Apache Scouts

Mescalero Apache scouts served with the army during the Navajo War in 1863 and 1864. One of the last battles of the war involving the scouts occurred along the Pecos River of New Mexico Territory on January 4, 1864. After a band of about 100 Navajo warriors raided the reservation at Bosque Redondo, the local Indian agent led sixty Mescaleros south in the pursuit of the raiders and eventually caught up with them at the Pecos. When the fighting started, the Navajo realized they couldn't escape with their herd of stolen livestock so they took up defensive positions to try to fight off their pursuers. Initially, the Navajo were successful in keeping their enemies back, but, eventually, United States Army reinforcements began to arrive. After a long battle the Navajo were forced to retreat without the livestock, leaving an estimated forty dead on the field. Another twenty-five Navajos were estimated to have been wounded and a group the same size escaped. There were no casualties among the Americans or the Apache scouts and they recovered fifty horses and mules. Less than two weeks later Colonel Kit Carson would lead an expedition into Canyon de Chelly, the heart of Navajo territory, capturing most of the inhabitants and ending the war.[1]

Warm Springs Apache scouts in the 1870s.

Apache scouts were employed by the United States Army throughout most of the Apache Wars but it wasn't until about 1870 when General George Crook introduced the idea of enlisting entire companies of scouts. However, at that time, few Apaches were willing to join Crook so he was forced to recruit native Americans from various tribes across the Southwest. The majority of Crook's scouts were Apache, divided into two companies, but at first there were also Navajos, Pimas, Yaquis, Opatas, Papagos, Walapais, Yavapais, and Paiutes, as well as some Mexicans and Americans. General Crook allowed any captured Apache male to join his scouts, believing that "the wilder the Apache was, the more he was likely to know the wiles and statagems of those still out in the mountains. (sic)" While Crook was recruiting natives to fight for him, he was also fighting against the Western Apaches and the closely associated Yavapai tribe in central Arizona Territory. During the Tonto Basin Campaign in 1872, Crook deployed his scouts at the Battle of Salt River Canyon on December 28. Over 100 Yavapai and Tonto men, women and children were held up inside a cave overlooking the Salt River. With some 130 cavalrymen, and about thirty scouts, Crook attacked the cave, killing seventy-six people, including non combatants, and capturing the remaining thirty-four. The general followed up the victory with another at Turret Peak, on March 27, 1873, in which another fifty-seven Yavapai and Tonto Apache were killed. Only one man was killed on the Americans' side during both engagements and soon after the Yavapai and the Tonto began flocking to Camp Verde to surrender. [2][3]

General Crook with White Mountain Apache Scout William Alchesay on the right, and an unknown Apache scout on the left.

Small bands of Yavapai and Apache raiders continued to harass the army and the settlers in and around Tonto Basin for two more years. After the war ended, General Crook departed Arizona for Dakota Territory in 1876. Colonel Augustus P. Kautz took over the command of the scouts and he formed a third company in early 1877 and a fourth in 1878. Upon taking command of the scouts, Kautz wrote; "These scouts supported by a small force of cavalry, are exceedingly efficient, and have succeeded, with one or two exceptions, in finding every party of Indians they have gone in pursuit of. They are a great terror to the runaways [renegades] from the Reservations, and for such work are more efficient than double the number of soldiers. (sic)" [4]

Apache scouts at Fort Apache in 1919. (Left to right) First Sergeant Chicken, Jesse Palmer, Tea Square, Sergeant Big Chow, and Corporal C.F. Josh.

Following Geronimo's surrender in 1886, there was little need for Apache scouts so their ranks were thinned down to just fifty men by 1891. In 1915 there were only twenty-four left. However, after Pancho Villa's attack on Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, General John J. Pershing was ordered to command a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture or kill Villa. Pershing authorized the enlistment of seventeen new Apache scouts, resulting in thirty-nine men. Pancho Villa and his rebels were operating in Chihuahua when Pershing led his army across the international border. The scouts were divided into two groups. The first group headed into Mexico from Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to join up with the 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, while the second group departed from Fort Apache, to join the 11th Cavalry. However, by the time the scouts arrived in Chihuahua, Mexico, the hunt for Villa was already suspended by Pershing, due to the defeat in the Battle of Carrizal, in which the Americans engaged Mexican government troops, known as Carrancistas. The hunt was never continued and after that Pershing began an occupation of northern Chihuahua, followed by a slow withdrawal back to the United States, under President Wilson's orders.[5][6]

The first battle involving the scouts was fought at Ojo Azules Ranch. On May 5, a small group of scouts joined up with a troop from the 11th Cavalry to attack about 150 Villistas. In all sixty-one Mexicans were killed and another seventy were captured, all without sustaining any casualties.

After the expedition ended in February 1917 the army disbanded about half of the force, leaving twenty-two scouts for duty. Their war-time service was not completely over though. Conflict between the United States and Mexican armies continued until 1919 and Mexican raids across the border were a frequent occurrence into the 1920s.[5]