"A thrilling and absorbing story." - Publishers Weekly, 1886
"No one can read this account of it without being stirred by the heroic elements involved on both sides." -The Book Buyer, 1886
Captain John G. Bourke served as an aide to General George Crook in the Apache Wars from 1872 to 1883. As Crook's aide, Bourke had the opportunity to witness every facet of life in the Old West—the battles, wildlife, the internal squabbling among the military, the Indian Agency, settlers, and Native Americans.
Bourke's 1886 book, "An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre," is a brisk bit of military narrative, giving yet another proof that American soldiers can use the pen as well as the sword.
In this volume Captain Bourke gives a full and graphic account of the expedition which General Crook led to the Sierra Madre in 1883. That arduous and successful campaign was one of the most adventurous and extraordinary in the whole history of Indian warfare. No one can read this account of it without being stirred by the heroic elements involved on both sides; nor can any one fail to receive from it a very clear and permanent impression of the resources and skill of the Apaches as fighters.
His object has been "to outline some of the difficulties attending the solution of the Indian question in the south-west, and to make known the methods employed in conducting campaigns against savages in hostility." This is the expedition from which for more than a month no word was received, and every disaster was predicted concerning it. Captain Crawford, who was later killed by the Mexicans while leading a similar expedition, was a member of it.
In describing a chilling Apache war dance he observed, Bourke writes:
"Not much time need be wasted upon a description of their dresses; they didn't wear any, except breech-clout and moccasins. To the music of an improvised drum and the accompaniment of marrow-freezing yells and shrieks they pirouetted and charged in all directions, swaying their bodies violently, dropping on one knee, then suddenly springing high in air, discharging their pieces, and all the time chanting a rude refrain, in which their own prowess was exalted and that of their enemies alluded to with contempt."
Captain Bourke's narrative is not only of historical importance, but is also a thrilling and absorbing story, and affords a glimpse of Indian life at close view---though it would have better if Captain Bourke could see more clearly the Apache side of the contest. We hear little from him of the shameful breaches of faith by men who better knew the meaning of an obligation, and which inevitably led to the Apache "outrages." Rightly viewed, the story is very painful, but it was worth the telling. These sketches will give anyone interested a good idea of the military operations in Arizona.
About the author:
John Gregory Bourke (1846 –1896) was a captain in the United States Army and a prolific diarist and postbellum author; he wrote several books about the American Old West, including ethnologies of its indigenous peoples.
Other works by the author include:
• The Snake-Dance of the Moquis of Arizona
• Mackenzie's Last Fight with the Cheyennes
• On the Border with Crook
• Medicine-Men of the Apache.
• The Laws of Spain in their Application to the American Indians.
• Folk-Foods of the Rio Grande Valley and of Northern Mexico
• Notes on the Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley
• The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke
