While on scouts after Victorio's band I met many United States officers, and often around the camp fire discussed this old chief. The soldiers all agreed that for an ignorant Indian Victorio displayed great military genius, and Major McGonnigal declared, with the single exception of Chief Crazy-horse of the Sioux, he considered Victorio the greatest Indian general that ever appeared on the American continent. In following this wily old Apache Napoleon I examined twenty-five or more of his camps. Victorio was very particular about locating them strategically, and his parapets were most skillfully arranged and built. If he remained only an hour in camp he had these defenses thrown up. He had fought in over two hundred engagements, but his last fight was now very close at hand.
The very next morning after the United States troops, the Apache scouts and the Texas rangers turned homeward General Terrasas' scouts reported to him that Victorio with his entire band of followers was camped at Tres Castilos, a small group of hills about twenty-five miles southwest of the Los Pinos Mountains. General Terrasas at once set his column in motion for that place. Captives afterward declared that Victorio's spies reported the presence of the Mexican cavalry early in the day and thereafter kept him informed hour by hour as to the movements of the approaching enemy.
Victorio had just sent his war chief, Nana, and fifty of his best young warriors away on a raid, so he had left in his camp just an even hundred braves, some of them very old men. He also had ninety-seven women and children and about five hundred head of horses and mules, yet the remarkable old Indian made no move to escape. By nightfall General Terrasas drew up near the Apache camp, surrounded the three hills as best he could and waited until morning before assaulting the enemy. During the night twelve of Victorio's warriors, with four women and four children, deserted the old chief and made their way back to the Eagle Mountains in Texas. Here they committed many depredations until exterminated three months later in the Diablo Mountains by Lieutenants Baylor and Nevill.
Early the following morning Victorio mounted a white horse and, in making some disposition of his braves to meet the expected onset of the enemy forces, exposed himself unnecessarily. The Mexicans fired on him at long range and two bullets pierced his body. He fell from his horse dead,—a good Indian at last.
The loss of Victorio and the absence of Nana demoralized the Apaches, and a vigorous assault by Terrasas and his army resulted in a complete victory for the Mexicans. Eighty-seven Indian warriors were killed, while eighty-nine squaws and their children were captured with a loss of only two men killed and a few wounded. This victory covered General Terrasas with glory. The Mexican Government never ceased to shower honors upon him and gave him many thousands of acres of land in the state of Chihuahua. The general was so elated over the outcome of the battle that he sent a courier on a fast horse to overtake Lieutenant Baylor and report the good news. The messenger caught us in camp near old Fort Quitman. Every ranger in the scout felt thoroughly disgusted and disappointed at missing the great fight by only two days after being with General Terrasas nearly a month.
The captured women and children were sent south of Mexico City into a climate perfectly unnatural to them. Here they all died in a few years. When Nana heard of the death of Victorio and the capture of the squaws and children he fled with his fifty warriors to the Sierra Madre Mountains in the State of Sonora, Mexico. There he joined forces with old Geronimo and massacred more people than any small band of Indians in the world. To avenge himself on Terrasas for killing his friends and carrying away their wives and children, Nana and his band killed more than two hundred Mexicans before joining Geronimo. Nana, with his new chief, surrendered to General Lawton in 1886 and, I believe, was carried away by our government to Florida, where he at last died.
On our return to camp at Ysleta a commission as captain was waiting Lieutenant Baylor, since Captain Neal Coldwell had been named quartermaster of the battalion, his company disbanded and its letter, "A," given to our company.
Though we missed the fight with Victorio it was not long before we were called upon to scout after the band of twelve warriors that had deserted the old chief on the night before the battle of Tres Castilos. However, we had first to clean up our company, for many undesirable recruits had seeped into it. This accomplished, we were ready to resume our Indian warfare.