About this item
Highlights
- The two pre-eminent warriors of the Apache Wars between 1878 and 1886, Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood of the Sixth United States Cavalry and Chiricahua leader Geronimo, respected one another in peace and feared one another in war.
- Author(s): Louis Kraft
- 304 Pages
- History, United States
Description
About the Book
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.Book Synopsis
The two pre-eminent warriors of the Apache Wars between 1878 and 1886, Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood of the Sixth United States Cavalry and Chiricahua leader Geronimo, respected one another in peace and feared one another in war. Within two years of his posting to Arizona in 1878, Gatewood became the armys premier "Apache man" as both a commander of Apache scouts and a reservation administrator, but his equitable treatment of Indians aroused the enmity of civilian and military detractors, and the army shunned him. In the late 1870s Geronimo, a medicine man, emerged as a brilliant Chiricahua leader and fiercely resisted his people's incarceration on inhospitable federal reservations. His fight for freedom, often bloody, in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico triggered the deployment of hundreds of United States and Mexican troops and Apache Scouts to hunt him and his people. In the end, the United States Army recalled Gatewood to Apache service, ordering him into the Sierra Madre of northern Mexico to locate Geronimo and negotiate his band's surrender. Showing the depravity and desperation of the Apache wars, Louis Kraft dramatically recreates Gatewood's final mission and poignantly recalls the United States government's betrayal of the Chiricahuas, Geronimo, and Gatewood at the campaign's end.
Review Quotes
. . . the author had done his research and has written an outstanding book. . . . Kraft has a knack for describing terrain and area geography which is so important to any reader interested in the Indian Wars. . . . This book was difficult to put down even though the end was known, . . . a 'must read' and is highly recommended.
. . . Geronimo and Gatewood emerge from these pages as men of courage and honor whose mutual respect brought a peaceful end to the last Apache war.
Thankfully, author Kraft has in large part admirable accomplished this task . . . Kraft has produced a valuable military biography that should interest a wide audience.
This recent addition to the parallel lives genre is a superbly-told tale of the vicious Apache wars of the 1880s in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico."
." . . Geronimo and Gatewood emerge from these pages as men of courage and honor whose mutual respect brought a peaceful end to the last Apache war."
