Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

When Captain Byron Dawson led a column of Ninth cavalrymen and forty-six Navaho
scouts into rocky Las Animas canyon on 18 September, they found themselves in a deadly
crossfire. They had blundered into a Victorio ambush, 150-strong. They were pinned down and
sent a courier back for help. A relief column under Capt. Charles D. Beyer, fifty men made up
mostly of civilians from nearby Hillsboro, but they could do no better than Dawson in driving off
the Apaches. At nightfall, the Americans withdrew from the canyon. Ordered by Capt. Beyer to
retreat, Second Lieut. Matthias W. Day 29 first went back to rescue one of his wounded soldiers,
exposing himself for a full 200 yards to a heated enemy fire. Gatewood wrote of the incident,
saying Day “declined to retreat and leave his wounded behind, but carried a disabled soldier away
under a heavy fire, for which offense the commanding officer...wanted to have him tried by court
martial, and for which the Congress of the United States gave him a gold medal [the Medal of
Honor].” 30 Also recognized for removing “a wounded comrade, under heavy fire, to a place of
safety,” was Sergeant John Denny, who dashed to the rescue of the pinned down Private Freeland
and carried him out on his back.
“The Rescue of Corporal Scott,” Frederic Remington.
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
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