• ARIZONA- THE YOUNGEST STATE.

• VOL I CHAPTER XI pg :145, - 155

• written in 1916 by : James H. McClintock

 

The Regular Army in Arizona and its Leaders - Southwestern Military Posts-

Abandonment at the Outbreak of the Civil War-Forts and Camps, Past and Present.

While there was a disposition in pioneer days to belittle the service of the regular army in its campaigns against the Apache, sober thought in later days cannot fail to give large credit to the regulars who garrisoned the little, yet undermanned, posts of the Southwest. As a rule, a regiment of cavalry and one of infantry were all that could be allotted to Arizona, for the entire army of those days numbered only 25,000 officers and men and there had to be provision for the sea-coast forts, as well as for fighting Sioux, Nez Perces and Modocs. Let it be remembered that when Crook and Miles were given adequate forces they promptly quelled large uprisings and that almost all other service was, in a way, that of police, under the worst of conditions.

Driving these soldiers was a sense of stern duty, joined with the high traditions of their service and the kinship of white men and the resentment that was felt over atrocities such as have been chronicled elsewhere. In. no sense where the regiments western ones and their service usually was so severe that they had to be transferred after a year or so to posts nearer the centers of civilization.

Those were the days before the khaki and big hat. Equipped by an unthinking government with frogged blue blouses and with narrow caps that left their ears to be sunburned, with high riding boots, sometimes laden with clanking sabers, often followed by recruits only lately from the cities, the officers led the way through the canyons and up the cliffs and through the cactus of the deserts, into the snows of the mountains and in the scorching beat of the southern alkali plains, contemptuous alike of fatigue and death. There even is an army legend that a "Shave-tail" lieutenant led a saber charge against Apaches and thus won his maiden battle.

Yet it should be told that service in the Southwest ever was welcomed by the American officer, for there he found things to do that were soldierly and that were far removed from the petty restrictions of drill and the close-order discipline of the' eastern posts. In Arizona was laid the foundation of the military tactics of today, taught by the Apaches. The Indians of the Northwest fought in the open and, whenever their number justified, in some sort of formation. The Apache, on the contrary, took shelter where he could find it, and utilized a rock the size of his fist behind which to fall if no larger rock were at hand. The Apache blended with the landscape, save for his foolish, colored turban and, while not lacking in individual courage when necessity arose, still preferred to ambush his enemy and to protect himself to as great an extent as possible. These tactics soon were adopted by the American soldier, who followed the lead of the Indian scouts of his command and who soon learned to worm his way up a hillside, in comparative safety, in battle formations unknown to his drill books. From this experience years later was evolved the American skirmish drill, in the army called "extended order," though fiercely fought by the old-school advocates, who preferred the shock and close-order methods that had prevailed from the time of the Macedonian phalanx down through the days of Frederick the Great.

POSTS THAT WERE FORTS IN NAME ONLY

The military posts of the American frontier were crude and rough beyond description, usually a mere cluster of adobe buildings set around an open space, in compliment termed a parade ground, in its center a flag pole bearing the Stars and Stripes. It is probable that often the soldier of that day turned toward the Flag to renew a sense of devotion that had been severely tried in a land where even God himself seemed very far away and the power of the Nation merely a memory of days agone. There were long days of waiting till the call of "boots and saddles" was a profound relief from approaching stagnation. of amuesements there were few and it is not unnatural that many of the pioneer officers and men turned toward the Sutler's store too often in an effort to stimulate a conviviality that had lagged amid the desolate surroundings.

It is probable that the wives of the older generation of officers usually look back almost with horror to their Arizona experiences. Penned up in small mud houses, destitute of all conveniences, with a society limited to only a few of their own kind, with the ever-present fear that the call of "boots and saddles" some day would leave them desolate, it must be said that the part the women played was in itself no ,less heroic than that of their husbands. Something of this is told by Mrs. Summerhayes in "Vanished Arizona."

In a work such as this history should be preserved the list made by Bourke, himself too modest to include his own name, of the officers to whom large credit is due for the effective work of the early '70's. Of these frontier heroes the gallant Captain writes:

The old settlers in both Northern and Southern Arizona still speak in terms of cordial appreciation ,of the services of officers like Hall, Taylor, Burns, Almy, Thomas, Rockwell, Price, Parkhurst, MieMer, Adam, Woodson, Hamilton, Babcock, Schuyler and Watts, all of the Fifth Cavalry; Ross, Reilley, Sherwood, Theller and Major Miles of the Twenty-first Infantry; Garvey, Bomus, Carr, Grant, Bernard, Brodie, Vail, Wessendorf, McGregor, Hem, Winters, Harris, Sanford and others of the First Cavalry; Randall, Manning, Rice and others of the Twenty-third Infantry; Gerald Russell, Morton, Crawford, Cushing, Cradlebaugh of the Third Cavalry; Burne of the Twelfth Infantry, and many others who, during this campaign (of 1872) or immediately preceding it, had .rendered themselves conspicuous by most- efficient service. The army of the United States has no reason to be ashamed of the men who wore its uniform during the dark and troubled period of Arizona's history; they were grand men; they had their faults as many other people have, but they never flinched from danger or privation.

There was one class of officers who were entitled to all the praise they received and much more besides, and that class was the surgeons, who never flagged in their attentions to sick and wounded, whether soldier or officer, American, Mexican, or Apache captive, by night or by day. Among these the names of Stirling, Porter, Matthews, Girard, O'Brien, Warren E. Day, Steiger, Charles Smart and Calvin Dewitt will naturally present themselves to the mind of anyone familiar with the work then going on, and with them should be associated those of the guides, both red and white, to whose fidelity, courage and skill we owed so much.

The names of Mason McCoy, Edward Clark, Archie MacIntosh, A. Spears, C. E. Cooley, Joe Felmer, Al Seiber, Dan O'Leary, 'sew Elliott, Antonio Besias, Jose De Leon, -Maria Jilda Grijalba, Victor Ruiz, Manuel Duran, Frank Cahill, Willard Rice, Oscar Hutton, Bob Whitney, Joh'a B. Townsend, Tom Moore, Jim 0 'Neal, Jack Long, Hank 'n Yank (Hewitt and Bartlett), Frank Monach, Harry Hawes, Charlie Hopkins and many other scouts, guides and packers of that onerous, dangerous, and crushing campaige, should be inscribed on the brightest page in the annals of Arizona and locked up in her archives that future generations might do them honor. The great value of the services rendered by the Apache scouts Mehisay, Jim, Elsatsooa, Machol, Blaaque~ Chiquito, Kelsay, Kasoha, Nantaje and Nan nasaddi was fittingly acknowledged by General Crook in the orders issued at the time of the surrender of the Apaches, which took place soon after.

HARD-RIDING TROOPERS of OLD

The frontiersman who loudly expressed the belief that the United States army was only for ornament, generally was mistaken. There were times when the operations of the army were held down and circumscribed by a fool coterie of "peace-at-any-price" people in Washington and there have been commanding officers who wanted to hold funeral services over every Indian accidentally killed, but the officers as a whole were filled with the keenest sense of patriotism and a rare devotion to duty, however unappreciative were the people they were defending. An excellent example of this devotion is gleaned from the briefest sort of record of a trip made by Second Lient. Horace Randall of the First Dragoons, who, on thirty minutes' notice, with twenty men, struck out of a frontier post after Apaches, who were tracked 300 miles over mountains and plains, through snow and alkali dust, with a record of riding in a single day over eighty miles. Their rations finished, they ate the flesh of the sore-backed horses that gave out on the march. For three days and nights the command was without water. The record of results was both soldierly and brief, as follows: "I caught the Indians, fought them, killed several and recaptured the stolen stock.''

A similar experience in February, 1860, was that of Lieut.-Col. Andrew Porter of the mounted rifles, who left Fort Craig in February, 1860, with twenty-five men, pursuing a band of Navajos. On the second day he marched ninety miles in eighteen hours, the last eighteen miles at a hard run, in which he killed and wounded sixteen Indians and captured their stock.

