I could not help thinking that there was a better way to deal with the Indians than to begin with the conquering sword and follow it up with starvation. Oliver O. Howard
The Apache tribe is among the most famous of the warrior societies that peopled the Great Plains and Southwest. The names of two of their leaders—Cochise and Geronimo—are well known to nearly every American. The Apaches fought against white encroachment for as long as any Indians, with unsurpassed toughness and tenacity. By the 1870’s they were armed with repeating rifles; they were extremely mobile; and, unlike many of the plains tribes, the Apaches did n count coup for bragging rights. They were interested only in results. Two very different generals i the U.S. Army, both prominent in the Civil War, played important roles in the wars against th Apaches. In different ways both contributed to peace, though the calm was imperfect and shortlived, as was always the case in the nineteenth century. Oliver O. Howard ranked high in the West Point class of 1854. At the outset of the Civil War h left his teaching post at the ac emy to command a Maine regiment. He rose to the rank of bri adier general in the first month of the war. After losing an arm Seven Pines, he returned to combat and divisional command. He was promoted to major general late in 1862. Howard led a corps at the Federal defeat at Chancel lorsville and with more success at Gettysburg. Traveling west to fight in the Atlanta Campaign, he commanded the Army of the Tennessee after McPherson’s
Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard. (Library of Congress)
s after the War: Broken Arrow death and led this force during Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas in the fin months of the war. Howard headed the Freedman’s Bureau after the war, but his work there was interrupted in 1872 when he was sent to Arizona to negotiate a peace treat with the Indian tribes. George Crook performed with less distinction at West Point than Howard, finishing toward the bottom in the class of 1852, but proved to be a capable officer in the Civil War. He began his service as colonel of an Ohi regiment. In 1862 he rose to the rank of brigadier general. He commanded a division at South Mountain and Sharpsburg and later led a cavalry division in the Western Theater. In 1864 he served effectively in East Tennessee and the Shenandoah Valley and was promoted to major general late that year. Captured in February 1865, he nearly sat out the rest of the war, but was exchanged in time to participate in the final campaign in Virgini
Crook’s Civil War record was solid, but he is better known fo his role in the Indian wars whic followed. In 1871, after his success against the Paiutes, Crook took over command of the remote Department of Arizona to run the war against the Apaches and
other tribes. He was planning a relentless campaign to subdue the hostiles, but was made to stand down while the Federal government sent a commissioner to implement Grant’s Peace Policy, an effort to end the bloodsh by settling the Indians as farme
and stock raisers. After the fir commissioner failed to achieve a stable peace, Crook was again preparing to gear up, but once more Washington decided to give peace a chance. Howard had his hands full with the Freedmen’s Bureau, but when duty called he set out in March
1872 to seek peace with the Indians in Arizona. Would the famous Christian General succeed where the previous commissioner failed? Crook was skeptical, but Howard entered into agreements with various tribes and subtribes and even took a delegation of Indians to Washington. When he and his charges returned to the west in the summer, he took on some unfinished business—making peace with the Chiricahua Apaches, a band not involved in the initial treaty. Under Cochise the Chiricahua Apaches had fought a ten-year war against the U.S. from their stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains in southeast Arizona. In hi autobiography, Crook wrote that he had spies in Cochise’s camp and was prepared to move against the band. Confident of victory, h was disappointed that intervention by Howard caused him to terminate his plan. Oliver Howard was a man of great faith. He believed he had a mission to save the Indians as he believed he had a mission to save the freed slaves. Crook thought Howard naïve and his memoirs sometimes ridiculed the general, but it’s hard to argue with success. Tom Jeffords, a former army scout who knew both the territory and Cochise, was recruited by Howard to take the general to the Chiricahua leader. Jeffords carefully picked guides and interpreters, and in addition was joined by a nephew of the chief. The party—which included no soldiers save Howard and two aides—set off from Cañada Alamosa in southwest New Mexico on a 300-mile trek across some of the roughest country in North America to reach Cochise’s stronghold. Lookouts saw the expedition but, as it included Jeffords and Cochise’s nephew, the party was allowed to proceed. The Christian General and the Apache chief
talked and quickly established mutual trust. Cochise was a realist. He had inflicted more loss es on the whites than vice versa, but he knew that he could not las much longer in any war of attrition, as his band was reduced to a mere 400 and he himself was
chise, which included a reservation for Cochise’s people in the Chiricahua Mountains, Howard journeyed to Fort Bowie to advise the army of the terms. Then, to seal the treaty, Howard and other officers traveled to a new, less mote camp established by Cochise. Howard wrote of his stay in
this camp as Cochise’s honored guest. One night a celebratory dance held by his hosts. “When I was invited to dance I did so. As passed into line an Indian woman held my left hand and another my empty right sleeve.” Except for this agreement with Cochise, the treaties Howard made with Arizona’s Indians were not lasting. Some trouble on the White Mountain reservation ended in the death of a juni officer. Bands of Indians fled an began to attack white settlements In September 1872 Crook’s hands were finally untied. This experienced leader understood his enemies and knew how best to fight them. He mounted well-equipped expeditions that were able to sta in the field for prolonged period He recruited Apaches and other Indians as scouts and (controversially) as soldiers. He engaged in continuous search and destroy missions, hunting the hostile Apaches down and wearing them out until they yielded. Crook’s memoirs record that “on the seventh day of April, 1873, the last of the Apaches surrendered.” Crook’s campaigns, however, were not directed against Cochise’s Chiricahuas. The agreement with Cochise held. The settlers i Arizona were skeptical of Howard’s treaty and told him so. The felt that Cochise should be punished for his outrages and did not doubt that he would continue them, but as long as Cochise and his son and successor lived, the peace was honored. In 1876 the Chiricahuas were forcibly removed to another reservation, one with other tribes and one on which they could not support themselves. Some stayed and suffered. Others, under Geronimo, rebelled. As Howard put it in his account, “An Indian war of the worst sort followed;” this war lasted a decade. Following the peace with Cochise, Howard returned to
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Washington and the Freedmen’s Bureau, where he stayed until 1874. Thereafter he fought in In dian wars in the Northwest and served as the superintendent of the Military Academy. He retired in 1894 and died in 1909. After leaving Arizona in 1875 Crook continued to lead U.S. sol diers in the Indian wars, includ a return to Arizona and an unsuc cessful campaign against Geronimo. He died in Chicago in 1890 while he was in command of the Department of the Missouri. Cochise did not live long aft his treaty with Howard. He was a sick man when they first met and died in 1874. Under Geronimo bands of Apaches resisted until 1886. After his capitulation, Geronimo was held as a prisoner in variou army forts. In 1894 he was settl in Oklahoma, where he took up farming. The warrior-turned-cultivator died in 1929 at the age 79.
Sources: • John Gregory Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 1891 • Peter Cozzens, The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, 2016 • George Crook, General George Crook: His Autobiography, 2017 • Patricia L. Faust, Editor, His torical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, 1991 • O.O. Howard, My Life and Experiences Among Our Hostile Indians, 1907.
Gould Hagler is the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation (Mercer University Press, 2014). His new book on Alabama’s Confederate monuments is to be published by Indiana University Press.