Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/135

 fair, possibly more than a fair, share of the reckless, the idle and the dissolute. On the other hand, among the savages, there have been as many young bloods anxious to win renown in battle as there have been old wise-heads desirous of preserving the best feeling with the new neighbors. The worst members of the two races are brought into contact, and the usual results follow; trouble springs up, and it is not the bad who suffer, but the peaceably disposed on each side.

On the 5th day of May, 1871, Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing, Third Cavalry, with several civilians and three soldiers, was killed by the Chiricahua Apaches, under their famous chief "Cocheis," at the Bear Springs, in the Whetstone Mountains, about thirty-five miles from Tucson and about the same distance to the east of old Camp Crittenden. Cushing's whole force numbered twenty-two men, the larger part of whom were led into an ambuscade in the cañon containing the spring. The fight was a desperate one, and fought with courage and great skill on both sides. Our forces were surrounded before a shot had been fired; and it was while Cushing was endeavoring to lead his men back that he received the wounds which killed him. Had it not been for the courage and good judgment displayed by Sergeant John Mott, who had seen a great amount of service against the Apaches, not one of the command would have escaped alive out of the cañon.

Mott was in command of the rear-guard, and, in coming up to the assistance of Lieutenant Cushing, detected the Apaches moving behind a low range of hills to gain Cushing's rear. He sent word ahead, and that induced Lieutenant Cushing to fall back.

After Cushing dropped, the Apaches made a determined charge and came upon our men hand to hand. The little detachment could save only those horses and mules which were ridden at the moment the enemy made the attack, because the men who had dismounted to fight on foot were unable to remount, such was the impetuosity of the rush made by the Chiricahuas. There were enough animals to "ride and tie," and Mott, by keeping up on the backbone of the hills running along the Barbacomori Valley, was enabled to reach Camp Crittenden without being surrounded or ambuscaded.

Inside of forty-eight hours there were three troops of cavalry en route to Crittenden, and in pursuit of the Apaches, but no