimo and his men now at Fort Pickens, Colonel Ayres (back on duty) reported favorably each month on the condition and disposition of the Indians at Fort Marion. Colonel Langdon, at Fort Barrancas, did the same for Geronimo and his men at Fort Pickens; their only complaint was their wish to have their families sent from Fort Marion. Meantime, the Interior Department seemed to give no thought to what to do with the Indians, other than to send as many as possible to Captain Pratt’s school at Carlisle. By March 1887, forty-four Chiricahua youths had been enrolled at Carlisle.

  In March 1887 Secretary Endicott had reason to become alarmed over the issue of the Indian prisoners. Eastern states contained a number of reform groups dedicated to securing justice for the Indians. They wielded great political power with public opinion and with the Congress. None exerted more influence than the Indian Rights Association, based in Philadelphia, and its leader, Herbert Welsh. In March 1887 Welsh applied to Secretary Endicott for permission to visit Fort Marion and even requested that an army officer accompany him. Endicott acquiesced. The officer was Captain John G. Bourke.

  At Fort Marion the two talked with Colonel Ayres as well as the principal Apache leaders, including Chatto. Welsh pronounced the fort entirely unsuitable for imprisoning nearly five hundred Apaches, and he published a widely circulated report in which he demanded the immediate removal of the Apaches to a more healthful place where they could engage in agriculture. But he reserved his harshest denunciation fo
r the betrayal of the Apache scouts who had served the United States only to end as prisoners of war. The most conspicuous fact he had reported, Welsh wrote, was “the injustice with which the good behavior, the fidelity and, in some instances, the distinguished services of these imprisoned Chiricahua Indians have been rewarded by the government of the United States. I hold that in this case a fundamental principle of just and wise policy in the treatment of the Indians, has been violated, for not only have the innocent been condemned unheard, but the meritorious have received the punishment of the guilty.”17

  Welsh’s publication in March 1887 provoked a burst of public criticism. It even brought Senator Henry M. Teller (secretary of the interior in the Arthur administration) to Saint Augustine. He confirmed all that Welsh had reported.18 President Cleveland, however, remained unrepentant. According to the Washington agent of the Indian Rights Association, the president had told him that “there was no way to separate the guilty from the innocent before taking them down there. There was an urgency that would not admit of delay. He did not think they were so crowded as to endanger health.”19

  Welsh’s accusations prompted General Sheridan to ask Colonel Ayres to count the scouts. The answer had to disturb the army’s chief if for no other reason than the impact on public opinion if it became known. Of the eighty-two adult males at Fort Marion, sixty-five had served the government as scouts during the two years of the last breakout. Of the remaining seventeen, four were friendly during the entire time but too old to enlist. They were subchiefs and influential in keeping their people quiet. Loco and Chatto were scouts and also influential in keeping the reservation Apaches friendly. Captain Crawford had fifty of these men with him when he was killed. Of the 365 women and children at Fort Marion, 284 were families of the scouts and the four friendlies named.20

  Even though Ayres’s numbers did not reach the public, they confirmed Welsh’s report, which prompted other Indian reform groups to join the chorus, along with leading citizens. Although he had no sympathy for Geronimo and his cohorts at Fort Pickens, Sheridan began to look for a place to settle the people at Fort Marion.

  For Geronimo and his group at Fort Pickens, the irritant remained the same: the absence of their families. On April 17, 1887, as Herbert Welsh’s report centered public and official attention on Fort Marion, at Fort Pickens Naiche, Mangas, and Geronimo sat with George Wrattan and dictated a letter to General Miles. All three made their marks, but clearly Geronimo did the speaking. He recited the scene at Skeleton Canyon when Miles arranged three stones to represent how all the Chiricahuas would be put together. Geronimo asked when they were to see their people. Miles told them they would be with their people and not separated. “Put us all together on some reservation and put George in charge of us and you will soon see what an Indian can do when treated right.” He concluded, “Dear General please send us to our families soon.” The tone suggested a continuing respectful trust in Miles or was framed to seem that way.

  On the same day, Wrattan wrote his own letter to Miles, reporting on the conduct of the Apaches since leaving Fort Bowie. They had enough to make them discontented, he wrote, but they had not uttered even a murmur. They were easily handled. They worked every day without complaint. These people should be given a fair chance. If handled right, they could be civilized and made self-supporting. They thought of Miles all the time, had great faith in him, and believed that in time he would do as he had said.21

  Miles did not answer the letters of Geronimo and Wrattan, but the furor stirred by Herbert Welsh would soon bring relief. Secretary Endicott sent Captain Bourke to Mount Vernon Barracks to investigate its suitability as a home for the Apaches. The post lay near Mount Vernon, Alabama, thirty miles up the Alabama River from Mobile. It was said to be one of the healthiest in the army. In a telegram of April 13, from Mobile, Bourke confirmed this but added that lack of arable land made agriculture unpromising. Back in Washington, he wrote a lengthy report for the secretary in which he described the post as surrounded by pine barrens, sand, and swamps. Hardly anything could be grown. If moved, the Apaches might be taught how to prepare pine and cypress lumber and clear land to raise cotton. They could cut and sell firewood, keep a few chickens, and raise a few vegetables if provided ample fertilizer. Most promising, they could be enlisted in the army as scouts and even be incorporated into the regular army.22

