Long before the famed Code Talkers, American Indians from today’s Arizona and New Mexico played important roles in the U.S. military. As early as the 1850s, some Navajos were paid for various temporary duties.
It soon became evident to certain officers on the frontier that conventional tactics from the recently ended Civil War were insufficient when it came to the guerilla warfare the Army faced when fighting the Western tribes. The enlistment of Indians as scouts was one solution to this challenge. For this reason, when federal legislators passed a reorganization bill for the Army, a special provision was included and set into motion by General Orders No. 56, Office of the Adjutant General, August 1, 1866.
For nearly three decades, Indian scout enlistments ranged from three months to six or 12 months. Some men signed up time after time. Some spent as much as 30 or more years of total service; in some instances more than one generation enlisted.
George Crook was one of the greatest proponents of deploying Indian scouts. When he had assumed command in the Department of Arizona, this astute officer first employed Mexican or Mexican-American scouts. Crook changed his approach, encouraging groups now referred to as Hualpais, Maricopas, Pimas, Navajos, Yavapais, Coyoteros and White Mountain Apaches to join and be led by Army officers and civilians under the designation of “chief of scouts” who could serve as trackers and interpreters.
Ultimately Crook came to rely most heavily on the people we now refer to as Apaches. He believed: “To polish a diamond there is nothing like its own dust.”
In other words: It took an Apache to track and bring an Apache to bay.
This is not to say that Crook and others recruited only among the various Apache bands. As indicated, he also sought out Yavapais as scouts, including one of the most interesting members of this group named Hoomothya by his people, but known as Mike Burns by the whites. Moreover, Navajos remained a fixture of life at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, until being disbanded in 1895.
The worth of the scouts was recognized in military reports and by the fact that a number of them received the Medal of Honor (see p. 33). Another acknowledgment of their worth came on August 11, 1890, when a U.S. Army directive called for standardization in the outfitting of scouts as this pronouncement seldom, if ever, was followed to the letter.
By the time the last four scouts retired at a formal ceremony held at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in 1947, photographs indicate that the men finally had adopted regulation uniforms. That event also marked the end of an era when scouts proudly donned the uniform of their nation.
What prompted these men and many of their predecessors to take up arms against other Indians and sometimes against their own people? Motives varied and often were complex, but Professor Victoria Smith of the University of Nebraska in Lincoln provided one powerful answer to the complex question. She succinctly concluded: “I do believe that these Apaches saw the institution of scouting as simply an extension of their apprenticeship for warfare. Apaches considered any warrior work honorable. It only matters that you are a man and that you are fighting for what you believe in.”
Regardless of their motives, the Indian scouts helped transform Arizona and New Mexico from territories into states in 1912.
John Langellier received his PhD in history from Kansas State University. He is the author of dozens of publications focusing on military subjects, and he has also served as a motion pictures and TV consultant.
Photo Gallery
A scout under Al Sieber, Tom Horn described Mexican-American Felix Tellez as speaking “both Mexican and Apache like a professor.” After captivity and years of being reared by Apaches, Tellez came to be known as Mickey Free. Horn said Free “was the wildest daredevil in the world…. He had long, fiery red hair, and one blue eye.” The author believes Free is posing with this group of Apache scouts in this picture (kneeling front row, center), while some historians feel the cheekbones of that scout just don’t match Free’s.
– Courtesy National Archives –
Al Sieber “Chief of Scouts” surrounded by some of his intrepid Apaches.
– Courtesy National Archives –
As Capt. John Bourke, 3rd U.S. Cavalry, underscored: “General Crook…has fought and whipped Pi-Utes with Pi-Utes, Snakes with Snakes, Apaches with Apaches, Cheyennes with Cheyennes and Sioux with Sioux.” Other military commanders also enlisted men from many tribes, such as these Cheyennes at Fort Reno, Indian Territory. These Company A scouts appear in the same regulation uniforms as their counterparts in the cavalry, including the rather incongruous cork summer helmet.
– Courtesy US Army Military History Institute –
Captain Emmett Crawford’s Apache scouts who followed him deep into Mexico in pursuit of Geronimo. Yet distrust of the Apaches was so deeply rooted in the Mexican troops that volunteers from Chihuahua attacked Crawford and his men in November 1885, resulting in Crawford’s death.
– Courtesy National Archives –
In the late 1870s, Company D, consisting of Apaches, replaced earlier Yavapai scouts at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. This move was in keeping with the effort by Army officers, such as Gen. Crook, to rely heavily on men from the various bands of the same people who they pursued.
– Courtesy Fort Huachuca Museum –
Cut-Mouth Moses (seated in the center) was first sergeant of Apache Company A when this photograph was taken in the early 1880s. During the ill-fated Cibecue affair in 1881, he remained loyal when others in his unit mutinied.
– Courtesy National Archives –
Friend or foe? Except for the eventual issue of red bandanas or head scarves by the Army, it proved difficult to distinguish scouts from their fellow Apaches as evidenced by this image, which could depict either side.
– Courtesy National Archives –
First Sergeant Cut-Mouth Moses (seated), who evidently has borrowed the Medal of Honor he is wearing from fellow scout Sgt. Rowdy. The latter man received this recognition for his action in pursuit of the Apache Kid and his band in 1890. Shown in inset is a close-up of a first pattern (1862-96) Medal of Honor.
