Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

olt.
They may have been further motivated by the Chiricahua renegade Pionsenay who loitered
with his warriors around the edges of the agency, always just out of the reach of pursuing
troops. Indian agent Ezra Hoag said of the Warm Springs band, “Pionsenay wields a great
influence over all of them, and they fear him worse than the devil.” 26
Victorio led his people in a breakout from San Carlos on 2 September 1877. They fled
into Mexico. But eventually, facing starvation and hounded by soldiers and Indian police, they
surrendered at Fort Wingate.
The Indians lost 56 people in various skirmishes along the way. From Wingate they were
moved to Ojo Caliente, their old home, until the Indian Bureau ordered them sent back to San
Carlos. Victorio bridled at the thought and led 80 men back to the mountains, while the women
and children headed for San Carlos. On the trip back to Fort Apache, a little girl was severely
burned by a campfire. She was adopted and cared for by the post surgeon at Fort Apache, Dr.
Walter Reed.
Jason Betzinez, a Warm Springs Apache, was born in 1860 and as a youth campaigned
with Victorio, Nana, Loco and Geronimo. His story is published as I Fought With Geronimo.
He had known Victorio since childhood and believed that the chief of the Warm Springs band
“stood head and shoulders above the several war chiefs such as Mangas, Cochise, and Geronimo
who have bigger names with the white people.” Betzinez acknowledged that both Victorio and
especially Nana were getting on in years, “but together they caused more fear among the settlers
and killed more people in a shorter time than any other Apaches.”
As the afternoon of 25 May 1879 began, Captain Charles D. Beyer rode out of Fort
Bayard, N.M., at the head of a column of 9th Cavalrymen, 46 enlisted men in all, Lieut. Henry
H. Wright, a civilian guide named Foster, and two Navaho scouts. It was the beginning of a 19day,
369-mile travail that would bring them up against the formidable Warm Springs Apache war
chief Victorio. They would not all return.
They made between 18 and 36 miles per day, depending on the terrain, their march being
slowed by grass and forest fires started by the Indians for that purpose. The grass fires also made
it difficult to graze their horses.
By the third day out, in the region where the Gila River is joined by the Diamond Creek,
the trail got warm. Reported sightings, butchered cattle, stolen horses and burros, and, finally at
3:30 in the afternoon of 27 May, a recently abandoned Indian camp. Moving onward and up the
Mimbres Mountains, the patrol made its way through burning forest and underbrush, and on 29
May made contact. Here is Captain Beyers entry for that fateful day.
Left Camp at 6:30 A.M. continued up Canon until 7:30 A.M. Ascended the Mimbres
Mountains, reached the summit at 9 o’clock crossed and continued down ridge of mountain
spur going N and N.E. left ridge at 10 A.M. and entered Canon, having on its left high ridges,
or rather mountains, found small pools of water and fresh Indian signs. deployed skirmish
line and left the Canon, taking to an open ridge to our right and front at 10:50 discovered two
horses about half a mile distant, grazing, and a few moments afterwards discovered the
Indians on a rock peak about 400 yards to our left and front (very high and steep) busily
engaged building up breastworks, at same instant an Indian on the peak, whom I afterwards
learned was Victorio, called out in Apache “Hoca, Hoca”—(which Hostensoya one of the
Navajo Scouts who understood Apache said was “Come here, Come here”) at same time
raising a white flag and crying out in Apache (and interpreted by Hostensoya) that I should
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HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED