Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

October. Major Morrow was on their heels from Palomas Lake, along with Gatewood leading
Company A, Indian Scouts. Gatewood described the march which was taking toward the border.
...We marched in the broiling heat all day in a southeasterly direction, and about dark
found a small tank of water in the rocks near the foot of the Goodsight Mountains, which
furnished perhaps half a pint to each man and animal. There we camped for the night. All
next day the command plodded along through sand and heat, across the desert north of the
Guzman Mountains, twenty miles perhaps from Janos. Here the very plain trail ran between
two parallel ridges, covered with bushes and rocks, and a line of warriors in each ridge
waited for us to come within easy range. But our scouts were not deceived. The full moon
had just arisen, and in that clear atmosphere one could see a man at considerable distance.
Some of our scouts succeeded in getting to the rear of one of the lines and a volley, followed by
the advance of dismounted soldiers, caused a precipitate evacuation of their strong position.
They rallied on a higher ridge, a few hundred yards further on, but the Apaches can’t stand
close quarters; they broke and ran, as they always will. Our men steadily advanced into a
rougher and more broken mountain region. The Indians seemed to have plenty of ammunition
and the whole top of the mountain was a fringe of fire flashes. Nearer and nearer to the top of
the ridge approached the flashes from our Springfield carbines and the reports from their
Winchesters above were so frequent as to be almost a continuous roar. Suddenly the firing
ceased; the rumbling and crashing of large stones down the mountainside could be heard; the
line had run against a palisade of solid rock, twenty feet high or more, which had not been
noticed. The hostiles were rolling heavy stones down among our men, but luckily none were
hurt, though several had been killed and several more wounded during the heaviest fusillade.
Unable to reach the enemy, Morrow withdrew behind a small ridge.
Gatewood, with six scouts to his front, attempted to flank the enemy position but was
driven back by a strong counterattack. He continues his account:
The men were too exhausted from thirst, fatigue and want of sleep to do any more
climbing. When they halted, every man lay down, and most of them went to sleep. The
Colonel concluded the best thing was to take his command to water. It was now about 2
o’clock in the morning and very cold, being the 28th of October. Officers were ordered
quietly to wake up their men and conduct them to the rear, where our animals had been left.
This was not easy. Many men showed symptoms of that wild insanity produced by great thirst.
It was [still] dark when we reached the [water]. Some of the scouts had gone on in advance,
and had built large fires along the little stream that ran from the spring. White, colored and
red men, horses and mules, all rushed pell-mell for the water. They drank of it, they rolled in
it, and they got out of it and returned to it. They wept and cheered and danced in it, and the
mud they made seemed to make no difference in drinking. In seventy-six hours, from Polomas
to [this stream], they had marched 115 miles on the small allowance of water indicated,
besides making the fight at night in the Guzman Mountains. 33
Maj. A. P. Morrow and his task force of the Ninth Cavalry had harried Victorio into the
supposed safety of Mexico. Morrow followed across the border, but by the time his command
came to grips with the Indians at the Corralitos River on 27 October, the fight Gatewood describes
in the foregoing paragraphs, they were too exhausted to do more than fight them to a stand
off. Morrow had to return to Fort Bayard to replenish mounts and supplies. The command
turned back, riding into Fort Bayard on 3 November.
Now Victorio became a problem for the Mexican military, reinforcing his band with
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HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED