Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

“Sandy,” enlisted as a private in the Chicago Dragoons during the Civil War, was commissioned,
wounded four times, and ended the war as a brevet colonel. He was on Phil Sheridan’s staff in
the Wilderness campaign and his courage and intelligence impressed the future general of the
Army. As Sheridan’s protege, he received a regular army major’s commission in the 9th Cavalry.
Leading a company of frontier scouts in September 1868, he was twice wounded at
Beecher’s Island, Colorado, while engaged in a desperate fight with hundreds of Cheyennes,
Brule Sioux and Northern Arapahos. Forsyth’s cool leadership allowed his men to hold out for a
week when the siege was lifted by a relief column of the 10th Cavalry.
Forsyth was no stranger to Apache warfare. On April 23, 1882, he led four troops of the
4th Cavalry, along with Indians scouts, against Geronimo and many other war chiefs in Horseshoe
Canyon of the Peloncillos Mountains. In the hard fought struggle he lost five dead and seven
wounded.
Newly married at the age of forty-eight to Natalie Beaumont, daughter of the Major
commanding Fort Bowie, he commanded the 4th Cavalry and Fort Huachuca during two crucial
stretches of the Geronimo campaign, June 21 to December 12, 1885, when Colonel Royall was
on leave back east; and after the Colonel’s retirement, from July 31, 1886, to February 28, 1888.
A man of action (few men in the Army had absorbed as much lead as he had in the pursuit
of his profession), he also possessed a respect for scholarship in military science. Lieut. John
Bigelow described Forsyth’s personal library at Fort Huachuca. “The afternoon I devoted to
looking over the military works in the general’s [he is using his brevet rank] library, most of them
French and German, which he procured from abroad. Such an opportunity for professional
reading does not present itself often on the frontier. It might and it should, however, present itself
in the house of every officer.” 68
Colonel Forsyth, late in the Geronimo campaign, personally lead a squadron into Mexico
to put additional pressure on the Indians, but, unlike other leaders who jostled for a position in the
spotlight of the Geronimo campaign, left the field and the glory to his subordinate, Captain
Lawton.
“Fighting Sandy” Forsyth, the Beecher Island hero, finished up the last few years of an
illustrious career as commander of the Southern District, 4th Cavalry, and Fort Huachuca, playing
poker and the stock market on a now tranquil frontier. In April 1888 Lt. Col. Forsyth found
himself in trouble for financial improprieties. He was found guilty of financial irregularities by a
general court-martial at Fort Huachuca and sentenced to be dismissed from the service. Reviewing
officials recommended clemency and the President reduced the punishment to suspension from
command and half-pay for three years.
He was placed on the retired list in 1890 and died twenty-five years later in Rockport,
Massachussets.
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
89