On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

Not a single Chiricahua had been killed, captured, or wounded throughout the entire campaign—with two exceptions—unless by Chiricahua-Apache scouts who, like “Chato,” had kept the pledges given to General Crook in the Sierra Madre in 1883. The exceptions were: one killed by the White Mountain Apaches near Fort Apache, and one killed by a white man in northern Mexico. Yet every one of those faithful scouts—especially the two, “Ki-e-ta” and “Martinez,” who had at imminent personal peril gone into the Sierra Madre to hunt up “Geronimo” and induce him to surrender—were transplanted to Florida and there subjected to the same punishment as had been meted out to “Geronimo.” And with them were sent men like “Goth-kli” and “To-klanni,” who were not Chiricahuas at all, but had only lately married wives of that band, who had never been on the war-path in any capacity except as soldiers of the Government, and had devoted years to its service. There is no more disgraceful page in the history of our relations with the American Indians than that which conceals the treachery visited upon the Chiricahuas who remained faithful in their allegiance to our people. An examination of the documents cited will show that I have used extremely mild language in alluding to this affair.

CHAPTER XXX.

CROOK’S CLOSING YEARS—HE AVERTS A WAR WITH THE UTES—A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION WHICH SECURED A CESSION OF ELEVEN MILLIONS OF ACRES FROM THE SIOUX—HIS INTEREST IN GAME LAWS—HIS DEATH—WHAT THE APACHES DID—WHAT “RED CLOUD” SAID—HIS FUNERAL IN CHICAGO—BURIAL IN OAKLAND, MARYLAND—RE-INTERMENT IN ARLINGTON CEMETERY, VIRGINIA.

The last years of General Crook’s eventful career were spent in Omaha, Nebraska, as Commanding General of the Department of the Platte, and, after being promoted to the rank of Major-General by President Cleveland, in Chicago, Illinois, as Commanding General of the Military Division of the Missouri. During that time he averted the hostilities with the Utes of Colorado, for which the cowboys of the western section of that State were clamoring, and satisfied the Indians that our people were not all unjust, rapacious, and mendacious. As a member of the Sioux Commission to negotiate for the cession of lands occupied by the Sioux in excess of their actual needs, he—in conjunction with his associates: ex-Governor Charles Foster, of Ohio, and Hon. William Warner, of Missouri—effected the relinquishment of eleven millions of acres, an area equal to one-third of the State of Pennsylvania.

The failure of Congress to ratify some of the provisions of this conference and to make the appropriations needed to carry them into effect, has been alleged among the numerous causes of the recent Sioux outbreak. In this connection the words of the Sioux chief “Red Cloud,” as spoken to the Catholic missionary—Father Craft—are worthy of remembrance: “Then General Crook came; he, at least, had never lied to us. His words gave the people hope. He died. Their hope died again. Despair came again.” General Crook also exerted all the influence he could bring to bear to induce a rectification of the wrong inflicted upon the faithful Chiricahua Apaches, in confounding them in the same punishment meted out to those who had followed “Geronimo” back to the war-path. He manifested all through his life the liveliest interest in the preservation of the larger game of the Rocky Mountain country, and, if I mistake not, had some instrumentality, through his old friend Judge Carey, of Cheyenne, now United States Senator, in bringing about the game laws adopted by the present State of Wyoming.

General Crook’s death occurred at the Grand Pacific Hotel, his residence in Chicago, on the 21st of March, 1890; the cause of his death, according to Surgeon McClellan, his attending physician, was heart failure or some other form of heart disease; the real cause was the wear and tear of a naturally powerful constitution, brought on by the severe mental and physical strain of incessant work under the most trying circumstances.

It would be unjust to select for insertion here any of the thousands of telegrams, letters, resolutions of condolence, and other expressions of profound sympathy received by Mrs. Crook from old comrades and friends of her illustrious husband in all sections of our country: besides the official tribute from the War Department, there were eloquent manifestations from such associations as the Alumni of the Military Academy, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Pioneers of Arizona, the citizens of Omaha, Nebraska, Prescott, Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, Dayton, Ohio, and other places in which he had served during the thirty-eight years of his connection with the regular army, and feeling expressions uttered in the United States Senate by Manderson and Paddock of Nebraska, Gorman of Maryland, and Mitchell of Oregon; and a kind tribute from the lips of Governor James E. Boyd of Nebraska. When the news of Crook’s death reached the Apache Reservation, the members of the tribe who had been his scouts during so many years were stupefied: those near Camp Apache sat down in a great circle, let down their hair, bent their heads forward on their bosoms, and wept and wailed like children. Probably no city in the country could better appreciate the importance of Crook’s military work against the savages than Omaha, which through the suppression of hostilities by General Crook had bounded from the dimensions of a straggling town to those of a metropolis of 150,000 people. The resolutions adopted in convention represent the opinions of a committee composed of the oldest citizens of that community—men who knew and respected Crook in life and revered him in death. Among these were to be seen the names of old settlers of the stamp of the Wakeleys, Paxtons, Pritchetts, Doanes, Millers, Cowins, Clarkes, Markels, Wymans, Horbachs, Hanscoms, Collins, Lakes, Millards, Poppletons, Caldwells, Broatches, Mauls, Murphys, Rustins, Woods, Davis, Laceys, Turners, Ogdens, Moores, Cushings, Kitchens, Kimballs, Yates, Wallaces, Richardsons, McShanes, and Kountzes—men perfectly familiar with all the intricacies of the problem which Crook had to solve and the masterly manner in which he had solved it.

As a mark of respect to the memory of his former friend and commander, General John R. Brooke, commanding the Department of the Platte, has protected and fed in honorable retirement the aged mule, “Apache,” which for so many years had borne General Crook in all his campaigns, from British America to Mexico.

Could old “Apache” but talk or write, he might relate adventures and perils to which the happy and prosperous dwellers in the now peaceful Great West would listen with joy and delight.

General Crook had not yet attained great age, being scarcely sixty-one years old when the final summons came, but he had gained more than a complement of laurels, and may therefore be said to have died in the fulness of years. He was born at Dayton, Ohio, on the 23d day of September, 1829; graduated from the United States Military Academy in the class of 1852; was immediately assigned to the Fourth Infantry; was engaged without cessation in service against hostile Indians, in the present States of Oregon and Washington, until the outbreak of the Rebellion, and was once wounded by an arrow which was never extracted. His first assignment during the War of the Rebellion was to the colonelcy of the Thirty-sixth Ohio, which he drilled to such a condition of efficiency that the other regiments in the same division nick named it the “Thirty-sixth Regulars.” Before the war ended he had risen to the rank of brigadier and of major-general of volunteers, and was wounded in the battle of Lewisburgh, West Virginia.