Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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Tzoe, or “Peaches,” Apache scout.
He left Willcox on 23 April and on 1 May the force crossed the border at San Bernadino
Springs and followed the San Bernadino River to Bavispe, then plunged into the mountains called
by Crook “a natural fortress.” This was terrain that Mexican troops never attempted to negotiate,
its steep and tangled trails too dangerous to navigate. In fact, Crook’s pack train would lose a
number of mules over the precipitous cliffs.
Capt. Bourke said of the terrain that “It seemed to consist of a series of parallel and very
high, knife-edged hills, —extremely rocky and bold; the canons all contained water, either flowing
rapidly, or else in tanks of great depth. Dense pine forests covered the ridges near the crests,
the lower skirts being matted with scrub-oak. Grass was generally plentiful, but not invariably to
be depended upon.” He also had something to say about the demands of the march. “Climb!
Climb! Climb! Gaining the summit of one ridge only to learn that above it towered another, the
face of nature fearfully corrugated into a perplexing alternation of ridges and chasms.” 101
Crawford’s scouts fell upon a rancheria of Chato and Benito at noon on 15 May, killing
nine men and capturing five women and children. They destroyed all of the lodgings in the camp,
and from the casualties took “four nickel-plated, breech-loading Winchester repeating rifles, and
one Colt’s revolver, new model.” But the main body escaped and the element of surprise had
now been foreited.
Bourke described the skirmish:
HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED