On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

In the great riots of 1877, and again in 1882, Crook’s energies were severely taxed for the protection of the Government property along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, but he performed the duty to the satisfaction of all classes. The handsome, stately, soldierly figure of the late General John H. King, Colonel of the Ninth Infantry, rises up in my memory in this connection. He rendered most valuable and efficient service during the periods in question. Similarly, in running down and scattering the robber bands of Doctor Middleton, and other horse-thieves in the Loup country, in northwestern Nebraska, the intelligent work performed by General Crook, Captain Munson, and Lieutenant Capron was well understood and gratefully recognized by all who were acquainted with it. Nebraska had reason to feel indebted for the destruction of one of the most desperate gangs, led by a leader of unusual nerve and intelligence—the celebrated “Doc.” Middleton, who was wounded and captured by Deputy United States Marshal Llewellyn.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CROOK RE-ASSIGNED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARIZONA—ALL THE APACHES ON THE WAR-PATH—LIEUTENANTS MORGAN AND CONVERSE WOUNDED—CAPTAIN HENTIG KILLED—CROOK GOES ALONE TO SEE THE HOSTILES—CONFERENCES WITH THE APACHES—WHAT THE ARIZONA GRAND JURY SAID OF AN INDIAN AGENT—CONDITION OF AFFAIRS AT THE SAN CARLOS AGENCY—WHISKEY SOLD TO THE CHIRICAHUA APACHES—APACHE TRIALS BY JURY—ARIZONA IN 1882—PHŒNIX, PRESCOTT, AND TUCSON—INDIAN SCHOOLS.

Before the summer of 1882 had fairly begun, Indian affairs in Arizona had relapsed into such a deplorable condition that the President felt obliged to re-assign General Crook to the command. To the occurrences of the next four years I will devote very few paragraphs, because, although they formed an epoch of great importance in our Indo-military history and in General Crook’s career, they have previously received a fair share of my attention in the volume, “An Apache Campaign,” to which there is little to add. But for the sake of rounding out this narrative and supplying data to those who may not have seen the book in question, it may be stated that affairs had steadily degenerated from bad to worse, and that upon Crook’s return to Prescott no military department could well have been in a more desperate plight. In one word, all the Apaches were again on the war-path or in such a sullen, distrustful state of mind that it would have been better in some sense had they all left the reservation and taken to the forests and mountains.

Crook was in the saddle in a day, and without even stopping to inquire into the details of the new command—with which, however, he was to a great extent familiar from his former experience—he left the arrangement of such matters to his Adjutant-General, Colonel James P. Martin, and started across the mountains to Camp Apache. Not many of the Apaches were to be seen, and practically none except the very old, the very feeble, or the very young. All the young men who could shoot were hiding in the mountains, and several sharp actions had already been had with the troops: the Third and Sixth Cavalry had had a fight with the renegades from the reservation, and had had two officers—Morgan and Converse, of the Third—severely wounded; Captain Hentig, of the Sixth, had been killed on the Cibicu some months before; and the prospects of peace, upon a permanent and satisfactory basis, were extremely vague and unpromising. But there was a coincidence of sentiment among all people whose opinion was worthy of consultation, that the blame did not rest with the Indians; curious tales were flying about from mouth to mouth, of the gross outrages perpetrated upon the men and women who were trying faithfully to abide in peace with the whites. It was openly asserted that the Apaches were to be driven from the reservation marked out for them by Vincent Collyer and General O. O. Howard, upon which they had been living for more than eleven years. No one had ever heard the Apaches’ story, and no one seemed to care whether they had a story or not.

Crook made every preparation for a resumption of hostilities, but he sent out word to the men skulking in the hills that he was going out alone to see them and hear what they had to say, and that if no killing of white people occurred in the meantime, not a shot should be fired by the troops. In acting as he did at this time, Crook lost a grand opportunity for gaining what is known as military glory: he could have called for additional troops and obtained them; the papers of the country would have devoted solid columns to descriptions of skirmishes and marches and conferences, what the military commander thought and said, with perhaps a slight infiltration of what he did not think and did not say; but, in any event, Crook would have been kept prominently before the people. His was not, however, a nature which delighted in the brass-band-and-bugle school of military renown: he was modest and retiring, shy almost as a girl, and conscientious to a peculiar degree. He had every confidence in his own purposes and in his own powers, and felt that if not interfered with he could settle the Apache problem at a minimum of cost. Therefore he set out to meet the Apaches in their own haunts and learn all they had to say, and he learned much. He took with him Mr. C. E. Cooley, formerly one of his principal scouts, who was to act as interpreter; Al Seiber, who had seen such wonderful service in that country; Surgeon J. O. Skinner; and myself. Captain Wallace, with his company of the Sixth Cavalry, remained in charge of the pack-train.

Upon the elevated plateau of broken basalt which separates the current of the White River from that of the Black there is a long line of forest, principally cedar, with no small amount of pine, and much yucca, soapweed, Spanish bayonet, and mescal. The knot-holes in the cedars seemed to turn into gleaming black eyes; the floating black tresses of dead yucca became the snaky locks of fierce outlaws, whose lances glistened behind the shoots of mescal and amole. Twenty-six of these warriors followed us down to our bivouac in the cañon of the “Prieto,” or Black River, and there held a conference with General Crook, to whom they related their grievances.

Before starting out from Camp Apache General Crook had held a conference with such of the warriors as were still there, among whom I may mention “Pedro,” “Cut-Mouth Moses,” “Alchise,” “Uklenni,” “Eskitisesla,” “Noqui-noquis,” “Peltie,” “Notsin,” “Mosby,” “Chile,” “Eskiltie,” and some forty others of both sexes. “Pedro,” who had always been a firm friend of the whites, was now old and decrepit, and so deaf that he had to employ an ear-trumpet. This use of an ear-trumpet by a so-called savage Apache struck me as very ludicrous, but a week after I saw at San Carlos a young baby sucking vigorously from a rubber tube attached to a glass nursing-bottle. The world does move.

From the journal of this conference, I will make one or two extracts as illustrative of General Crook’s ideas on certain seemingly unimportant points, and as giving the way of thinking and the manner of expression of the Apaches.

General Crook: “I want to have all that you say here go down on paper, because what goes down on paper never lies. A man’s memory may fail him, but what the paper holds will be fresh and true long after we are all dead and forgotten. This will not bring back the dead, but what is put down on this paper today may help the living. What I want to get at is all that has happened since I left here to bring about this trouble, this present condition of affairs. I want you to tell the truth without fear, and to tell it in as few words as possible, so that everybody can read it without trouble.”