  Aside from the health issue, Captain Bourke had set forth a bleak description of Mount Vernon Barracks as a suitable place to settle the Chiricahuas. It made no difference. General Sheridan had already acted. On April 18, 1887, the day before Bourke submitted his report, he directed that orders be issued to move the Chiricahuas from Fort Marion to Mount Vernon, eligible children to Carlisle, and the families of Geronimo and his band to Fort Pickens. As counted by Colonel Ayers in his final report, 354 went to Mount Vernon, sixty-two to Carlisle, and thirty (twenty women and ten children) to Fort Pickens.23

  The 354 who went to Mount Vernon consisted of Chihuahua’s people who had surrendered to General Crook in March 1886 and the Chiricahuas who had been moved from their reservation in September 1886. Also among them were Chatto and the other scouts, including Kayitah and Martine. The only remaining Chiricahuas were Geronimo’s men at Fort Pickens, now joined by their families.

  General Miles had not kept his promise to place all three stones together—one remained at Fort Pickens—but his promise to keep the families together had been honored. Miles deserved none of the credit. Geronimo and the others at Fort Pickens could thank Herbert Welsh.

  The arrival at Fort Pickens of their families delighted Geronimo and the other men, although no hint of their reaction crept into official reports. Nor did the almost daily groups of tourists that the army gladly conducted into the fort to see the prisoners. For the men, life went on as it had for nearly a year. They ignored the “excursionists” as they went about their light work policing the fort and pulling weeds and brush from the masonry and ditch. Their living quarters, however, had deteriorated over the twenty years since soldiers occupied the fort. All the men and families occupied casemates that had once mounted guns. Doors, windows, floors, and fireplaces were dilapidated; even some doors had come unhinged. The Apaches may have wondered why they worked at so many tasks outside but never on their own quarters.

  Naiche grew in stature. He impressed Colonel Langdon as having more influence than Geronimo over the other prisoners. He was “very manly, respectful, and patient. He never asks for anything nor complains of anything himself, and he discourages others who might. He sets a good example for the others, who are not slow to imitate it.” However cheerful and obedient Naiche and the others appeared, discontent still ran beneath the surface. Several asked Wrattan to approach the colonel and tell him they wanted badly to go to permanent homes where they could till the soil. Langdon reacted with uncharacteristic gruffness. They had acted badly, and they had come here with their lives spared, which was all they deserved. They ought to allow the government to forget them for awhile, for they might prompt a reminder that they had not been punished for their crimes.24

  George Wrattan, however, did not readily drop the issue. In October, at the request of the Apaches, he wrote to General Stanley in Texas asking when they would see the good land and farms Miles told them about. They had behaved well, and with their wives present life was more pleasant. But they would like to hear from Stanley about their talks in San Antonio. Wrattan also addressed Miles once more, telling of the Apaches’ good behavior. Geronimo and Naiche, he wrote, wanted to know if Miles meant all he told them. They had been here a year, and Miles had told them all would be on a good reservation in six months. Wrattan repeated Geronimo’s account of the three stones, even illustrating it with three dots on the paper. He ended by asking Miles to write him some encouraging words that he could pass on to the Apaches.

  Miles did not, of course, but Stanley felt more of an obligation. He held Wrattan’s letter for three months before endorsing it to Washington with the reco
mmendation that these Indians be united with their people at Mount Vernon Barracks. He added his conviction that they had surrendered on promises that were “afterward so modified to amount to bad faith.” Four days later General Sheridan wrote his own endorsement forwarding the document to the adjutant general—to be filed.25

  On May 22, 1888, General Sheridan suffered the first of a series of heart attacks that in August would take his life. On May 10, 1888, probably reflecting the general’s declining health and the impatience of Secretary Endicott with the issue, the War Department directed that the commanding officer at Fort Barrancas send Geronimo and the other prisoners at Fort Pickens to Mount Vernon Barracks. Pensacolans were dismayed by the loss of their prime tourist attraction.

  For Geronimo, no thanks to Miles or Sheridan, the three stones had finally ended in a single stack. But despite the furor kicked up by Herbert Welsh, all the Chiricahuas continued to bear the label “prisoner of war.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  GERONIMO AT MOUNT VERNON BARRACKS, 1888–94

  ON MAY 13, 1888, the train bearing Geronimo and the men and their families who had been incarcerated at Fort Pickens, forty-six in all, steamed to a stop at the railroad platform two miles west of Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama. Not a person stood on the platform, even though the rest of the Chiricahua tribe had lived in a camp outside the post for a year, since moving from Fort Marion, Florida. The post surgeon watched the drama unfold and two years later described the appearance of Geronimo in a magazine article. He overdramatized the scene and got some of it wrong. But he was an eyewitness and a man of integrity who would become famous for identifying mosquitos as the cause of yellow fever: Captain Walter Reed.