Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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indicated by scattered blankets and cooking utensils. Al Sieber was at my side.
As our line pinched the renegades they fired furiously and with effect. Lieutenant
Morgan had left his part of the Scouts, to get actively into the fight. He was noted as a shot,
winner of a gold medal in the Department meet of that very month. As our line pressed in
from tree to tree Morgan got several shots at the hostiles but was uncertain of his luck. At last
he dropped one where everybody could see and yelled triumphantly:
“Got him! I got him!”
But he exposed himself in his excitement, and an Indian in that same “nest” drove a
slug through Morgan’s arm, into his side and (apparently) through both lungs. We thought
him sure to die, but the slug had only gone around his ribs and lodged in the back muscles.
Sergeant Conn of Troop E, the Sixth, was a wisp of a Boston Irishman, twenty years in
the regiment. Before the fight at Cibicu and desertion of our Scouts, Conn had served as
Ration Sergeant, issuing the Scouts their rations. So they nicknamed him “Coche Sergeant,”
or “Hog Sergeant.” They knew his terrific brogue as well as we did.
In the “nests” they had made hurriedly behind the trees were several of my deserters,
and when Conn lifted his voice in orders to E Troop men the renegade Scouts heard. Instantly
from the unseen hostiles lifted a mocking yell, and nickname Conn detested:
“Aaaaiiah! Coche Sergeant! Coche Sergeant!”
As always, Conn answered in kind—”and other kind”—until one renegade who could
speak English called jeeringly:
“Coward! Hog Sergeant! Come here and I will kill you!”
Conn screamed something in reply, and the Indian fired at the sound of his voice. The
big bullet struck Conn in the throat, fairly pushed aside the jugular vein, according to Surgeon
Ewing, then grazed the vertebrae and emerged, making a hole the size of a silver dollar. All
this in a wizened neck that was loose in size thirteen collar!
Conn dropped in the middle of his exchange with the reengade Scout, and Captain
Kramer, standing a yard or so away, remarked to the First Sergeant:
“Well, I’m afraid they got poor Conn.”
Afterward, Conn said that he was conscious when he fell.
“Sure, I heard the Cap’n say I was kilt. But I knew I was not. I was only spa-aachless!”
Our men and Sieber wiped out that whole bunch of hostiles and we pushed on. Sieber
was still beside me, and I saw him kill three of the renegades in quick succession, as they crept
toward the edge of the canon to go over and away from the battle.
“There he goes!” he would grunt to me.
With the report of his rifle an Indian I had not seen would suddenly appear, flinging up
his arms as if to catch at some support. Then under the momentum of his rush he would
plunge forward on his head and roll over and over. One man shot at the very rim plunged
over, and it seemed to me that he continued to fall for many minutes. At five-thirty it was
growing so dusky that time began to fight for the hostiles. Unless we smashed them before
dark they would vanish like quail. About seventy-five yards and a little arroyo six feet deep
HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED