On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

General Crook’s reply to the Lieutenant-General read as follows:

“There can be no doubt that the scouts were thoroughly loyal, and would have prevented the hostiles leaving had it been possible. When they left their camp with our scouts, they scattered over the country so as to make surprise impossible, and they selected their camp with this in view, nor would they all remain in camp at one time. They kept more or less full of mescal. To enable you to clearly understand the situation, it should be remembered that the hostiles had an agreement with Lieutenant Maus that they were to be met by me twenty-five miles below the line, and that no regular troops were to be present. While I was very averse to such an arrangement, I had to abide by it as it had already been entered into. We found them in a camp on a rocky hill about five hundred yards from Lieutenant Maus, in such a position that a thousand men could not have surrounded them with any possibility of capturing them. They were able, upon the approach of any enemy being signalled, to scatter and escape through dozens of ravines and cañons which would shelter them from pursuit until they reached the higher ranges in the vicinity. They were armed to the teeth, having the most improved arms and all the ammunition they could carry. Lieutenant Maus with Apache scouts was camped at the nearest point the hostiles would agree to his approaching. Even had I been disposed to betray the confidence they placed in me it would have been simply an impossibility to get white troops to that point either by day or by night without their knowledge, and had I attempted to do this the whole band would have stampeded back to the mountains. So suspicious were they that never more than from five to eight of the men came into our camp at one time, and to have attempted the arrest of those would have stampeded the others to the mountains.”

General Crook also telegraphed that “to inform the Indians that the terms on which they surrendered are disapproved would, in my judgment, not only make it impossible for me to negotiate with them, but result in their scattering to the mountains, and I can’t at present see any way to prevent it.”

Sheridan replied:

“I do not see what you can now do except to concentrate your troops at the best points and give protection to the people. Geronimo will undoubtedly enter upon other raids of murder and robbery, and as the offensive campaign against him with scouts has failed, would it not be best to take up the defensive, and give protection to the business interests of Arizona and New Mexico?”

Crook’s next despatch to Sheridan said:

“It has been my aim throughout present operations to afford the greatest amount of protection to life and property interests, and troops have been stationed accordingly. Troops cannot protect property beyond a radius of one half mile from camp. If offensive operations against the Indians are not resumed, they may remain quietly in the mountains for an indefinite time without crossing the line, and yet their very presence there will be a constant menace, and require the troops in this department to be at all times in position to repel sudden raids; and so long as any remain out they will form a nucleus for disaffected Indians from the different agencies in Arizona and New Mexico to join. That the operations of the scouts in Mexico have not proved so successful as was hoped is due to the enormous difficulties they have been compelled to encounter, from the nature of the Indians they have been hunting, and the character of the country in which they have operated, and of which persons not thoroughly conversant with the character of both can have no conception. I believe that the plan upon which I have conducted operations is the one most likely to prove successful in the end. It may be, however, that I am too much wedded to my own views in this matter, and as I have spent nearly eight years of the hardest work of my life in this department, I respectfully request that I may now be relieved from its command.”

General Crook had carefully considered the telegrams from his superiors in Washington, and was unable to see how he could allow Indians, or anybody else, to enter his camp under assurances of personal safety, and at the same time “take every precaution against escape.” Unless he treacherously murdered them in cold blood, he was unable to see a way out of the dilemma; and Crook was not the man to lie to any one or deal treacherously by him. If there was one point in his character which shone more resplendent than any other, it was his absolute integrity in his dealings with representatives of inferior races: he was not content with telling the truth, he was careful to see that the interpretation had been so made that the Indians understood every word and grasped every idea; and all his remarks were put down in black and white, which, to quote his own words, “would not lie, and would last long after the conferees had been dead and buried.”

The whole subject of the concluding hours of the campaign against the Chiricahuas, after Crook had been relieved from command, has been fully covered by documents accessible to all students, among which may well be mentioned: Senate Documents, No. 117; General Crook’s “Resumé of Operations against Apache Indians from 1882 to 1886”; the report made by Mr. Herbert Welsh, Secretary of the Indian Rights Association, of his visit to the Apache prisoners confined at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida; the reports made to General Sheridan by General R. B. Ayres, commanding the military post of St. Francis Barracks (St. Augustine, Florida); the telegrams between the War Department and Brigadier-General D. S. Stanley, commanding the Department of Texas, concerning his interview with “Geronimo” and other prisoners, etc.

It may be laid down in one paragraph that the Chiricahua fugitives were followed into the Sierra Madre by two Chiricahua Apaches, sent from Fort Apache, named “Ki-e-ta” and “Martinez,” who were assisted by Lieutenant Gatewood, of the Sixth Cavalry, and Mr. George Wrattan, as interpreter. Not all the band surrendered; there are several still in the Sierra Madre who, as late as the past month of January (1891), have been killing in both Sonora and Arizona. But those that did listen to the emissaries were led to believe that they were to see their wives and families within five days; they were instead hurried off to Florida and immured in the dungeons of old Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida, and never saw their families until the indignant remonstrances of Mr. Herbert Welsh caused an investigation to be made of the exact terms upon which they had surrendered, and to have their wives sent to join them. For “Geronimo” and those with him any punishment that could be inflicted without incurring the imputation of treachery would not be too severe; but the incarceration of “Chato” and the three-fourths of the band who had remained faithful for three years and had rendered such signal service in the pursuit of the renegades, can never meet with the approval of honorable soldiers and gentlemen.