Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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Toggy-Snoggy at upper right. Cibicu hostiles, September 1881.
Deadshot, Apache scout.
Timeline
In 1880 the leading smoking tobacco in the U.S. was Bull Durham. The American
population numbered 50,166,000, with 40,440 living in Arizona territory. Gold was discovered
in Alaska. James A. Garfield was elected president. There were 93,262 miles of railway in the
U.S. The country was for the first time producing more steel than Great Britain. With troops
from Fort Huachuca, on 9 August Capt. Whitside was out looking for a reported filibustering
expedition heading for Mexico. John N. Irwin was appointed governor of Arizona territory. In
early October President Hayes and General Sherman visited Arizona. When somebody said all
that Arizona needs is less heat and more water, Sherman was reported to have replied, “That’s all
Hell needs.” One hundred thirty-four soldiers/citizens voted in Huachuca precinct in the 1880
general election. They voted at Tom Jeffords sutler’s store. The British and the Boers were at
war in December in South Africa.
In 1881 the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky appeared. Chinese immigration was
regulated with the signing of a treaty with China. Army Regulations for 1881 called for schools
to be established at all posts, garrisons and permanent camps. Under the post commander, the
schools employed soldiers to teach at an extra-duty pay of 35 cents per day. President Garfield
was assassinated and succeeded by Chester Arthur. Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor
was published and strongly criticized U.S. Indian policy. The book caused Lt. James
Parker, a participant in the Apache Campaigns, to write: “If the author of A Century of Dishonor
had seen as I saw in 1885 in peaceful, quiet farming settlements a reign of horror, caused by a
raid of murderous devils who went on the warpath for no reason, except that they wanted a
murder debauch, as a white man goes on a drunken debauch; if she had seen women and children
huddled together in houses, shaking with terror, afraid even to go to sleep lest they should suffer
the same fate as their husbands, fathers and brothers, she never would have written that book.” 67
President Arthur said, “We have to deal with appalling fact that though thousands of lives have
been sacrificed and hundreds of millions of dollars expended in the attempt to solve the Indian
problem, it has until within the past few years seemed scarcely nearer a solution than it was half a
century ago.” Clara Barton, who nursed soldiers in the Civil War, organized the American Red
Cross. John P. Clum, former Army Signal Corps sergeant, Apache Indian agent, and now editor
and owner of the Tombstone Epitaph was elected mayor in Tombstone. Army surgeon George
N. Sternberg discovered the pneumonia-causing germ. Phoenix became an incorporated city. At
11 a.m. on 20 March the first transcontinental train to cross the U.S. arrived in Tucson. Notorious
outlaw Billy the Kid was shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Lincoln County, New Mexico. The
Earps and the Clantons and McLowry’s shot it out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. On 5
March Robert T. Lincoln replaced Ramsey as Secretary of War. The U.S. Army School of
Application for Infantry and Cavalry was established at Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
Roll Call: Lieut. Col. George A. Forsyth
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Forsyth (1837-1915), known throughout the Army as
HUACHUCA ILLUSTRATED