Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

140
Timeline
In 1882 Lt. James B. Lockwood and Sergeant D. L. Brainard began their exploration by
dog team of the north coast of Greenland. The Triple Alliance of Austria, Germany and Italy was
formed. British troops occupied Egypt. The U.S. signed the Geneva Convention articles which
set down rules for the care of wounded in wartime. Chinese laborers were barred by the
Exclusion Act. The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York; it would become a legal
holiday in 1894. The first hydroelectric plant was opened. Frederick A. Tritle became the
governor of Arizona Territory. A saloon fire spread and destroyed Tombstone’s business district
for the second time. A treaty of peace, commerce and navigation was signed with the “Hermit
Kingdom” of Korea. Famed gunman Johnny Ringo committed suicide in the western foothills of
the Chiricahua Mountains. In a shoot-out on Tombstone’s Allen Street, Billy Claibourne was shot
and killed by “Buckskin” Frank Leslie. In March an Office of Naval Intelligence was formed.
In 1883 the Pendleton Act established the Civil Service Commission to implement reforms
in the civil service. The Brooklyn Bridge was finished. Congress authorized steel navy vessels.
Buffalo Bill Cody began touring with his Wild West Show. A telephone and telegraph line
linking Fort Huachuca and Huachuca Siding seven miles to the north was completed on 5 July. In
Phoenix beef round steak was selling for 11 cents a pound, and tenderloin and porterhouse each
for 15 cents a pound. A Fort Huachuca soldier, Pvt. William Cassel, 1st Infantry, died of yellow
fever contracted in Hermosillo, Mexico, where he had been part of a relief mission during an
epidemic there. The New York Metropolitan Opera House opened. General Philip Sheridan
became Commanding General of the Army, replacing Sherman on 1 November. The first
president of the Naval War College, Commodore Luce, believed that an officer should be “led
into a philosophic study of naval history, that he may be enabled to examine the great naval battles
of the world with the cold eye of professional criticism, and to recognize where the principles of
the science have been illustrated, or where a disregard for the accepted rules of the art of war has
led to defeat and disaster. ...there is no question that the naval battles of the past furnish a mass of
facts amply sufficient for the formulation of laws or principles which, once established, would
raise maritime war to the level of a science...by the comparative method.”
In 1884 the six survivors of the 25-man arctic expedition led by Lt. Adolphus W. Greely
were rescued. The expedition had explored further north than any other at that time but ran into
trouble when supply ships could not reach the men. Grover Cleveland was elected president.
Cocaine was developed as a surgical anaesthetic. The fountain pen came into use. The linotype
was invented. Roll film was patented by Eastman. Huckleberry Finn was a best seller. An Army
baseball team from San Carlos beat a civilian team from Globe 31-30, and, according to their first
baseman Britton Davis “relieved them of much of their spare cash.” Capt. George M. Wheeler
and his Army engineers completed 13 years of surveys in the West. On 24 February five men
were hung in Tombstone for murder and robbery of Goldwater and Casteneda store in Bisbee last
December. Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri. The Statue of Liberty arrived in
New York harbor; it would be unveiled two years later.
HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED