[1] Indigenous peoples and westward migrants alike depended on the spring. It is approximately 20 miles (32 km) east-southeast of Willcox, Arizona, in Cochise County. The affront sparked a war between Cochise and the Americans that included the Battle of Apache Pass in 1862, and which only ended eleven years later with a treaty facilitated by General Oliver O. Howard and a white teamster and friend of Cochise's named Tom Jeffords. This event is now known as the Bascom Affair. The Apaches had thrown up defenses, which consisted of several breastworks made of stone. On August 4 the first units of the California Column reached Mesilla, New Mexico, along the Rio Grande. [8], After the Battle of Apache Pass in July 1862, a United States military post, Fort Bowie, was built to protect the pass and the spring. It subsequently fell to a party of Forty-Niners led by John Coffee Hays to pioneer a shorter route between Mesilla and Tucson, called the Tucson Cutoff, that took advantage of the pass. The route of the stage trail can still be seen, as well as the sites near the top of the pass where Lt. Bascom executed his Apache hostages and Cochise's followers burned his. 3203 South Old Fort Bowie Road The Fort Bowie National Historic Site is operated by the National Park Service. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. [7], The construction of the stage station and the increasing use of the pass by white settlers set the stage for an incident often considered the starting point of Cochise's eleven-year war against the United States, and which was a formative element in the much longer struggle between Apache peoples and American settlers even after Cochise made his own peace. As we carried the hill a cheer came up from down below, as our comrades dashed to the spring with camp kettles and canteens. Behind almost every mesquite tree and boulder hid an Apache with his rifle, six-shooter and knife. There were often hundreds of Chiricahuas living nearby. The Apache riflemen behind the breastworks on the hills were delivering a deadly fire against the attackers. Their effectiveness was limited by the fact that they were 300–400 feet below the Apache defenses. The next morning the Apaches returned, but they fled once the artillery opened fire on them.[4]. The Californians attacked again and finally reached the water, after dispersing the Apache from rock fortifications commanding both flanks of the spring. The few remaining building walls in the area have been "stabilized" for preservation purposes, but will not be restored. From the Fort Bowie parade grounds, in September 1886, Geronimo and his people started on their journey to Florida and imprisonment. ©Kathy Weiser-Alexander, updated September 2019. Today the battlefield and fort are preserved in Fort Bowie National Historic Site. [5] Later in 1858, two new stations were built between these older stations, so that Apache Pass Station was located 19 miles west of San Simon Station on the San Simon River and 15 miles from Ewell Station, which shortened the route between Apache Pass and Dragoon Springs, and provided water on both sections. John C. Cremony and 21 wagons plus 242 mules and horses. [2] A little higher than the surrounding desert terrain, the pass was cooler on hot days, and the area around the spring provided abundant game and firewood. The Battle of Apache Pass was fought in 1862 at Apache Pass, Arizona, in the United States, between Apache warriors and the Union volunteers of the California Column as it marched from California to capture Confederate Arizona and to reinforce New Mexico's Union army. In 1846, Philip St. George Cooke, leading the Mormon Battalion that was surveying and constructing what became Cooke's Wagon Road, bypassed the area, despite Cooke's awareness of its existence from his guides, because details of the route through the pass, including its extent and the availability of other nearby water sources, were unknown, in contrast to the longer route to the south that was eventually chosen.
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