Lieutenant Bascom gets his due...

As per Grosvenor Pollard via Elizabeth B. Pollard [1.22.96]:

It may interest you to know that in December, 1860, gold miners at Pinos Altos, NM found the butchered carcass of a missing mule and assumed that local Gila Apache were responsible. They attacked those gathered at the agency at Fort Webster, on the Mimbres River, on ration day and killed 7. A month later, Mangas Coloradas led his warriors in retaliatory raids on American settlers in the area. The outbreak of the Civil War caused the War Department in March, 1861 to withdraw almost all troops in southern NM and AZ for combat duty in the East. Confederate forces under General Henry Selby took advantage to invade and, with support of some settlers, declared the portions of the territories of NM and AZ below the 34th parallel The Confederate Territory of Arizona, with its capital at Mesilla, NM.
Five months later, Union forces under General Henry Canby defeated the Confederates in a battle in Valencia County, NM. Bascom was killed in the battle by a cannonball from the Southern side. When my wife and I attended the Girls Puberty Ceremony at Mescalero in 1988, I told a group of Chiricahua about this. One of the men went immediately to inform the Chiricahua manning the PA system. The latter man cheered over the system, then apologized to the medicine men for this outburst on the ceremonial grounds -- " ... but I just couldn't help myself." He then informed all within earshot of the reason for his elation, and there were cheers from the camps beyond the ceremonial grounds. One Chiricahua said he had never thought he could thank the C.S.A. [Confederate States of America] for anything, but the deaths of Cochise's brother and nephews had been avenged by the boys in gray.

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