Battle of Cookes Canyon: Difference between revisions

Battle of Cook Canyon
Part of the American Civil War Apache Wars
Wagon train re-enactment, 1912.
Date Late August, 1861 Location Cook Canyon, Confederate Arizona Modern Day: Cook Canyon, New Mexico Result American victory
Belligerents
Confederate States	Apache
Commanders and leaders
N/A	Magnas Coloradas
Strength
24 militia, 23 civilians	100+ warriors
Casualties and losses
4 killed, 5 wounded	unknown

The Battle of Cook Canyon was an engagement of the Apache Wars, between settlers from Confederate Arizona, and Chiricahua Apaches. The battle occurred about fourty miles northwest of Mesilla, in Cook Canyon.

In early August, a group of Americans, mainly miners and ranchers from the Tucson and Tubac area who abandoned their homes due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Fort Buchanan and the rapidly escalating Apache War. The group was known as the Ake Party, their destination was the Rio Grande River near Mesilla. The group 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, aswell 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 Cook Canyon in present day New Mexico.

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 live stock. 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 Apaches. 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, five wounded. The last wagon in the party, carrying most of the women and children, had turned about after the first volley and fled back toward the Mimbres River. Unmolested by the Apaches, this wagon reached the settlement on the Mimbres safley 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 the following day.

• American Indian Wars

• 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.