From the border annals, it would appear that thenceforward he was practically commander of his troop. So closely identified was he with it, that what the troop did was credited to Cushing, and what Cushing did was the pride and the boast of the troop. In captivating the hearts of his followers, Howard displayed a power and quality of bravery much resembling that of his brothers. Captain Bourke, who served with him as junior lieutenant, in the same troop, frankly stated in private conversation that Howard Cushing was the bravest man he ever saw; and repeated for emphasis, "I mean just that—the bravest man I ever saw." In Bourke's volume,[11] he writes to like effect, although not in the identical language above quoted. One among his many allusions to Cushing is given in the "Appreciations" preceding the present narrative; but there are others, expressed with nearly as strong emphasis—for instance, a list of the able and gallant officers who had helped clear Arizona of Apaches is recited, with the conclusion: "They were all good men and true, but if there were any choice among them I am sure that the verdict, if left to those soldiers themselves, would be in favor of Cushing." In a burst of indignation, after speaking of the lieutenant's "determination, coolness and energy, which had made his name famous all over the southwestern border," Bourke adds: "There is an alley named after him in Tucson, and there is, or was when last I saw it, a tumble-down, worm-eaten board to mark his grave, and that was all to show where the great American nation had deposited the remains of one of its bravest."
[11] John G. Bourke, On the Border with Crook (N. Y., 1891).
Cushing's first cavalry service of distinction was in western Texas, from which he drove the savages in 1869. The next spring, after a cruel massacre by the Indians of a party of thirty white men and women on their way to work at a private ranch, he was selected to head an expedition for the punishment of the murderers. Patiently searching for every indication of the trails of the Indians, he found their camp one night, and the following morning surprised and destroyed them, almost to the last man. They were said to have the more easily succumbed to the attack, from having drunk a quantity of patent medicines taken from the baggage of their earlier victims. This stuff was composed mostly of what the distillers call "high wines," containing a large percentage of crude alcohol.
On returning to Camp Grant the troop rested for a short time, and then started on an extended expedition touching the Sierra Apache and Mesquite Springs—losing only one man, the blacksmith, in the course of the trip, and inflicting no great injury on the Indians. Other expeditions followed, about as fruitless; but towards the end of summer the headquarters were moved fifty-five miles west to Tucson, which had not then acquired fame as a mining centre. It was, however, noted as being the capital of Arizona and one of the dirtiest of little Spanish-American towns. The camp was on the eastern border of the village, and the Apaches were in the habit of coming up to its close neighborhood to steal and drive away live stock. Even after the arrival of Cushing's troop, the savages had shown strong tendencies towards mischief, seriously wounding one of his men. Later they simultaneously attacked wagon trains and widely-separated settlements, thus confusing the calculations of our officers. As a crowning exploit they carried away a herd of cattle from Tucson itself, and followed that achievement by the killing of a stage-mail rider and the massacre of a party of Mexicans on their way to Sonora.
During the time when these events occurred, Cushing kept his troop hard at work and extirpated many of the hostile Indians—how many, is not stated in any work of which I have knowledge. Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua clan of Apaches (and predecessor of Geronimo), finally came into camp as winter drew nigh, and claimed that he wanted peace and a resting-place on the reservation. He had already been fighting the white people for fourteen years, and had tried every trick upon his enemies save this. Cushing vainly protested against coddling the wily chief during cold weather, to suffer from his depredations when warmth should again prevail. Cochise was taken care of all winter; and before May, 1871, was on the warpath with Cushing close after him. On May 5th the lieutenant was at the head of a reconnoitering party of twenty-two men at Bear Springs, in the Whetstone Mountains, about fifty miles southeasterly from Tucson, and twenty-five southwesterly from the site of the present town of Benson.
Death of the Young Cavalryman
Cushing was riding at the head of the party with three soldiers and a citizen or two near him, when Sergeant John Mott saw movements of some Apaches who were trying to get to the rear of the detachment. He sent word to the lieutenant, inducing him to fall back, although already engaged with an ambush of Cochise's followers in front. The latter had succeeded in entirely surrounding the little party, and Cushing, with four at his side, were all slain before they could get back to the rest of their party.
Sylvester Maury, a graduate of West Point—pioneer miner, and author of a classic of modern Arizona, entitled Arizona and Sonora—in a letter to the New York Herald shortly after Cushing's death, boldly charged the catastrophe to the foolish policy then prevailing, of dealing with the Indians of the Southwest. Under this policy, the ravages of the enemy were promoted by feeding them up well during any intervals when they might feel like taking a rest from assassination and plunder. He added:
Now we have the result. There is not a hostile tribe in Arizona or New Mexico, that will not celebrate the killing of Cushing as a great triumph. He was a beau sabreur, an unrelenting fighter; and although the Indians have got him at last, he sent before him a long procession of them to open his path to the undiscovered country. * * * He has left behind him in Arizona a name that will not die in this generation.