BASCOM AND COCHISE

★TRUE STORIES FROM ARIZONA'S FRONTIER PAST ✩

Stories of the Indian wars, courageous lawmen and the struggle to tame the Arizona frontier are among the most popular topics of Arizona Highways readers. But many of those readers are unaware that Arizona Highways recently has published a series of 11 books of such stories in its Wild West Collection. So here we offer excerpts from some of those books to give our readers a few good stories and to acquaint them with what else we have in print.

Bascom and Cochise DIPLOMACY DISHONORED

The Chiricahua Apache among his people, their intelligent, tall, with and projected a dignity that leader Cochise first absolute leader. Approximately well-chiseled features, he had could cow the toughest man. came to the attention of 50 years old at the time, three brass rings in each ear, But when crossed, as he was the U.S. military when an by Bascom, he became what Overland stage route and Indian-haters believed he was: station were established savage. through Apache Pass, between the Dos Cabezas and Chiricahua mountains. Cochise kept his people at peace-though relations were strained-and even supplied firewood to the station. But war erupted with exquisite fury in 1861. The episode that sparked it, known as the Bascom Affair, was a drama that could not be invented. Kentucky-born George N. Bascom graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1858, finishing an unspectacular 26th in a class of 27. He had been an Army lieutenant in Arizona for five months when he was ordered to Apache Pass to retrieve a kidnapped boy named Felix Ward. Not yet 25 years old, Bascom was supremely stubborn and, we can presume, derived much of what he believed about Apaches from his imagination. Cochise was a revered figure These two adversaries came together on February 4, 1861. The month before, Apaches had raided a ranch in the Sonoita Valley of what is now southeastern Arizona, driving off some cattle and stealing the 12-year-old stepson of ranch owner John Ward. The young boy-later to become known as Mickey Freegained fame in his own right as a scout for the U.S. Army [see following story]. Based on tracks, both Ward and Arizona's military leaders assumed the raiders were bound for Apache Pass. The pass was home to Cochise and his band, so they were presumed guilty. Bascom and 54 men of the 7th Infantry rode out of Fort Buchanan, south of Tucson near Patagonia, with orders to do what was proper to recover the stock and the boy, Felix Ward, and in the bargain "to pursue and chastise such marauding parties."

The soldiers arrived at the Overland stage station in Apache Pass on Sunday, February 3. After sending word to Cochise requesting a meeting, Bascom headed into Siphon Canyon, three-quarters of a mile away, to make camp.

Late the following day, Cochise arrived with his wife; his younger brother, Coyuntura; two of his children; and two or three warriors, possibly his nephews.

Historians believe his decision to bring family members indicates that he anticipated no trouble, having had nothing to do with the Ward raid.

Exactly what transpired inside Bascom's tent that day remains somewhat mysterious. The likeliest version, based on several accounts, is that Bascom served dinner to Cochise, his brother, and one of his nephews. Then after friendly talk, the lieutenant turned accuser, naming Cochise as the perpetrator of the raid.

The chief denied it. He said the boy had been taken by members of the Coyoteros band, who held him captive in the Black Mountains. Cochise then offered to try to bring Felix Ward in, if Bascom were willing to remain at the stage station for 10 days.

But that wouldn't do for the lieutenant, who firmly believed Cochise was responsible and had plotted all along to take the chief prisoner. As soon as Cochise had entered the tent, Bascom's soldiers surrounded it to prevent escape.

After Cochise's offer, the lieutenant announced that the chief and his people would be held hostage until the boy was returned. Enraged, Cochise drew his knife, slashed open the back of the tent and fled, with his brother and one warrior following.

In the account of an What happened to Coyuntura and the warrior is unclear. Oberly said Coyuntura was stopped by a bullet through the leg. Another memoirist reported that one of them was knocked to the ground with the butt of a carbine and the second bayoneted, but survived. This much is certain: neither one escaped.

Cochise fled through a phalanx of Army riflemen. An estimated 50 shots were fired as he raced over a hilltop, his coffee cup still in hand. Shortly thereafter, he reappeared and shouted down to Bascom, Owing to this encounter, but that portrayal wasn't quite true. Furthermore, he was highly critical of Bascom, saying that the lieutenant was "totally unfit to deal with the Apaches." He alone among memoirists implied that Bascom was a drunk, "well-supplied with commissary whiskey, which he used liberally."

Oberly concluded - correctly on this point-that Cochise and his party had done absolutely nothing wrong, and "came into camp on a friendly invitation from Bascom and without fear of molestation."

On the other hand, writing in 1887, B.J.D. Irwin, an assistant military surgeon who asking to see his brother, Coyuntura. Bascom answered with gunfire.

Cochise took additional prisoners that night, when his men waylaid a 12-man wagon train hauling flour through the pass to New Mexico.

At that, the chief raised his hand, swore revenge, and shouted, "Indian blood is as good as white man's blood!"

Then he left.

The conflicting versions of this incident, as with several that followed, usually break down according to whether the teller supports the officer's actions or finds them reprehensible. Even today, Bascom personifies whatever viewpoint a chronicler wishes to expound.

Oberly's recollections provide a case in point. Writing 25 years after the fact, he depicted Cochise as entirely friendly with Americans prior to concur that Cochise was not released, but escaped.

Looking back, Bascom had good reason to lie. He was embarrassed at losing the man he believed responsible for the Ward raid, thus touching off several days of spectacular violence.

