Chapter XV: Victorio Becomes a Good Indian

As soon as the summer rains had begun in 1880 and green grass and water were plentiful, old Victorio again began his raids. He appeared at Lake Guzman, Old Mexico, then traveled east to Boracho Pass, just south of the Rio Grande. This old chief was then reported making for the Eagle Mountains in Texas. The Mexican Government communicated this information to General Grierson at Fort Davis, Texas, and Lieutenant Baylor was asked to cooperate in the campaign to exterminate the wily old Apache.

General Grierson, on receipt of this information, at once put his cavalry in motion for Eagle Springs, and on August 2, 1880, Baylor left his camp at Ysleta with myself and thirteen rangers equipped for a two weeks' campaign. On August 4th our little band reached old Fort Quitman, eighty miles down the Rio Grande from El Paso, and Lieutenant Baylor reported to General Grierson by telegraph. His message was interrupted, for the Apaches had cut the wires between Bass' Canyon and Van Horn's Well, but the general ordered him by telegram to scout toward Eagle Springs until his command should meet the United States cavalry. We were to keep a sharp lookout for Indian trails, but we saw none until we reached Eighteen Mile water hole, where General Grierson's troops had had an engagement with Victorio. From here the Indians went south and around Eagle Mountains, so we continued down the road beyond Bass' Canyon and found the Apaches had crossed the road, torn down the telegraph wire, carried off a long piece of it, and destroyed the insulators. The Indians also dragged some of the telegraph poles two or three miles and left them on their trail. The signs indicated they had from one hundred and eighty to two hundred animals. After destroying the telegraph the raiders finally moved north toward Carrizo Mountains.

At Van Horn, Lieutenant Baylor could learn nothing of General Grierson or his movements. We thereupon took the general's trail leading north and overtook him in camp at Rattlesnake Springs, about sixty-five miles distant. Here we joined Company "K," Eighth Cavalry, and Captain Nolan's company, the Tenth. The cavalry camped at Carrizo Springs and our scouts found Victorio's trail the next day leading southwest toward the Apache Tanks. We left camp at dusk and rode all night and struck the redskins' trail next morning at the stage road where General Grierson had fought. The Indians crossed the road, but afterwards returned to it and continued toward old Fort Quitman.

The overland stage company kept a station at this abandoned frontier post, situated on the north bank of the Rio Grande, eighty or ninety miles east of El Paso, Texas. On August 9, 1880, Ed Walde, the stage driver, started out on his drive with General Byrnes occupying the rear seat of the stage coach. The stage, drawn by two fast running little Spanish mules, passed down the valley and entered the canyon, a very box-like pass with high mountains on either side,--an ideal place for an Indian ambuscade. Walde had driven partly through this pass when, around a short bend in the road, he came suddenly upon old Victorio and his band of one hundred warriors. The Indian advance guard fired on the coach immediately, and at the first volley General Byrnes was fatally wounded, a large caliber bullet striking him in the breast and a second passing through his thigh. Walde turned his team as quickly as he could and made a lightning run back to the stage stand with the general's body hanging partly out of the stage. The Apaches followed the stage for four or five miles trying to get ahead of it, but the little mules made time and beat them into the shelter of the station's adobe walls.

It was a miracle that Walde, sitting on the front seat, escaped without a scratch and both of the mules unharmed. At old Fort Quitman I examined the little canvas-topped stage and found it literally shot to pieces. I noticed where a bullet had glanced along the white canvas, leaving a blue mark a foot long before it passed through the top. Three of the spokes of the wheels were shot in two and, as well as I remember, there were fifteen or twenty bullet marks on and through the stage. Lieutenant Baylor and his rangers buried General Byrnes near old Fort Quitman and fired a volley over his grave. Subsequently Walde joined Lieutenant Baylor's command and made an excellent ranger. It was from him that I obtained the particulars of the fight that resulted in the general's death.

En route the Apaches raided Jesus Cota's ranch, killed his herder and drove off one hundred and forty head of cattle. In crossing the river forty of the animals mired in the quicksands. The heartless Indians thereupon pounced upon the unfortunate cattle and cut chunks of flesh out of their living bodies. Many of the mutilated animals were still alive when we found them. The redskins, with a freakish sense of humor, perpetrated a grim joke on the murdered herder. He was rendering out some tallow when surprised and killed, so the murderers rammed his head into the melted tallow to make him a greaser!

After the fight at Quitman, Victorio and his band crossed into Mexico and there found temporary safety, as the United States troops were not permitted to enter that country in pursuit of Indians, though negotiations to permit such pursuit of Indians were even then pending between the two governments. Alone, we were no match for Victorio's hundred braves, so we returned to our camp.

Victorio, however, did not remain idle in Mexico. He made a raid on Dr. Saminiego's San Jose ranch and stole one hundred and seventeen horses and mules, besides killing two Mexican herders. Don Ramon Arranda, captain of the Mexican Volunteers, invited the rangers to Mexico to cooperate with him in exterminating the Apaches, so, on September 17, 1880, Lieutenant Baylor with thirteen rangers, myself included, entered Mexico and marched to Tancas Cantaresio, Don Arranda's ranch. Here we were joined by Mexican volunteers from the towns of Guadalupe, San Ignacio, Tres Jacalas, Paso del Norte, and from the Texan towns of Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elizario, until our combined force numbered over a hundred men.

On the night of the 19th we crossed an Indian trail south of the Rancheria Mountains, but could not tell the number of redskins in the party, as it was then dark and the trail damaged by rain. The same night we saw Indian signal fires to the east of the Arranda ranch. Next morning, with a detail of five rangers and ten Mexican volunteers, I scouted out in the direction of the fires but did not have time to reach the sign, as I was ordered to take and hold the Rancheria Mountains before old Victorio and his band reached them.

At Lucero, the first stage stand, the Apaches were reported within a league of Carrizal. We made a night march with our rangers and seventy-three volunteers, but found the Indians had left, and, as a heavy rain had put out the trail, we struck east toward El Copra Mountains. Here we again picked up the trail and, following it until night, we found a few loose horses of Saminiego's. The marauders now went west toward some tanks and we returned to Candelario, where Victorio's entire band had crossed the Chihuahua stage road. Thence we marched back to San Jose and went into camp to await the arrival of General Joaquin Terrasas.

The Mexican general made his appearance on the 3rd day of October with two hundred cavalry and one hundred infantry. This general, a member of a well known family of Chihuahua, was more than six feet in height, very dark and an inveterate smoker of cigarettes. He used four milk white horses, riding one while his aides led three. His cavalry, well armed with Remington pistols and carbines, was nicely uniformed and mounted on dark colored animals of even size. The infantry were Indians from the interior of Mexico. These foot soldiers wore rawhide sandals on their feet and were armed with Remington muskets. Each soldier carried two cartridge belts, containing one hundred rounds of ammunition. I was impressed with the little baggage and rations these infantrymen carried. On the march each man had a little canvas bag that held about one quart of ground parched corn, sweetened with a little sugar--and a table-spoonful of this mixture stirred in a pint cup of water made a good meal. Of course when in a cattle country plenty of beef was furnished them, but when on the march they had only this little bag of corn. This lack of baggage and rations enabled them to move quickly and promptly. This light infantry had no trouble at all in keeping up with the cavalry on the march and in a rough country they could move faster than the horsemen.

With General Terrasas' three hundred soldiers and our hundred volunteers we could bring to bear against Victorio about four hundred men. From San Jose the combined command marched to Rebosadero Springs, twenty miles south of El Caparo, on the new Chihuahua stage road. There we rested two days and then marched forty miles to Boracho Pass, where the Apaches had camped after killing General Byrnes and stealing Jesus Cota's stock. We crossed the Indians' trail twenty miles west of the pass and formed our line of battle, as we expected the enemy was camped at some tanks there. He did not appear, so we camped at the pass to await supplies.

When the supply wagons arrived, General Terrasas sent an orderly to Lieutenant Baylor and invited him to send his men to draw ten days' rations. While I was standing in my shirtsleeves near the wagon one of the Mexican soldiers stole from my belt a fine hunting knife that I had carried ten thousand miles over the frontier. I discovered the loss almost immediately and reported it to Lieutenant Baylor, who, in turn, mentioned it to General Terrasas. The Mexican general at once had his captains form their respective companies and had every soldier in camp searched, but the knife was not found. The thief had probably hidden it in the grass. The Mexican volunteers remained with General Terrasas until after the defeat of Victorio, and one of them told me afterward he had seen a Mexican soldier scalping Apaches with it. Just one year later an orderly of General Terrasas rode into the ranger camp at Ysleta and presented Lieutenant Baylor, then a captain, with the missing weapon and a note stating that Terrasas was glad to return it and to report that the thief had been punished.

