Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

officers quarters, and had to be literally dragged through the mud back to his house. With the
third drunkenness charge hanging over his aching head, he resigned his commission, leaving
behind some superbly built structures which still endure. 117
Capt. Adna R. Chaffee, commanding the post in 1883, turned his attention to the problem
of water supply and recommended that a double reservoir be built, with a 200,000 gallon capacity,
on the hill to the east. His plan was acted upon and northern and southern reservoirs were
placed on today’s Reservoir Hill.
In April, 1884 a twenty-four bed post hospital was incorporated into the plans to replace
the old eight bed facility built in 1880. This resulted in an appropriation of $11,894. Added
shortly thereafter were supplemental sums of $17,676 for a post water system and $8,000 for
completion of the eleven sets of officers’ quarters and two cavalry stables.
According the the Phoenix Herald of 9 June 1884, the Phoenix architects Samuel Eason
Patton 118 and James Miller Creighton 119 were awarded several contracts for buildings at Fort
Huachuca, including officers’’quarters and a hotel for Vandever Bros. Other articles in the same
paper record the travels in June and July of both Patton and Creighton to Fort Huachuca. They
returned to Phoenix from their stay at Huachuca in March 1885, having completed the buildings
there. 120
Lt. John Bigelow 121 , who was from a literary New England family and a 10th Cavalry
officer, wrote about his visit to Fort Huachuca in 1885. (Bigelow would write Principles of
Strategy, incorporating many of General Sherman’s precepts on warfare and be a leading champion
of professionalism in the American Army.)
Wanting an opportunity to see Fort Huachuca, I asked the captain a few days ago if he
could not give me something to do there. . . .
We did not see a human dwelling or a human being, or a water course or source until we
reached the Huachuca Mountains, in which we passed two or three houses near small streams
and springs, with tracts of cultivated ground surrounding or adjoining them.
Fort Huachuca lies in what is called Huachuca Canon, on the east side of the north point of
the Huachuca range. We entered the post at its upper, or higher end, and passed through the
outskirts of tents, huts, shanties and houses—the quarters of a few privileged soldiers, of
certain civil employees, and of laundresses and other hangers-on, or camp followers—past the
guard house to the parade ground, where in accordance with custom, the officers’ quarters
were ranged on one side, and the men’s on the other.
Bigelow inspected the facilities for Lawton’s troop.
I was shown by General Forsyth through the quarters of Captain Lawton’s troop of the
Fourth Cavalry, the only troop at present in the post. It is altogether the best set of quarters,
as regards both plan and appointments, that I have seen in the army, and in its neatness and
orderliness reflects the highest credit on its captain. On the ground floor are the following
accommodations: A good-sized office for the first sergeant, a set of bathrooms with hot and
cold water, a capacious dining room and a kitchen. Upstairs is a main dormitory, and
adjoining it, a small one for the sergeants. The corporals live with their squads. I was struck
by the brightness and airiness of the rooms, such a contrast to the dinginess and closeness of
the barracks at Fort Grant. A room on the ground floor is to be fitted up as a troop library
and reading room.
After dinner I strolled over to the captain’s new stables. They consist of a frame building
roofed over, with an opening running along each side of the ridge-piece for ventilation. The
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
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