Page 188 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

absconded with approximately 500 animals 47 Early the following year, they became even bolder.
The area near Cooke’s Spring had never sustained more than small brush in the way of available firewood for the many travelers who camped there. Therefore, to supply the many fireplaces for quarters and kitchen, a temporary camp was estab- lished at Oak Grove near a stand of timber about four and one-half miles northwest of the fort. In mid-January 1866, the wood camp was manned by a corporal and six privates of Company G First Veteran Infantry California Volunteers.
On January 17, the Apaches struck the camp and wiped out nearly everyone. Corporal Weber had left the camp the evening previously to procure supplies at the fort. At half-past eight the next morning, between 40 and 50 Apaches struck while the soldiers were having breakfast. Privates Mathews and Goldsberry grabbed their weapons and made it to a sheltered spot. Possibly as a result of being wounded in the thigh by an arrow, Goldsberry lost his ammunition pouch and had to share Mathews’. The Apaches killed the other four Privates (Thomas Ronan, L. S. Hunter, Charles Devine, and Thomas Daly) but Mathews and Goldsberry were too well
protected for an attack on their position. After the
Indians destroyed the camp, including the post’s
best sharpening stone, and left, the two survivors Canyon.
made their way toward the fort and met Corporal Weber who was returning with the supply wagon.
The three men returned to Fort Cummings and informed the temporary commander, Lieutenant John D. Slocum, of the tragedy. Captain Burkett had left on another scouting mission for Indians with most of the men, and Slocum had only 12 infantry and 5 cavalry present with only 3 of the latter having mounts. When the relief party reached the scene, all they could do was pick up the bodies of their mur- dered comrades and return them to be buried in a
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common grave on Cemetery Ridge.
Apache depredations had disrupted spiritual com-
munity plans in the Southwest as well as the secular. Shortly after the attack on the wood-cutting party, some of the men at Fort Cummings escorted three priests and a teacher to Fort Bowie on their way to Tucson. Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy had withdrawn two Jesuit priests from Tucson in 1864. When he first attempted to replace them the Apache threat was so great that he had to delay his effort until later. In January 1866, he made arrangements with
Since there was no report of an engage- ment of troops, and the killing took place on the road to Mesilla, the soldier was probably an express rider stationed at the Fort Cummings sub-post at Camp Mimbres. On August 25, the Indians followed with an attack on two riders about eight miles west of Fort Cummings. Private Charles Williams was killed in- stantly by a lance, and Private John M. Kelley,
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though wounded, managed to escape.
The Indians continued to prowl the fort vicinity and
create problems. On September 10, several
Apaches attempted to stampede the stock herd at
the fort and a sergeant and 10 men on patrol near
Oak Grove chased, but failed to catch, another small
. 55 party.
The Apaches were not the only problem for Cap- tain R. B. Foutts, One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Volunteer Colored Infantry, the new Fort Cum- mings commander. Bureaucratic procedures demanded that he spend part of Christmas Day justifying his sending an escort with a civilian party to the Florida Mountains. The party had been led by James H. Whitlock, a former captain in the
Fort Cummings: A Guardian of the Road
General Carleton to have an escort accompany Fathers John Baptiste Salpointe, Peter Boucard, and Patrick Bermingham and a Mr. Vincent to Fort Bowie. They traveled through Fort Cummings on the wav and at Fort Bowie received another escort
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from there to Tucson.
The increased Apache threat from the mountains
prompted the construction of a new permanent post. On July 26, 1866, Major General John Pope ordered Fort Bayard set up near Pinos Altos. On August 21, Company B of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry, under the command of Lieutenant James M. Kerr, established
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Fort Bayard (Figure 44) .
At approximately the same time, the War Depart-
ment inaugurated six Black regiments in the regular United States Army, the Thirty-Eighth through the Forty-First Infantries and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalries, adding to the still existing Black volunteer regiments such as the One Hundred Twenty-Fourth
and One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Infantries.
2
All of the commissioned officers for these units, however,
were White.
The Fort Cummings garrison continued to suffer
attrition at the hands of the Apaches. On May 26,
Private Barnett, Company C First California
Veteran Cavalry, was killed about 25 miles east of
the post on the old stage road near Magdelena
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