GERONIMO Essay -- essays research papers

More than 5,000 troops were under General Miles' command at that time, including elements of the 4th, 6th and 10th Cavalry. He gave the principal pursuit mission to the 4th because it was headquartered at Fort Huachuca, the base of operations for the campaign. The Army had permission to go to Mexico in pursuit. Captain Henry Lawton, commanding officer of "B" Troop, 4th Cavalry, was an experienced soldier who knew the ways of the Apaches. His tactics were to wear them down by constant pursuit. Stationed at the fort at that time were many men who would later become well known in the Army: Colonel W. B. Royall, commanding officer of the fort and the 4th Cavalry, who was responsible for the logistical support of the Geronimo campaign; Leonard Wood, who went along on the expedition as contract surgeon; Lieutenant Colonel G. H. Forsyht; Captain C.A.P. Hatfield; Captain J.H. Dorst; and First Lieutenant Powhatan H. Clarke, who was immortalized by the artist, Remington, for saving a black trooper during the campaign. With the fort as advance base for the pursuit forces, the heliograph communications network, which General Miles had established in Arizona and New Mexico, was used effectively for logistical purposes. However, the Indians and the Army were conducting their chase in Mexico where the system did not extend. So the most the heliograph could do in the campaign was relay messages brought by fast riders from the border. April 1, 1886 was the date that Captain Lawton led his troopers with two pack trains and 30 Indian Scouts through the Huachuca Mountains to Nogales, Mexico, to pick up Geronimo's trail. Though various units would join the pursuit later and separate to follow trails left by the Indians back and forth across the border, there were few times that Army troops and members of Geronimo's band would come face to face. Four Months later, Captain Lawton and Leonard Wood were sent back to Fort Huachcua, worn down by the rough country and grueling campaign. More than 3,000 miles were covered by the Indians and the Army during the chase, which took a month longer than General Miles had planned. The men had walked and ridden through some of the most inaccessible desert land in North America, in heat sometimes above 110 degrees. After Geronimo's surrender, "B" Troop of the 4th Cavalry was given the mission of escorting the Apache's to Flo... ...were killed by Mexicans in 1858, he participated in a number of raids against Mexican and American settlers, but eventually settled on a reservation. In 1876 the U.S. government attempted to move the Chiricahua from their traditional home to San Carlos, New Mexico; Geronimo then began ten years of intermittent raids against white settlements, alternating with periods of peaceful farming on the San Carlos reservation. In March 1886, the American general George Crook captured Geronimo and forced a treaty under which the Chiricahua would be relocated in Florida; two days later Geronimo escaped and continued his raids. General Nelson Miles then took over the pursuit of Geronimo, who was chased into Mexico and captured the following September. The Native Americans were sent to Florida, Alabama, and finally to Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory, where they settled as farmers. Geronimo eventually adopted Christianity. He took part in the inaugural procession of President Theodore Roosevelt i n 1905. Geronimo dictated his memoirs, published in 1906 as Geronimo's Story of His Life. He died at Fort Sill on February 17, 1909.