Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

the mesa, his red flag signaling:
“Column in sight on trail. Seemingly all there. Am sure of General Carr.”
The hostiles climbing toward him sighted us at the same moment and were so astonished
that they fled without firing a shot at Barnes.
At exactly this moment another party of hostiles was massacring and burning four
Mormons caught at the top of Seven Mile Hill. This party also found a Sergeant and his repair
men working on the telegraph line near Black River and killed them all that afternoon. 62
Sergeant Barnes adopted the two orphaned sons of the Apache scout Deadshot who was
executed for his part in the mutiny at Cibicu. One of the grandsons of Deadshot would become
the first sergeant of Indian scouts at Fort Huachuca. After leaving the Army, Barnes became a
cattleman in Holbrook, Arizona, was elected to Arizona’s 18th Territorial Legislative Assembly,
and wrote a number of books, including his Reminiscences and Arizona Place Names, which is
still the standard reference work today on geographic names.
With the cattle business waning after the turn of the century, Barnes took a position in
1907 with the Forestry Department to develop and preserve grazing lands. In 1928 he worked
for the U.S. Geographic Board. Retiring from government service in 1930, he and his wife Edith
Talbot Barnes settled in Phoenix where Barnes died in 1936.
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
Will Croft Barnes
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