– Photo: courtesy U.S. Army Military History Institute; Medal of Honor: courtesy John Langellier –
In 1885, ten years after Alchesay received his medal of honor for fighting ferociously under George Crook during the 1872-73 Tonto Basin campaigns, Crook’s trusted scout stands (at right) with another Apache scout, Dutchy (at left), flanking Crook. The brigadier general wears his trademark summer helmet and is astride one of his favorite mules, which he named Apache. Crook was a major proponent of the use of Indian scouts from the experience he garnered in the Pacific Northwest at the end of the Civil War.
– Courtesy Robert G. McCubbin Collection –
As late as 1918, young 1st Lt. Harold B. Warfield of the 10th U.S. Cavalry described how two scouts stationed with him at Fort Apache, Arizona, retained a mixture of regulation and non-regulation elements. “On the front of their campaign hats were the emblems ‘U.S.S.’ for the words United States Scouts,” he said. Chow Big also embellished his outfit with “elastic arm bands” that he took from “one of [Pancho] Villa’s captured soldiers and wore them as a mark of an Indian coup.”
– Courtesy U.S. Army Military History Institute –
Bakeitzogie (Yellow Coyote) was known to the whites by a number of names, including Dutchy. Except for the Army-issued cartridge belt and Springfield carbine he holds in this picture, he looks barely distinguishable from the Apaches he pursued as a scout. Dutchy’s son and grandson would follow in his footsteps and enlist as scouts as well.
– Courtesy National Archives –
Esh-kin-tasy-gizah was another Apache who found scouting a better alternative than reservation life.
– Courtesy Glen Swanson –
George Little Bear, an Arapaho, served at Fort Reno as Company A’s trumpeter, indicative of the increasing late 19th-century efforts to train Indians along the lines of Regular Army soldiers.
– Courtesy National Archives –
Tzoe, like many other scouts, received a nickname from the whites, in this case Peaches, because of his fair, smooth completion. He turned from raiding to ride as a scout dedicated to helping bring about a resolution to conflict between Indians and whites.
– Courtesy National Archives –
Most Indian scouts in the Arizona Territory served faithfully, such as Slim Jim (at left), although a few mutinied or went astray, such as Eke-be-nadel (center), later known as the Apache Kid. Here, the scouts pose with another scout near their wickiups at Bisbee Canyon in this C.S. Fly photograph from 1885.
– Courtesy Fort Huachuca Museum –
The 1866 congressional legislation authorizing Indian scout enlistment set the pay at 40¢ a day if they used their own mounts and horse equipage. The Army would provide the scouts with government firearms, rations and other issue items, as well as the “pay and allowances of cavalry soldiers….” Here, a young Navajo scout, surrounded by 6th U.S. Cavalry troopers, is earning his pay and enjoying a hunting outing, both bonuses for his services.
– Courtesy Christian Barthelmess Family –
On November 12, 1898, Company A’s Apache scouts gathered after a Sunday morning inspection at Camp Grant, Arizona Territory.
– Courtesy U.S. Army Military History Institute –
Originally, scouts appeared in a patchwork of native garb and assorted military issue. In 1890, a specially designed uniform included a dome-crowned black fur-felt hat set off by a red and white intermixed wool hat cord and a special insignia of crossed arrows with the letters “USS” for US Scouts (inset).
– Hat: courtesy Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution / USS insignia: courtesy Mark Denning –
BATTLE ATTIRE Although Crook would rely most heavily on Apache scouts from the Arizona and New Mexico Territories, he also recruited among other native bands. The Navajos had been employed by the U.S. Army as interpreters, guides and scouts as far back as the antebellum era. Regardless of the tribe, the scouts widely ranged in their choice of apparel. Nothing shows the contrast better than the Navajo scout (on left), dressed for battle in his native apparel, and Yavapai scout Homoothya (on right), who enlisted under the name Mike Burns and is shown proudly wearing his uniform, years after his honorable discharge in 1886.
– Navajo: Courtesy B. William Henry; Yavapai: Courtesy Arizona Historical Society –
Taken near the end of the Victorian era, this extraordinary photograph captures the appearance of the scout detachment at Fort Apache. They have been issued the special doomed black hat, red and white hat cords and crossed arrow insignia unique to scouts. These men also carry .30-40 caliber Krag carbines, a magazine weapon they began to be issued to mounted troops in the mid-1890s.
– Courtesy Nohwike’ Bágowa, the White Mountain Apache Cultural Center and Museum –
The White Mountain Apache Cushets, nicknamed Tom, was tried with a number of other fellow scouts for his role in the Cibecue mutiny. He and about 22 other Apache scouts had battled the Army when the troops arrested medicine man Nook-ay-det-klinne in August 1881 for hosting ghost dances in the village of Cibecue.
– Courtesy National Archives –
(From left) White Mountain scouts Das Luca, Skro-Kit and Shus-El-Day pose in their finery that would be put aside for more basic outfits during the campaign.
– Courtesy Arizona State Museum –
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Long before the famed Code Talkers, American Indians from today’s Arizona and New Mexico played important roles in the U.S. military. As early as the 1850s, some Navajos were paid for various temporary duties.
