Battle of Cooke's Canyon

Battle of Cooke's Canyon
Part of the American Civil War Apache Wars
File:WagonTrn.jpg Wagon train re-enactment, 1912.
Date Mid August, 1861 Location Cooke's Canyon, Confederate Arizona Modern Day: Luna County, New Mexico Result American victory
Belligerents
Confederate States	Apache
Commanders
N/A	Mangas Coloradas Cochise
Strength
24 militia	~100 warriors
Casualties and losses
4 killed, 8 wounded	unknown

The Battle of Cooke's Canyon was an engagement of the Apache Wars, between settlers from Confederate Arizona, and Chiricahua Apaches. The battle occurred about forty miles northwest of Mesilla, in Cooke's Canyon. The exact date of the battle is unknown.

Background

In early August, a group of Arizonan refugees, from the Tubac area, abandoned their village due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Fort Buchanan and the Siege of Tubac which left their homes burned. The bunch was known as the Ake Party, their destination was the Rio Grande River near Mesilla.

The wagon train consisted of six double wagons, two buggies, and one single wagon when it reached Tucson from the surrounding region. At Tucson, several other people joined the procession, which including Moses Carson, the half-brother of the famous scout and soldier, Kit Carson.

The party, now composed of twenty-four men, sixteen women, seven children, along with 400 heads of cattle and 900 heads of sheep, as well as horses and goats. The settlers, who were mostly miners and ranchers, left Tucson on or about August 15, 1861.

The large number of livestock would present an irresistible temptation to the Chiricahua Apache warriors under Cochise and Mangas Coloradas. The journey was uneventful until the party crossed the Mimbres River and made for the springs at Cooke's Canyon within Traditional Arizona and the present day New Mexico.

Battle

It is not known for sure whether or not Cochise and Mangas Coloradas were leading the Apache army. Most likely they were, being that they were the commanders of the combined Apache force which operated primarily in the present day southwestern New Mexico where Cooke's Canyon is. When the last wagon had entered the canyon, the Apaches, estimated to number about 100, sprang their ambush by attacking and scattering the large group of livestock.

They then charged the wagons, and were stopped from getting into the wagons after a series of mounted counter charges by several men of the party. The wagons were maneauvered into a circle, and the settlers withstood a siege that lasted the remainder of the day. Eventually the Apaches took to the surrounding slopes, firing both arrows and bullets at long range.

The settlers responded as best they could from their wagon positions, killing several of the attackers which came in towards them on horseback and on foot. Finally, toward the end of the day the Apaches reatreated, taking their plunder of 400 cattle and 900 sheep with them. The settlers withdrew to the Mimbres. They had suffered a loss of four men killed and eight wounded.

The last wagon in the party, carrying most of the women and children, had turned about after the first shots were fired and fled back toward the Mimbres River. Unmolested by the Apaches, this wagon reached the settlement on the Mimbres safely and sent a plea for help to Pinos Altos, where the Arizona Guards were stationed. The Confederate troops responded to the report which led to the Battle of the Florida Mountains, two days later.

Notes

During the summer of 1861, the Apache warriors of Mangas Coloradas and Cochise massacred several other groups of settlers at Cooke's Canyon. Apache warriors killed and mutilated a party of seven near the east end of the canyon. Near the same location, they massacred and mutilated nine Mexican herdsmen and stole their forty heads of cattle. Three whites of the same party were taken prisoner, tortured and killed later on. Fourteen American settlers were mudered on either July 25 or 26, 1861 and discovered by the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, soon after.

Again, near that same location they attempted to destroy the Ake Party. Over the months, Apache warriors left what one chronicler called "many bones, skulls, & graves" in Cooke’s Canyon. Eventually, the Apaches killed as many as 100 Americans and Mexicans in Cooke’s Canyon, making it the most feared passage on the trail from Mesilla to Tucson. According to historian Dan Thrapp, 150 whites were killed within sixty days during this period.

See also

• American Indian Wars
• Cooke's Canyon is located at: 32.45778°N 107.66782°W / 32.45778; -107.66782

References

• Cochise, Ciyé "The First Hundred Years of Nino Cochise" New York: Pyramid Books 1972
• Kaywaykla, James (edited Eve Ball) "In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache" Tucson: University of Arizona Press 1970
• Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1987.
• Thrapp, Dan L. (1979). The Conquest of Apacheria. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806112867.