Twice in the history of Indian warfare in the Southwest medical officers have issued forth in command of troops, and in each case the medical man was rewarded by a medal of honor.

The first instance was in February, 1861, when Assistant Surgeon B. J. P. Irwin, U. S. A., then stationed at Fort Buchanan, led twelve mounted infantry men and a citizen guide to the relief of a beleaguered infantry company penned up by Chiricahua Indians at Apache Pass. On the second day of the 100-mile journey, Irwin struck a large raiding party of Indians from which seventy head of cattle and horses were captured. On entering the pass was found the remains of an emigrant train, with the dead bodies of eight persons tied to the wheels of five wagons, partly consumed by fire. The Indians had captured the infantry pack train and the assistance brought by Irwin was of the largest value.

Two troops of cavalry later came from Fort Breckenridge and the Indians were chased away and followed into the hills, where the camp of their leader, Cochise, was destroyed. Irwin in after years, about 1886, returned to Arizona as chief surgeon of the Department, about the same time that Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood was earning the coveted decoration for similar field service against the same Apache tribe.

SOUTHWESTERN ARMY COMMANDERS

At one time or another nearly all the cavalry regiments of the army have had service in the Southwest, as well as most of the infantry commands. As one officer of regulars assured the writer in 1898, the American army in Arizona learned how to fight. So it is as well that the experience was scattered amongst the soldiery of the nation. For the greater part of the Civil War period, Gen. J. H. Carleton was in command of military ,operations in New Mexico and Arizona, mainly heading California, New Mexico and Colorado volunteers, some of them 'of rather doubtful efficiency. In 1865 Arizona was transferred into the Military Department of California, under Gen.' Irwin McDowell, who sent into the Territory as District Commander Brig.-Gen. John S. Mason. Mason was succeeded in the summer of 1866 by Lieut.-Col. H. D. Wallen of the Fourteenth Infantry the' memory' of these officers being perpetuated in the naming of small military posts. Contemporary with Wallen was Col. Chas. S. Lovell, Fourteenth Infantry., In 1867 Col. J. I. Gregg, Eighth Cavalry and Col. T. L. Crittenden, Thirty-second infantry, commanded. Then in rapid order ,followed Lieut.-Col. T. C. Devin, Eighth Cavalry, and Lieut.-Col. Frank Wheaton, Twenty-first Infantry. Gen. E. 0. C. Ord of the Pacific' Division visited Arizona in 1869. His name for a while was borne by the' present Fort Apache and still is carried by one of the peaks of the Mazatzal Mountains. The Department of Arizona, embracing also Southern California, was created in 1870, 'with headquarters at Whipple Barracks. In the' summer of 1870 command of the Department was assumed by Gen. George Stoneman, who at the time was Colonel of the Twenty-first Infantry. It was during his term that the Old Camp Grant massacre occurred. He was a vigorous officer and kept much in the field. Especially notable were operations in the vicinity of Picket Post, above which he built the famous Stoneman grade, to better reach the heights of the Pinal Mountains, wherefrom to strike the hostiles.

The greatest work against the Indians was done by Gen. George Crook, who came to Arizona in 1871 as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty-third Infantry, but who before his departure in '75 had been directly promoted to be a Brigadier- General in acknowledgment of his services. Crook was succeeded in March, 1875, by Col. A. V. Kautz, Colonel of the Eighth Infantry. It is probable that Kautz had more political trouble in Arizona than any of the other commanders, though it was popular at almost any time to charge the regular officers and soldiery with inefficiency. Governor Safford tried to have Kautz removed, but without success. It would appear as though the General simply was not a good politician. Gen. Orlando B. Willcox, after whom the town of Willcox was named, succeeded to the command in 1877 and remained until 1882,. During the term of his command the, Indian, troubles seem to have been confined largely to southeastern Arizona and his administration on the whole seemed to have struck a relatively peaceful period. The Geronimo troubles came on, however, and, fresh from victorious work against the Sioux, General Crook was brought back to Arizona for four years. It cannot be said that Crook's second service in Arizona was attended with anywhere near the same degree of success or credit as at first. Indeed, it is claimed that, overconfident of his power to soothe the savage breast, he permitted himself to be practically captured by Geronimo in the 1883 campaign. However vigorously the General had campaigned against the Apaches, he has been quoted as much of an apologist for the Indian as having been kept in savagery through ill treatment by the whites, the General failing to appreciate the fact that the Apache always had lived by pillage and robbery in which murder was only an incident.

General Crook's departure from Arizona was hastened, in March, 1886, by his lack of success in holding Geronimo, after the wily old scoundrel had been run down in Sonora, and after Captain Crawford of his command, a highly-esteemed officer, had been killed by mistake by co-operating Mexican troops.Then commencing in 1886, came the administration of Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who, with the assistance of a quarter of the United States army, finished up the work that Crook had started and succeeded in shipping east the principal Apache assassins. Following this campaign General Miles and his staff for a while rested, guests of the citizens of Albuquerque, and not long thereafter headquarters of the Department were moved to Los Angeles.' Since that time Arizona has been successively attached to military headquarters at San Francisco and Denver.

DEFIANCIE, THE FIRST ARIZONA POST

The first permanent occupation of the present land of Arizona by the military authority of the United States was at Fort Defiance, near the eastern edge of the present Navajo reservation. This post was established in 1849 by Colonel Washington, military governor of New Mexico, as a basis for operations, against the Navajo, who had been stealing cattle and sheep from the Indians and white settlers of the Rio Grande valley, and soon after an expedition was led by the Colonel into Cañon de Chelly. Major Backus was placed in command of the new post with a force of three companies. The Indians, fully appreciating the menace of the fort, vainly tried to prevent its construction. April 30, 1860, they boldly attacked the fortification at night, to be beaten off with heavy loss. The usefulness of the post declined after the establishment of Fort Wingate in 1862.

POSTS WITHIN THE GADSDEN PURCHASE

A Mexican garrison still remained at Tucson after the Gadsden purchase, in the latter part of 1855 being noted that at that post was a force of twenty-six men commanded by Capt. Hilario Garcia. It is known that this force remained until about the time of the coming, in 1856, of a squadron of four troops of the First United States Dragoons. It is assumed that this force was commanded by Major Enoch Steen, who was senior officer in 1857, in charge of Fort Buchanan, then established on the Sonoita. This post was commanded in 1858 by Capt.. E. H. Fitzgerald, First Dragoons, in 1859 by Capt. I. V. D. Reeve, Eighth Infantry, and in 1860 by Capt. R. S. Ewell, First Dragoons, later a Lieutenant-General of the. Confederacy. For a very short time before the Civil War abandonment,

Col. William Hoffman, Eighth Infantry, is recorded as having been in command of the Arizona forces, with headquarters at Buchanan.Camp Buchana, located not very far from the present Patagonia, at the beginning of the Civil War was garrisoned' by a company of infantry, Lieutenant Moore in command, and a troop of dragoons, commanded by Lieut. R. S. C. Lord. For a year or more, supplies had been pouring into this post until the quarter master is understood to have had responsibility for more than $1,000,000 worth of military equipment and provisions. These were dispatched by the Secretary of War in pursuance of the definite policy known during Buchanan's administration of transferring as much as possible of military munitions to southern posts, where they might be seized and put to the use of the eonfederacy that was to be. Fort Buchanan, honored by the name of 'the President himself, was made the depot of stores to be used by a Confederate column that was to march from Texas to seize the silver mines of Arizona and the gold fields of California.

A number of old-timers rather indignantly consider that the, march of the Federal troops from Buchanan was a symptom of cowardice, but there is evidence that, in June, 1861, the commanding officer was ordered by Major Lynde of Santa Fe' to abandon the post at once. It is not improbable that the two companies of well-drilled regulars would have been more than sufficient to defend the post against the irregular column that was marching into Arizona, but orders had to be obeyed. However, little of value was left behind. Several field pieces were spiked and were buried in a secret spot, while all equipment and provisions that could not be taken were wrecked or heaped in piles and burned in the same fire that destroyed the buildings and post. So there were only ruins left behind and whatever stores that might have proved of value to the invaders first were gleaned by the eager hands of the Mexicans who swarmed over from Sonora. The Federal troops marched to Fort Craig on the Rio Grande, where they were incorporated with tbe troops opposing the Confederate forces. On the advance of. General Carleton's command, the post was ordered regarrisoned by Lieut-Col. Jas. A. West, sent out from Tucson. The occupation was of only a few days, the buildings left having been found uninhabitable and the garrisons given both Buchanan and Breckenridge were withdrawn, to be returned after the New Mexican campaign. In 1868 Camp Crittenden was established on the Sonoita, in turn to be abandoned in January, 1873, its property transferred to the new post at Mount Graham.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War one of the posts within Arizona was Camp Breckenridge, near the junction of the San Pedro and Aravaipa Creek, established in 1859. It was abandoned with the outbreak of the war while' Captain "Baldy" Ewell was absent from its command in the East, on leave. It 'was re-established, garrisoned by California volunteer cavalry, under Lieut.-Col. E. E. Eyre, in 1862. Then it was rechristened Camp Stanford, after the Governor of California, but later was named Camp Grant. It was not an attractive post by any mc'ans. There was much malaria, probably caused by drinking stagnant water from the river where there were many lagoons, caused by a succession of beaver dams. When immediate necessity for the post had passed, on the, transfer of the Apaches to another reserve in the fall of 1872, Maj. Wm. B. Royall of the Fifth Cavalry was ordered to, find a new' location. He selected a. beautiful spot at the foot of the Pinaleflo Mountains. Major Royall,s selection' was approved,a reserve was created of 42,842 acres, and the camp was moved to its new location in January, 1873. Troops finally were moved from the newer post in 1895.

About the last time that Fort Grant was brought into the public eye in a military way was in May, 1908, when to its command was detailed Col. Wm. F. Stewart of the Artillery Corps., ' His "command" at the post consisted of a solitary caretaker and a cook. The officer practically had' been exiled as "temperamentally unfit," the action taken under the direction of President Roosevelt himself, after Colonel Stewart, at 'the expiration of forty years of army service, had refused to apply for retirement. His stay was short. The site was so attractive and the location, at 'the upper end of the Sulphur 'Springs 'Valley, so salubrious and the buildings and farming advantages of such seemingly high value that a request for its cession to the State was made in 1912 by Governor Hunt of Arizona. The request was granted and, by legislative authority soon thereafter, the State Industrial School was moved to Grant. The choice was not exactly a happy one, as the numerous old buildings proved unsatisfactory for the purposes to which they were put and the distance from transportation has not resulted in economy to the State.

FORT YUMA, OUTPOST OF' CIVILIZATION

 Though Fort Yuma lies in California, it has always been considered appurtenant to Arizona. Therefore it may be said that the first military occupation of the southern part of the Territory started in the garrisoning of that point soon after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Camp Calhoun on the lower Colorado was established by Lieut. C. J. Coutts, First United States Dragoons, in September, 1849. Coutts had served as commander of an escort on the Whipple survey. Soon' thereafter the ferry was started: November 27, 1850, Capt. S. P. Heintzelman of the Second Infantry, arrived from San Diego with three companies and changed the name to Camp Independence.

Into the vicinity' early ' in 1850 was sent, Lieut. G. H. Derby of the Top graphical Engineers, who mapped the locality and whose report on the Gulf of California and the' Colorado River later was published as a congressional document. Derby best was known under his pen name of "John Phoenix."' While stationed at San Diego, he convulsed a good part of the Union and incurred the enmity of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis by printing some suggestions he had gravely sent to the War Department. He proposed arming the officers with shepherds' crooks instead of sabers, while each soldier was to have a ring bolt a ,short distance below the back of his belt. Cowards who sought to run away were to be brought back by means of the hook, while cavalrymen were to be held in their saddles by a snap hook,' fitting, the ring bolt, all being neatly illustrated by drawings attached. Davis' order for a court-martial 'for Derby had to be revoked, for it brought more ridicule upon the War Department than did the publication of the offending matter.

In March, 1851, Heintzelman and his command returned from brief absence and Camp Yuma was established on the site of the old Spanish mission of La Purisima Concepcion, on a hill on the western bank. Captain Heintzelman told of finding the' rough stone foundation of the adobe houses that had been built by Padre Garces and of digging up copper pots. In June, 1851, except a small guard under Lieut. T. W. Sweeney, the "troops at Camp Yuma were sent to Santa Isabel, called by Coutts a "shiftless Indian village with a roofless church." In December the troops had trouble with the Indians, with scurvy and almost with starvation and the post was abandoned for a time. Heintzelman, promoted to be Major, returned February 29, 1852, with two companies of infantry and two troops of dragoons and re-established the fort. The supplies that had been abandoned had been looted by the Indians, who were troublesome for some time there after. In October, 1852, much of the fort was destroyed by fire. In September, 1852, Major Heintzelman ascended the Colorado River in boats, and a small expedition was contemplated to take a steamboat up as far as possible, in the belief that the Colorado might be the means of supplying the Mormon territory, saving much arduous land transportation.

When the Boundary Survey was at Yuma, two companies of soldiers were housed in buildings of upright poles ,plastered with mud and covered with a thatching of arrowweed, but more luxurious quarters were being provided by the building of adobe dwellings.' In April, 1862, Fort Yuma was the assembly point of the California Column and temporary headquarters of Col. Jas. H. Carleton, who later in order complimented Lieut.-Col. E. A. Riggs; First California In fantry, for good service as commander of the post. After the war it rarely had a garrison of over a company. For a while there was a sub-post, known as Camp Colorado on the Mojave reservation, up the Colorado, and another in 1864, known as Camp Lincoln,.at La Paz. Fort Yuma practically had been abandoned at the time of the arrival of the Southern Pacific. The reservation was turned over to the Interior Department by executive order of January 9, 1884, and the ground occupied by the old fort became a part of the Yuma Indian reservation. It is now occupied by an Indian school

FORT MOJAVE AND ITS LOST TREASURE

 Fort Mojave was established in 1858, its site selected by Whipple, with a garrison of three companies, after the peculiarly atrocious murder of a party of immigrants. It was left on the outbreak of the Rebellion in April, 1861, its garrison transferred to Los Angele's, a southern hot bed. It was regarrisoned in May,. 1863, by two companies of California volunteers. The post was near the Beale Crossing, a few miles below Hardyville, 'the head of navigation on the Colorado, and was considered valuable as protection against possible hostility on the part of the Mojaves and Hualpais.

Concerning the abandonment of Fort Mojave at the beginning of the Civil War, Peter R. Brady of Florence in later years told an interesting story. He said that there was a good post library which he, then a government employee, wished to preserve. So under the commissary building he dug a deep hole' and there buried the books, first wrapping them in tarpaulins. Looking around for other valuables, he found a couple of barrels of whiskey and several cases of fine wines, and enlarged the hole, to accommodate these. Then he covered them all deeply with earth and proceeded to set fire to the commissary building, not leaving till he saw a coating of ashes over the spot secreting the cache 'effectually against the hands of inquisitive Indians. Brady never returned to the spot. To the day of his death he believed that the whiskey and the books, both of them of large value, still were where he left them. Mojave was considered the hottest post in the United States and the most uncomfortable.

