As a first Lieutenant of cavalry, Wharfield was sent in 1918 to Fort Apache, Arizona, one of the old frontier posts from which cavalry units had gone out in pursuit of restless Apache warriors. He assumed command of a troop of the 10th Cavalry, the famous African-American regiment long active on the Southwestern frontier, and a detachment of Apache Scouts.

Here is the oral history of the Apache warrior Chevato, who captured eleven-year-old Herman Lehmann from his Texas homestead in May 1870. Lehmann called him ?Bill Chiwat? and referred to him as both his captor and his friend. Chevato provides a Native American point of view on both the Apache and Comanche capture of children and specifics regarding the captivity of Lehmann known only to the Apache participants. Yet the capture of Lehmann was only one episode in Chevato?s life. ø Born in Mexico, Chevato was a Lipan Apache whose parents had been killed in a massacre by Mexican troops. He and his siblings fled across the Rio Grande and were taken in by the Mescalero Apaches of New Mexico. Chevato became a shaman and was responsible for introducing the Lipan form of the peyote ritual to both the Mescalero Apaches and later to the Comanches and the Kiowas. He went on to become one of the founders of the Native American Church in Oklahoma. ø The story of Chevato reveals important details regarding Lipan Apache shamanism and the origin and spread of the type of peyote rituals practiced today in the Native American community. This book also provides a rare glimpse into Lipan and Mescalero Apache life in the late nineteenth century, when the Lipans faced annihilation and the Mescaleros faced the reservation.

Discusses troops arresting a Cibecue Apache medicine man in 1881 who were attacked by his followers

In the 1970s, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the Arizona Historical Society began working together on a series of innovative projects aimed at preserving, perpetuating, and sharing Apache history. Underneath it all was a group of people dedicated to this important goal. Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is the latest outcome of that ongoing commitment. The book showcases and annotates dispatches published between June 1973 and October 1977, in the tribe’s Fort Apache Scout newspaper. This twenty-eight-part series of articles shared Western Apache culture and history through 1881 and the Battle of Cibecue, emphasizing early encounters with Spanish, Mexican, and American outsiders. Along the way, rich descriptions of Ndee ties to the land, subsistance, leadership, and values emerge. The articles were the result of the dogged work of journalist, librarian, and historian Lori Davisson along with Edgar Perry, a charismatic leader of White Mountain Apache culture and history programs, and his staff who prepared these summaries of historical information for the local readership of the Scout. Davisson helped to pioneer a mutually beneficial partnership with the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Pursuing the same goal, Welch’s edited book of the dispatches stakes out common ground for understanding the earliest relations between the groups contesting Southwest lands, powerfully illustrating how, as elder Cline Griggs, Sr., writes in the prologue, “the past is present.” Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is both a tribute to and continuation of Davisson’s and her colleagues’ work to share the broad outlines and unique details of the early history of Ndee and Ndee lands.

General George Crook planned and organized the principal Apache campaign in Arizona, and General Nelson Miles took credit for its successful conclusion on the 1800s, but the men who really won it were rugged frontiersmen such as Al Sieber, the renowned Chief of Scouts. Crook relied on Sieber to lead Apache scouts against renegade Apaches, who were adept at hiding and raiding from within their native terrain. In this carefully researched biography, Dan L. Thrapp gives extensive evidence for Sieber’s expertise, noting that the expeditions he accompanied were highly successful whereas those from which he was absent met with few triumphs. Perhaps the greatest tribute to his abilities was paid by a San Carlos Apache who, no matter how miserable life might become, because, he said, Sieber would find him even if he left no tracks.

"Realizing that he had more experience dealing with Native peoples than other lieutenants serving on the frontier, Gatewood decided to record his experiences. Although he died before he completed his project, the work he left behind remains an important firsthand account of his life as a commander of Apache scouts and as a military commandant of the White Mountain Indian Reservation. Louis Kraft presents Gatewood's previously unpublished account, punctuating it with an introduction, additional text that fills in the gaps in Gatewood's narrative, detailed notes, and an epilogue."--BOOK JACKET.

Parallels the lives of Gatewood and Geronimo as events drive them toward their historic meeting in Mexico in 1886--a meeting that marked the beginning of the end of the last Apache war.