Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

Maj. Morrow reported the incident on 23 September to headquarters:
[First Lieut. Byron] Dawson, [Lieut.] Wright and [Second Lieut. Matthias W.] Day, struck
Victoria’s trail at head of Sierra Blanca Canon two days old on sixteenth. Followed it to head
of Las Animas River, where on the eighteenth they run upon the Indians who held a strong
position. Troops were virtually caught in a trap. Capt. Hooker with his company, and [First
Lieut. William H.] Hugo’s came up and took part in the fight. After fighting all day the troops
were compelled to withdraw under cover of darkness with a loss of five men killed and one
wounded, and thirty-two horses killed and six wounded. I have sent [Second Lieut. Augustus
Perry] Blocksom and Gatewood with their Apache scouts, and [Second Lieut. Robert T.]
Emmet with his Navajos to the scene of action, and follow immediately myself with all available
men of the post. My cavalry will be principally dismounted.... 31
In the fight, Victorio was clearly the winner. The Apaches captured the American
supplies, killed two Navaho scouts, a civilian, and five soldiers. Two enlisted men were wounded.
Fifty-three government horses or mules were lost.
The Army responded by sending Indian Scouts under Lieuts. Gatewood and Blocksom
with their scouts, just arrived at Fort Bayard as reinforcements from Arizona, into the field. After
several days of combing the Mimbres Mountains, they struck the trail of the hostiles. Gatewood
described the action in an article appearing in The Great Divide.”
Cutting loose from our pack trains we followed that trail for three nights, each man
carrying his rations and equipments. We laid over in the daytime. It rained every minute of
the time, and as we dared to build only very small fires to do our cooking by, there was no
chance to dry our clothing and the few blankets in the party. The only part of the little we had
to eat not spoiled by the rain was the bacon. The second day we found some jerked horse
meat and the third an old abandoned government mule. From the time his throat was cut by
a scout till a stew of bacon and mule was simmering, very few minutes elapsed. By the fourth
day we were far into the Black Range. It had ceased raining.
Just before sundown our scouts in advance located Mr. Victorio and his “outfit” encamped
in a deep canyon. They saw each other about the same time, and the fun began. The firing,
of course, brought up those in rear “double quick.” From the small number of scouts first
seen, the hostiles thought themselves already the victors and became quite saucy and facetious,
daring them to come closer and even inviting them to supper. My first sergeant, Dick,
answered, “We are coming,” and when old Vic’s braves saw forty odd scouts and as many
soldiers come tumbling down the side of the canyon into their camp, they stayed not on the
order of their going. Darkness aided their flight. Result: two bucks and a squaw on their
side; on our side, nothing. They managed to drive their stock away.
Early next morning, as we had just finished breakfast, a single shot rang out down the
canyon, then a volley, suddenly increasing into more shots and more volleys, with sounds of
command, all doubled and trebled in reverberations up the valley, until it was one roar of
pandemonium that was enough to set a nervous man wild. I didn’t believe there was a sane
man in the country, except the Corporal, who coolly informed me after awhile that I was
sitting on the wrong side of a rock and pointed out to me the folly of protecting a rock. 32
Victorio’s Indians had attacked Maj. Morrow’s camp a mile away from where Gatewood
was breakfasting. The lieutenant raced his men to the scene. There, several soldiers had been
killed and an unknown number of Indians wounded. The hostiles retreated to the safety of the
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HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED