On the Border with Crook: General George Crook, the American Indian Wars, and Life on the American Frontier - Softcover

John G. Bourke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1626365431 ISBN 13: 9781626365438

Publisher: Skyhorse, 2014

Synopsis

The definitive look at one of the most famous American generals of the American Indian Wars.
After serving over fifteen years with General George Crook, John Gregory Bourke, his right-hand man, sat down to write of his time with the legendary US Army officer in the post–Civil War West. On the Border with Crook is a firsthand account of Crook’s campaigns during the American Indian Wars. Observant and inquisitive, Bourke brings to life the entire American frontier. In sharp descriptions and detailed anecdotes, he sketched vivid pictures not only of Crook and his fellow cavalrymen but also of legendary Native American leaders such as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo. Combining strength and compassion, Bourke argues, Crook carved out an important legacy for himself in American history.
On the Border with Crook has long been regarded as one of the best firsthand accounts of frontier army life. More than simply an account of General Crook, Bourke writes with unparalleled detail of the landscape of the Southwest, impressions on the forts and communities in Arizona Territory, and the hardships of frontier service, in addition to the exciting and honest accounts of combat. What is most impressive about Bourke’s work is the equal time he gives to both soldier and Native American alike, making On the Border with Crook the essential book for those interested in the history of the American frontier.

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the Border with Crook

General George Crook, the American Indian Wars, and Life on the American Frontier

By John G. Bourke

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright © 2014 Skyhorse Publishing
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62636-543-8

CHAPTER 1

OLD CAMP GRANT ON THE RIO SAN PEDRO — DAILY ROUTINE OF LIFE — ARCHITECTURE OF THE GILA — SOLDIERS AS LABORERS — THE MESCAL AND ITS USES — DRINK AND GAMBLING — RATTLESNAKE BITES AND THE GOLONDRINA WEED — SODA LAKE AND THE DEATH VALLEY — FELMER AND HIS RANCH.

DANTE ALIGHIERI, it has always seemed to me, made the mistake of his life in dying when he did in the picturesque capital of the Exarchate five hundred and fifty years ago. Had he held on to this mortal coil until after Uncle Sam had perfected the "Gadsden Purchase," he would have found full scope for his genius in the description of a region in which not only purgatory and hell, but heaven likewise, had combined to produce a bewildering kaleidoscope of all that was wonderful, weird, terrible, and awe-inspiring, with not a little that was beautiful and romantic.

The vast region in the southwest corner of the United States, known on the maps as the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, may, with perfect frankness, be claimed as the wonder-land of the northern part of America, with the exception, perhaps, of the Republic of Mexico, of which it was once a fragment, and to which, ethnographically, it has never ceased to belong.

In no other section can there be found such extensive areas of desert crossed in every direction by the most asperous mountains, whose profound cañons are the wonder of the world, whose parched flanks are matted with the thorny and leafless vegetation of the tropics, and whose lofty summits are black with the foliage of pines whose graceful branches bend in the welcome breezes from the temperate zone. Here one stumbles at almost every step upon the traces of former populations, of whom so little is known, or sees repeated from peak to peak the signal smokes of the fierce Apaches, whose hostility to the white man dates back to the time of Cortés.

I will begin my narrative by a brief reference to the condition of affairs in Arizona prior to the arrival of General Crook, as by no other means can the arduous nature of the work he accomplished be understood and appreciated. It was a cold and cheerless day — March 10, 1870 — when our little troop, "F" of the Third Cavalry, than which a better never bore guidon, marched down the vertical-walled cañon of the Santa Catalina, crossed the insignificant sand-bed of the San Pedro, and came front into line on the parade-ground of Old Camp Grant, at the mouth of the Aravaypa. The sun was shining brightly, and where there was shelter to be found in the foliage of mesquite or cottonwood, there was the merry chatter of birds; but in the open spaces the fierce breath of the norther, laden with dust and discomfort, made the new-comers imagine that an old-fashioned home winter had pursued them into foreign latitudes. A few military formalities hastily concluded, a few words of kindly greeting between ourselves and the members of the First Cavalry whom we met there, and ranks were broken, horses led to the stables, and men filed off to quarters. We had become part and parcel of the garrison of Old Camp Grant, the memory of which is still fragrant as that of the most forlorn parody upon a military garrison in that most woe-begone of military departments, Arizona.

Of our march over from the Rio Grande it is not worth while to speak; as the reader advances in this book he will find references to other military movements which may compensate for the omission, even when it is admitted that our line of travel from Fort Craig lay through a region but little known to people in the East, and but seldom described. For those who may be sufficiently interested to follow our course, I will say that we started from Craig, marched to the tumble-down village of "Paraje de San Cristobal," at the head of the "Jornada del Muerto" (The Day's Journey of the Dead Man), which is the Sahara of New Mexico, then across to the long-since abandoned camp at what was called Fort MacRae, where we forded the river to the west, and then kept along the eastern rim of the timber-clad Mimbres Mountains, through Cow Springs to Fort Cummings, and thence due west to Camp Bowie, situated in the "Apache Pass" of the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeastern Arizona, a total distance of some one hundred and seventy miles as we marched.

There were stretches of country picturesque to look upon and capable of cultivation, especially with irrigation; and other expanses not a bit more fertile than so many brick-yards, where all was desolation, the home of the cactus and the coyote. Arizona was in those days separated from "God's country" by a space of more than fifteen hundred miles, without a railroad, and the officer or soldier who once got out there rarely returned for years.

Our battalion slowly crawled from camp to camp, with no incident to break the dull monotony beyond the ever-recurring signal smokes of the Apaches, to show that our progress was duly watched from the peaks on each flank; or the occasional breaking down of some of the wagons and the accompanying despair of the quartermaster, with whose afflictions I sympathized sincerely, as that quartermaster was myself.

I used to think that there never had been such a wagon-train, and that there never could again be assembled by the Government mules of whose achievements more could be written — whose necks seemed to be ever slipping through their collars, and whose heels never remained on terra firma while there was anything in sight at which to kick. Increasing years and added experience have made me more conservative, and I am now free to admit that there have been other mules as thoroughly saturated with depravity as "Blinky Jim," the lop- eared dun "wheeler" in the water-wagon team; other artists whose attainments in profanity would put the blush upon the expletives which waked the echoes of the mirage-haunted San Simon, and other drivers who could get as quickly, unmistakably, emphatically, and undeniably drunk as Mullan, who was down on the official papers as the driver of the leading ambulance, but, instead of driving, was generally driven.

There would be very little use in attempting to describe Old Fort Grant, Arizona, partly because there was really no fort to describe, and partly because few of my readers would be sufficiently interested in the matter to follow me to the end. It was, as I have already said, recognized from the tide-waters of the Hudson to those of the Columbia as the most thoroughly Godforsaken post of all those supposed to be included in the annual Congressional appropriations. Beauty of situation or of construction it had none; its site was the supposed junction of the sand- bed of the Aravaypa with the sand-bed of the San Pedro, which complacently figured on the topographical charts of the time as creek and river respectively, but generally were dry as a lime-burner's hat excepting during the "rainy season." Let the reader figure to himself a rectangle whose four sides were the row of officers' "quarters," the adjutant's office, post bakery, and guard house, the commissary and quartermaster's storehouses, and the men's quarters and sutler's store, and the "plan," if there was any "plan," can be at once understood. Back of the quartermaster's and commissary storehouses, some little distance, were the blacksmith's forge, the butcher's "corral," and the cavalry stables, while in the rear of the men's quarters, on the banks of the San Pedro, and not far from the traces of the ruins of a prehistoric village or pueblo of stone, was the loose, sandy spot upon which the bucking "bronco" horses were broken to the saddle. Such squealing and struggling and biting and kicking, and rolling in the dust and getting up again, only to introduce some entirely original combination of a hop, skip, and jump, and a double back somersault, never could be seen outside of a herd of California "broncos." The animal was first thrown, blindfolded, and then the bridle and saddle were put on, the latter girthed so tightly that the horse's eyes would start from their sockets. Then, armed with a pair of spurs of the diameter of a soup-plate and a mesquite club big enough to fell an ox, the Mexican "vaquero" would get into the saddle, the blinds would be cast off, and the circus begin. There would be one moment of sweet doubt as to what the "bronco" was going to do, and now and then there would be aroused expectancy that a really mild- mannered steed had been sent to the post by some mistake of the quartermaster's department. But this doubt never lasted very long; the genuine "bronco" can always be known from the spurious one by the fact that when he makes up his mind to "buck" he sets out upon his work without delay, and with a vim that means business. If there were many horses arriving in a "bunch," there would be lots of fun and no little danger and excitement. The men would mount, and amid the encouraging comments of the on-lookers begin the task of subjugation. The bronco, as I have said, or should have said, nearly always looked around and up at his rider with an expression of countenance that was really benignant, and then he would roach his back, get his four feet bunched together, and await developments. These always came in a way productive of the best results; if the rider foolishly listened to the suggestions of his critics, he would almost always mistake this temporary paroxysm of docility for fear or lack of spirit.

And then would come the counsel, inspired by the Evil One himself: "Arrah, thin, shtick yer sphurs int' him, Moriarty."

This was just the kind of advice that best suited the "bronco's" feelings, because no sooner would the rowels strike his flanks than the air would seem to be filled with a mass of mane and tail rapidly revolving, and of hoofs flying out in defiance of all the laws of gravity, while a descendant of the kings of Ireland, describing a parabolic orbit through space, would shoot like a meteor into the sand, and plough it up with his chin and the usual elocutionary effects to be looked for under such circumstances.

Yes, those were happy, happy days — for the "broncos" and the by-standers.

There were three kinds of quarters at Old Camp Grant, and he who was reckless enough to make a choice of one passed the rest of his existence while at the post in growling at the better luck of the comrades who had selected either one of the others.

There was the adobe house, built originally for the kitchens of the post at the date of its first establishment, some time in 1857; there were the "jacal" sheds, built of upright logs, chinked with mud and roofed with smaller branches and more mud; and the tents, long since "condemned" and forgotten by the quartermaster to whom they had originally been invoiced. Each and all of these examples of the Renaissance style of architecture, as it found expression in the valley of the Gila, was provided with a "ramada" in front, which, at a small expenditure of labor in erecting a few additional upright saplings and cross-pieces, and a covering of cottonwood foliage, secured a modicum of shelter from the fierce shafts of a sun which shone not to warm and enlighten, but to enervate and kill.

The occupants of the ragged tentage found solace in the pure air which merrily tossed the flaps and flies, even if it brought with it rather more than a fair share of heat and alkali dust from the deserts of Sonora. Furthermore, there were few insects to bother, a pleasing contrast to the fate of those living in the houses, which were veritable museums of entomology, with the choicest specimens of centipedes, scorpions, "vinagrones," and, occasionally, tarantulas, which the Southwest could produce.

On the other hand, the denizens of the adobe and the "jacal outfits" became inured to insect pests and felicitated, themselves as best they could upon being free from the merciless glare of the sun and wind, which latter, with its hot breath, seemed to take delight in peeling the skin from the necks and faces of all upon whom it could exert its nefarious powers: My assignment was to one of the rooms in the adobe house, an apartment some fourteen by nine feet in area, by seven and a half or eight in height. There was not enough furniture to occasion any anxiety in case of fire: nothing but a single cot, one rocking-chair — visitors, when they came, generally sat on the side of the cot — a trunk, a shelf of books, a small pine wash-stand, over which hung a mirror of greenish hue, sold to me by the post trader with the assurance that it was French plate. I found out afterward that the trader could not always be relied upon, but I'll speak of him at another time. There were two window-curtains, both of chintz; one concealed the dust and fly specks on the only window, and the other covered the row of pegs upon which hung sabre, forage cap, and uniform.

In that part of Arizona fires were needed only at intervals, and, as a consequence, the fireplaces were of insignificant dimensions, although they were placed, in the American fashion, on the side of the rooms, and not, as among the Mexicans, in the corners. There was one important article of furniture connected with the fireplace of which I must make mention — the long iron poker with which, on occasion, I was wont to stir up the embers, and also to stir up the Mexican boy Esperidion, to whom, in the wilder freaks of my imagination, I was in the habit of alluding as my "valet."

The quartermaster had recently received permission to expend "a reasonable amount" of paint upon the officers' quarters, provided the same could be done "by the labor of the troops." This "labor of the troops" was a great thing. It made the poor wretch who enlisted under the vague notion that his admiring country needed his services to quell hostile Indians, suddenly find himself a brevet architect, carrying a hod and doing odd jobs of plastering and kalsomining. It was an idea which never fully commended itself to my mind, and I have always thought that the Government might have been better served had such work, and all other not strictly military and necessary for the proper police and cleanliness of the posts, been assigned to civilians just as soon as representatives of the different trades could be attracted to the frontier. It would have cost a little more in the beginning, but it would have had the effect of helping to settle up our waste land on the frontier, and that, I believe, was the principal reason why we had a standing army at all.

The soldier felt discontented because no mention had been made in the recruiting officer's posters, or in the contract of enlistment, that he was to do such work, and he not unusually solved the problem by "skipping out" the first pay-day that found him with enough money ahead to risk the venture. It goes without saying that the work was never any too well done, and in the present case there seemed to be more paint scattered round about my room than would have given it another coat. But the floor was of rammed earth and not to be spoiled, and the general effect was certainly in the line of improvement. Colonel Dubois, our commanding officer, at least thought so, and warmly congratulated me upon the snug look of everything, and added a very acceptable present of a picture — one of Prang's framed chromos, a view of the Hudson near the mouth of Esopus Creek — which gave a luxurious finish to the whole business. Later on, after I had added an Apache bow and quiver, with its complement of arrows, one or two of the bright, cheery Navajo rugs, a row of bottles filled with select specimens of tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and others of the fauna of the country, and hung upon the walls a suit of armor which had belonged to some Spanish foot-soldier of the sixteenth century, there was a sybaritic suggestiveness which made all that has been related of the splendors of Solomon and Sardanapalus seem commonplace.

Of that suit of armor I should like to say a word: it was found by Surgeon Steyer, of the army, enclosing the bones of a man, in the arid country between the waters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos, in the extreme southwestern corner of the State of Texas, more than twenty years ago. Various conjectures were advanced and all sorts of theories advocated as to its exact age, some people thinking that it belonged originally to Coronado's expedition, which entered New Mexico in 1541. My personal belief is that it belonged to the expedition of Don Antonio Espejo, or that of Don Juan de Oñate, both of whom came into New Mexico about the same date — 1581 — 1592 — and travelled down the Concho to its confluence with the Rio Grande, which would have been just on the line where the skeleton in armor was discovered. There is no authentic report to show that Coronado swung so far to the south; his line of operations took in the country farther to the north and east, and there are the best of reasons for believing that he was the first white man to enter the fertile valley of the Platte, not far from Plum Creek, Nebraska.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1626365431
• ISBN 13: 9781626365438
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 491