Bascom moved his command back to the Overland stage station, perhaps thinking that its rock walls would help protect his soldiers in the fight he believed was coming. On the morning after he had fled from the tent, Cochise appeared on the hill south of the station, accompanied by a Coyotero chief named Francisco and about 500 warriors. They presented a white flag of truce and asked to talk with Lieutenant Bascom.

Four men from each party moved cautiously together, converging about 150 yards from the station. The meeting went nowhere. Cochise pleaded for the release of his family, and Bascom again insisted that Cochise return the Ward boy first.

Then the unexpected arrived at Apache Pass six days happened. Three civilian after the tent episode, Overland employees-James described Bascom and other Wallace, Charles Culver and a Americans as victims of the third man identified only as cowardly and wicked Walsh or Welch-believing Chiricahua chief. He said the their existing friendship with lieutenant announced that he Cochise might break the was keeping Cochise and his stalemate, moved forward people only as a last resort, among the Indians, ignoring "after every effort at peaceful Bascom's order to stay back.

Adding to the murkiness surrounding the incident, Edwin Sweeney, Cochise's biographer, claimed that Bascom lied in his official report to his superiors by saying he had consented to Cochise's proposition.

If he had, an escape obviously wouldn't have been necessary. Sweeney said that all six of the written recollections of the incident by Americans When warriors concealed in a ravine rushed forward to capture the three, shooting broke out. Culver knocked down two of his Indian captors and broke for the stage station, along with Welch. Culver reached the front door before taking a bullet in the back and collapsing, severely injured. At the station's stone corral, Welch popped his head above the rocks, whereupon a soldier on the other side, mistaking him

Bascom and Cochise

for an Apache, shot him through the head, killing him instantly. Wallace remained a captive.

One of the unarmed soldiers who accompanied Bascom, also unarmed, to the parlay was wounded in the turmoil, and according to Irwin, one bullet passed through Bascom's clothing and another through his hat.

Several Apaches probably were wounded as well, and a few were killed. That night, in the words of Sgt. Daniel Robinson, who told his version in the August 1896 issue of Sports Afield, the "weird war cries of the squaws were distinctly heard wailing over their dead."

At noon the following day, Cochise again tried to make an exchange. This time he appeared on a hill above the station dragging a hungry and freezing Wallace behind him, the captive's hands tied behind his back and a rope looped around his neck. The chief asked for his family back in exchange for Wallace and 16 government mules.

But Bascom's answer hadn't changed - he wanted the Ward boy returned.

Cochise took additional prisoners that night, when his men waylaid a 12-man wagon train hauling flour through the pass to New Mexico. The Chiricahuas considered nine of them worthy of execution on their nationality alone - they were Mexicans. The Indians tied the men by their wrists to the wagon wheels, tortured them and then set fire to the wagons.

Cochise kept the three Americans as trade bait. They were Sam Whitfield, William Sanders, said to be a half-breed Cherokee, and Frank Brunner, a German teamster.

Also that same night, February 6, Cochise returned to the hill overlooking the stage station and left a note for Bascom. It was written by Wallace in charcoal, according to William Sanders Oury, an Overland employee, and attached to a stake driven into the ground.

"Treat my people well and I will do the same by yours, of whom I have three." In truth, by then, it was four - Wallace, Whitfield, Sanders and Brunner.

Why Bascom didn't get Wallace's note remains a mystery. But for Cochise, the silence from the lieutenant was an answer to his offer, an unspoken death sentence for the four hostages.

Early the morning of February 7, the Apaches attempted to waylay another eastbound stage in the pass, apparently to secure more hostages. Although the Overland driver had his leg broken by a rifle bullet, theeffort failed and the coach reached the station about 2 A.M.

During this time, according to Oberly, Bascom became thoroughly unnerved, cowering behind the stone walls, afraid even to permit his parched soldiers to go for water at the spring nearby.

Finally, after Sergeant Robinson safely filled six canteens, Oberly said, "Bascom's craven fears were stilled and he ordered the mules taken to the water but they were attacked" as they returned by a party of naked Indians, painted and singing a war song.

"Like a flash the entire place was filled with Indians," said Oberly of the February 8 fight. "They seemed to spring from the earth."

"They were coming so openly and boldly that they no doubt expected to sweep all before them without muchtrouble," according to Robinson.

The sergeant was wounded in the shooting, a station employee killed, and the raiders made off with 56 mules. But the attack at the spring served only as a diversion.

The main raid, meant to overrun the station and free Cochise's relatives, was under way, probably led by Cochise himself. A young Geronimo, then 38, and Chief Mangas Coloradas and his band also were present. But this force was driven off, too, by heavy fire from behind the stone walls. With his failure to capture the station, Cochise gave up hope of retrieving his relatives and headed into Mexico. Bascom and his men, unaware of this, stayed put for six days, keenly awaiting the next Chiricahua raid.

In the meantime, in response to a dispatch sent by Bascom on February 7, two relief columns were en route to Apache Pass. One was the volunteer group of 14 men, led by assistant surgeon B.J.D. Irwin out of Fort Buchanan.

En route, as his party crossed a dry lake south of the present town of Willcox, they encountered a Coyotero chief and two warriors herding 30 stolen ponies and 40 head of cattle. Irwin wrote that "after a long and exciting chase and a running fight, extending over several miles," he captured the Indians and the stock.

He drove the animals ahead of his command to Apache Pass, where their arrival on February 10 was "hailed with shouts of joy, as it was feared that the expected relief party had been intercepted and wiped out."

Two companies of dragoons, led by Lieutenant Moore, arrived four days later from Fort Breckenridge (later named Camp Grant). With these reinforcements, scouting parties rode into the