By Andrew Wallace 

(Last Sunday, in Part 1, the author discussed the early military background of Gen. Kautz and his appointment as the commanding officer of the military department of Arizona in 1875.)

Though not the complete failure in command of Arizona as some writers have implied, Gen. August Kautz took charge of a military department beset by more insoluble problems than most.  The fiercest Apache warriors had taken refuge in Mexico whence they could raid at pleasure and where U.S. forces could not touch them without permission of the Mexican government.  Half the department was some of the most severe hotdesert in the world, including the Mojave in California, part of the command.  With no railroads in Arizona until 1883, all troops and supplies had to move on foot or with animal transport—Colorado River steamers being the only exception.  Kautz took over in 1875 in the shadow of Gen. George Crook’s success.  Any failure would draw an odious comparison.

Despite growing depredations from Mexico into southern Arizona and a shortage of experienced junior officers, Kautz never personally took the field against hostile Indians, leaving the job ironically to the 6th Cavalry wherein he had been a new captain in 1860.  Perhaps he envied the young gentlemen who gamely intercepted raiding savages in the mountains near the new Fort Huachuca.  His concerns were of a different order; he believed that incompetent or crooked Indian agents and reservation traders were responsible for most troubles in southern Arizona, a place he seldom visited. 

Soldiers in Arizona generally disliked civil agents of the Indian Bureau and young John P. Clum was especially abrasive.  Kautz thought him a bustling upstart and withdrew the troops who guarded the San Carlos reservation when Clum moved most of his Indian charges to Fort Apache. To the consternation of Arizona stockmen, he also refused to allow his troops to pursue Chiricahua Apaches who were after Yankee beef and mules along the Mexican border.  He claimed they were either Clum’s  responsibility (some had previously been interned at San Carlos) or that Mexican smugglers and bandits were the responsibility of civil authorities.

Colonel August V. Kautz commanded the military department of Arizona  with his brevet rank of Major General. (Photo Courtesy of Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number: PO-1132p. Reuse with permission only).

Arizona residents petitioned President Grant to either order troops into action or to remove Kautz, an old friend of the president from prewar days.  It was too bad for all concerned when newspaper editors in Tucson took up the cry to “exterminate” Apaches and abolish reservations that they called “feeding stations” for renegades.  John Wasson, editor of the Tucson Citizen, dubbed the dour, contentious commanding general “The Great Mogul.” The Arizona government, now in Tucson, organized their own militia to defend the border.

Despite his many professional faults, Gen. A. V. Kautz was abstemious and a stickler for safeguarding government property.  One of his complaints about Indian agent Clum was that he had burned down unused buildings at his agency.  And drunkenness was common at frontier posts like Fort Whipple.  Built near a small city, sometimes Arizona’s capital, and untroubled by any dissolute “hog ranch” nearby, Whipple was still too close to a town notorious for its numerous saloons and brothels popular with “cowboys.”

In 1877 Gen. Kautz, who was commanding general of the vast Department of Arizona (but was not post commander of Whipple or legally responsible for regimental officers) tried to remove a cavalry captain at Camp Apache who was charged with taking government property for personal use.  Capt. Campbell when in Prescott was also a notorious drunk.  The court-martial, where Kautz testified, found the officer guilty but the army judge advocate general, William McKee Dunn, quashed the proceedings with good reason: Kautz’ testimony was “command interference” and Campbell was left free to roam Whiskey Row.

The General denounced publicly the army’s Judge Advocate General whose political friends at Washington complained of Campbell’s “persecution.” At Fort Whipple Kautz printed a pamphlet defending his Indian policy and attacking not only Capt. Campbell’s friends but the J.A.G. himself.  This brought military charges and he was court-martialed at a trial convened at Omaha, Nebraska, in January 1878.  The trial was a national sensation, covered by papers in New York and San Francisco.  Although acquitted, Kautz could not withstand the slings and arrows of the press, the Indian Bureau, and political friends of Dunn and Campbell.  On March 5, 1878, William T. Sherman, commanding the army, reluctantly ordered the 8th Infantry to California, taking with them Col. Kautz.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Assistant Archivist, Scott Anderson, at SHM Archives 928-445-3122 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.)