While at Boracho we were joined by Lieutenant Shaffer, the Twenty-third United States Cavalry (negroes), Lieutenant Manney, Captain Parker and sixty-five Apache scouts. These latter were Geronimo's Chiricauhaus, who later quit their reservation and wrought such death and destruction in Arizona, New Mexico, and Old Mexico. From the first General Terrasas viewed these Indian allies with distrust, and as soon as we had scouted southeast from Boracho to Los Pinos Mountains, about seventy-five miles distant, and learned that Victorio's trail turned southwest toward Chihuahua, General Terrasas called Captain Parker, Lieutenants Baylor, Shaffer and Manney to his camp and informed them that, as the trail had taken a turn back into the state of Chihuahua and was leading them away from their homes, he thought it best for the Americans to return to the United States. I was present at this conference and I at once saw my chance for a scrap with old Victorio go glimmering. But there was nothing to do but obey orders, pack up and vamoose.

While on scouts after Victorio's band I met many United States officers, and often around the camp fire discussed this old chief. The soldiers all agreed that for an ignorant Indian Victorio displayed great military genius, and Major McGonnigal declared, with the single exception of Chief Crazy-horse of the Sioux, he considered Victorio the greatest Indian general that ever appeared on the American continent. In following this wily old Apache Napoleon I examined twenty-five or more of his camps. Victorio was very particular about locating them strategically, and his parapets were most skillfully arranged and built. If he remained only an hour in camp he had these defenses thrown up. He had fought in over two hundred engagements, but his last fight was now very close at hand.

The very next morning after the United States troops, the Apache scouts and the Texas rangers turned homeward General Terrasas' scouts reported to him that Victorio with his entire band of followers was camped at Tres Castilos, a small group of hills about twenty-five miles southwest of the Los Pinos Mountains. General Terrasas at once set his column in motion for that place. Captives afterward declared that Victorio's spies reported the presence of the Mexican cavalry early in the day and thereafter kept him informed hour by hour as to the movements of the approaching enemy.

Victorio had just sent his war chief, Nana, and fifty of his best young warriors away on a raid, so he had left in his camp just an even hundred braves, some of them very old men. He also had ninety-seven women and children and about five hundred head of horses and mules, yet the remarkable old Indian made no move to escape. By nightfall General Terrasas drew up near the Apache camp, surrounded the three hills as best he could and waited until morning before assaulting the enemy. During the night twelve of Victorio's warriors, with four women and four children, deserted the old chief and made their way back to the Eagle Mountains in Texas. Here they committed many depredations until exterminated three months later in the Diablo Mountains by Lieutenants Baylor and Nevill.

Early the following morning Victorio mounted a white horse and, in making some disposition of his braves to meet the expected onset of the enemy forces, exposed himself unnecessarily. The Mexicans fired on him at long range and two bullets pierced his body. He fell from his horse dead,--a good Indian at last.

The loss of Victorio and the absence of Nana demoralized the Apaches, and a vigorous assault by Terrasas and his army resulted in a complete victory for the Mexicans. Eighty-seven Indian warriors were killed, while eighty-nine squaws and their children were captured with a loss of only two men killed and a few wounded. This victory covered General Terrasas with glory. The Mexican Government never ceased to shower honors upon him and gave him many thousands of acres of land in the state of Chihuahua. The general was so elated over the outcome of the battle that he sent a courier on a fast horse to overtake Lieutenant Baylor and report the good news. The messenger caught us in camp near old Fort Quitman. Every ranger in the scout felt thoroughly disgusted and disappointed at missing the great fight by only two days after being with General Terrasas nearly a month.

The captured women and children were sent south of Mexico City into a climate perfectly unnatural to them. Here they all died in a few years. When Nana heard of the death of Victorio and the capture of the squaws and children he fled with his fifty warriors to the Sierra Madre Mountains in the State of Sonora, Mexico. There he joined forces with old Geronimo and massacred more people than any small band of Indians in the world. To avenge himself on Terrasas for killing his friends and carrying away their wives and children, Nana and his band killed more than two hundred Mexicans before joining Geronimo. Nana, with his new chief, surrendered to General Lawton in 1886 and, I believe, was carried away by our government to Florida, where he at last died.

On our return to camp at Ysleta a commission as captain was waiting Lieutenant Baylor, since Captain Neal Coldwell had been named quartermaster of the battalion, his company disbanded and its letter, "A," given to our company.

Though we missed the fight with Victorio it was not long before we were called upon to scout after the band of twelve warriors that had deserted the old chief on the night before the battle of Tres Castilos. However, we had first to clean up our company, for many undesirable recruits had seeped into it. This accomplished, we were ready to resume our Indian warfare.