TUCSON AND FORT LOWELL

 Fort Lowell, on' the Rillito, seven miles from Tucson and named for Gen.C. R. Lowell, was the suecessor of a, military camp of the same name on the eastern edge' of the village of Tucson, established May 20, 1862, by a' detachment of California Volunteers, under Lieutenant-Colonel West, immediately after the Confederate abandonment of the place. Browne, writing in 1864, told that at Tucson was a military garrison of two companies, which confined itself to its legitimate business of getting drunk or doing nothing." According to Captain Bourke, who was there stationed in 1869, Lowell had few attractions and was of huts, with "ramadas" of cotton- wood boughs built for protection against the too-ardent sun. The newer Lowell, established March' 19, 1873, was a popular and fairly comfortable post, its building's mainly of adobe.

On the way, at, the Pima villages, had been established a small post' named Fort Barrett, after the first Union officer killed in' the Arizona campaign. Fort Barrett was in reality an earthwork thrown up around a trading post.

FORT McDOWELL AND CAMP RENO

 From Fort Barrett, Lieut.-Col. Clarence E. Bennett of the First California 'Cavalry made' an exploration northward to, find a practicable wagon road to the Rio Salado. It was told there were some hardships on the trip, though it was over a fairly level and easy country and that after striking the river a" rest of several days was taken till the expedition started again, to halt on the bank of the Rio Verde, in what was called Campo Verde, on the site of the later Fort McDowell. From this base, an expedition, of several companies of volunteers, one' company of, Maricopa Indians and one of Pima Indians, about 200 individuals, was started over the mountains into' Tonto Basin. The route was over mountains northeast of Campo Verde, probably along the' line of the later Reno road. A number' of Indian rancherias were found and broken up. A stay of several days was made at the mouth of Tonto Creek, the site of the present Roosevelt dam. The guide of the party, Pauline Weaver, had trapped beaver in that locality, but even he became confused for a while. From the upper Salt River, the rugged mountains were passed over into the valley' of the Gila, down which the hungry, ragged and shoeless troops marched, to find relative comfort again at Maricopa Wells. The permanent post at McDowell was established in September, 1865, with a garrison of five companies of California Volunteers commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bennett.

Soon after the establishment of McDowell, a military road was built .at great expenditure of money and labor over the Mazatzal Mountains' into Tonto Basin, where, at the foot of Reno Pass,' for several years was maintained the' sub-post of Camp Reno, restraining the activities of the Tonto Apaches, especially Del Shay's band, till about 1870.

McDowell was one of the most important of the early posts, in that it commanded a number of the more important trails that served as thoroughfares between the Apache tribes of central Arizona. It was commanded for a number of years by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee of the Sixth Cavalry. One of Chaffee's lieutenants was E. E. Dravo, who only lately was retired from the army with the rank of colonel in the Commissary Corps. Chaffee had served in the Sixth much of the time since 1863, when he, enlisted in it as a private soldier. He' was promoted out of it when he was sent to the Ninth as Major in 1880. There after his rise was rapid and he was General in the Cuban campaign. He retired from the army with the rank .of Lieutenant General and died in Los Angeles early in 1915.

While Chaffee was in command of the post he started trouble that "needed attention from him intermittently till the time' of his death. On the northern edge of the reservation, according to his survey marks, in 1878 was established the residence of Patrick White, a discharged soldier of the Eighth Infantry.' In the summer of 1880 Captain Chaffee notified White to leave the reservation. Thereafter, in the absence' of the owner, a detachment of soldiers set White's belongings beyond the reservation line and burned' the dwelling. For years thereafter Paddy White's wife and widow became known in Washington as the Woman of the Black Bag," prosecuting her claim against the Government for reparation in a large sum. She finally proved that the" survey line accepted by Chaffee was wrong and that her home really was north of the reservation. The claim has been made smaller by time and in a late Congress there was shown disposition to settle on the basis of the actual loss incurred at the time. After abandonment by the War Department McDowell reservation was transferred, to the Interior Department for school purposes. The school had to be moved to Phoenix on account of poor transportation 'facilities and then on the reserve was permitted the settlement of a large number of Mojave-Apache 'Indians, whom the Government, without much success, is trying to transform into farmers.

BOWIE, GUARDIAN OF APACHE' PASS