Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

Arresting the Apache spiritual leader was a job that Carr thought was dangerous and
probably unnecessary but Tiffany prevailed upon his boss, Bvt. Maj. Gen. Orlando B. Willcox at
Fort Whipple, and Willcox ordered Carr to make the arrest.
On 30 August Carr, with two troops of cavalry (85 men) and twenty-three White Mountain
scouts, rode into Nakaidoklini’s village thirty miles northwest of Fort Apache on Cibicu
Creek. They arrested him amidst the rising hostility of his followers. As the column rode back to
the fort, they were flanked by as many as 100 angry White Mountain Apaches. When they made
camp for the night, the Indians attacked and were joined by some of the White Mountain Apache
Scouts. In the melee, Capt. Edmund C. Hentig was shot in the back. Four other soldiers were
killed and four wounded, two mortally. Most of the cavalry horses were lost. Col. Carr, under
the cover of darkness, withdrew his bloodied command from the encirclement. He managed to
make Fort Apache on the afternoon of 31 August.
Lieut. Thomas Cruse, called by the Apaches “Raw Virgin Lieutenant,” was commanding
the White Mountain Scouts at the Cibicu battle and later penned a detailed account.
I led Noch-ay-del-Klinne toward an inclosure the packers had made. Then Captain
Hentig got up from the ground. He had been sitting there watching Livingstone, his striker,
spread the damp bedding to air. With Carter’s yell about the Indians, Hentig moved toward
the ford where a considerable number of Apaches, mounted and dismounted, were moving.
Hentig was unarmed, for his pistol still hung on his saddle.
As he started toward the ford Hentig began to yell at the oncoming Indians:
“U-ka-she! U-ka-she! Get away! Get away!”
The bulk of the Indians slackened pace, but one came on and Hentig caught him by the
arm, saying “U-ka-she!” again.
But this man was a Scout, Sergeant Dandy Jim. He told Hentig that he was a soldier
and Hentig let him go on. Perhaps a minute of quiet ensued; then—it seemed to me that all
hell broke loose!
A mounted Indian wearing a beaded “Niagra Falls” cap lifted his Winchester high
overhead and waved it as he yelled to the Apaches about him. Sanchez was one of these and
with three or four others lifted rifles and fired. Instantly, at least a hundred other shots roared.
Dandy Jim the Sergeant shot Captain Hentig, killing him instantly. Livingstone the
striker, shaking one of Hentig’s blankets, died without so much as turning, eight bullets going
through his body.
My Scouts were taking a hand, too, but I had my back to them, arranging for a herd
guard. I knew of their part in the fight only afterward.
With the first shot, Sergeant McDonald sent a bullet into the Medicine Man, who
dropped and sprawled motionless, his wife falling across him, beginning the death wail.
McDonald went down with a wound in his leg, and Sergeant Mose jumped to me, crying out
to be protected against the soldiers.
The American soldier shows best in a tight spot! Near Hentig’s body Sergeant Bowman
sat quietly down and began to fire into the milling Indians. Bowman soon cleared a
space for himself! General Carr, appearing as unruffled as if in his own quarters, ignoring
the bullets that whined around him from no more than fifty feet distant, began to give his
orders for clearing the little plateau.
Noch-ay-del-Klinne’s pony appeared now, most belatedly, ridden at a tearing gallop by
the Medicine Man’s son. This boy of sixteen or thereabout came charging through the Indians
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HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED