By Al Bates

Now we come to the controversial part - Woolsey's role in what has various been called the "Battle at Bloody Tanks" or the "Pinole Treaty Massacre." There aren't any photos, but we do have three first-hand reports recorded soon after the event. The rest of this presentation comes from these accounts.

Withdrawal of the U.S. Army from Arizona early in the Civil War enabled Apache bands to raid the remaining Anglo outposts in southern Arizona with impunity. Once-thriving settlements were abandoned and few Anglo or Mexican pioneers remained alive in southern Arizona. The agricultural tribes - Pimas, Papagos and Maricopas - also were the targets of Apache raids. When Anglos began prospecting the central Arizona mountains in 1863, the Apache had new targets.

Indians raided miners and the military in the Prescott area for horses and mules, even driving off 40 mules in one night from the newly created Fort Whipple. On New Year's Day 1864, the Fort Whipple commander wrote: "The miners have lost about 150 head of animals during the past two weeks, and almost every night some animals are stolen." The loss of these animals was more than an incovenience to the settlers; it was a matter of survival.

The Yavapai tribe was at first accused of these thesfts, but later evidence pointed to Tonto and Pinal Apaches as the prime culprits.

The last straw for the settlers came in early January 1864, when 28 head of stock disappeared from the corral of Peeples and Dye, in a night raid. The settlers elected Woolsey "captain" of a volunteer company of 28 men that would pursue and "chastise" the culprits.

Expected supplies from Fort Whipple did not appear at the Agua Fria, but Woolsey and his men pushed on. After running short on supplies 10 days later, four of the party left for the Pima villages while the remainder waited at a point near the intersection of the Verde and Salt rivers. In addition to supplies, the recruiters came back with two additional white men and 41 Pima and Maricopa Indians eager to seek revenge on the Apaches.

When the expedition continued, the Maricopas, under direction of Chief Juan Chiveria were in the lead. Unfortunately, the Pimas soon dropped out, leaving Woolsey with just 16 friendly Indians and 30 settlers to continue their increasingly risky expedition.

Three days later, after a tough overnight march through extremely rugged country, they came upon water holes or "tanks" and a recently abandoned Indian camp at a location near present-day Miami. There was evidence that a large quantity of stock had been there the day before. They stopped to rest and to make coffee. Soon, they heard war cries and saw signal fires and Apaches "coming from all points of the compass."

Woolsey and two Indian interpreters went to find out the Apache intentions. What he found out was not good. The Apaches claimed to have 400 well-armed warriors nearby or on the way, who intened to kill all in the Woolsey party for invading their territory. The Apache chief made threatening gestures with his rifle but backed down when Woolsey produced a Sharps carbine from under his coat.

Woolsey and his troop were seriously outnumbered and at a severe tactical disadvantage. Their only way to withdraw was through miles of steep canyon where their foes could "tumble rocks on us or shoot us like so many penned cattle." There seemed little hope of escape.

Their only hope for survival seemed to be in negotiation. If they could not talk their way out of trouble, a fight to the finish was inevitable. Surrender was not an option. Capture by the Apaches was unthinkable, for the Apaches had nasty ways of dealing with captives. One recorded practice was to suspend live captives head down to broil over small fires.

Furhter negotiations convinced some of the Apaches to come down and receive gifts of pinole and of tobacco. The Apaches were arrogant and demanded more of both pinole and tobacco. A Piinal Apache chief demanded that Woolsey "brush the dust away so he might set down without soiling his buckskins." A fuming Woolsey instead spread a red blanket for him to sit upon.

Woolsey, in an official report to General Carleton claimed that the fight started after an Apache lance fellled Cyrus Lennan. Another first-hand account was more cryptic: "About this time a difficulty took place in which we lost one man...we made good Indians out of 24 of their number...besides those what got away packing lead."

Regardless of who began the fight, the settlers had the advantage of better weapons and lost only Lennan. One of the Maricopas was wounded, and one horse was "killed in action." Woolsey identified the 24 dead Indians as Tonto and Pinal Apaches and one "Yavepie."

The nearly barefoot Woolsey party confiscated moccasins, buckskins and blankets from the dead Indians and reclaimed both the tobacco and the pinole for their own personal use. They then beat a quick retreat before the Apaches could get reorganized, stopping briefly to bury Lennan's body along the way. Again short of supplies, they were fortunate to meet a prospecting party led by Jack Swilling who furnished them with enough supplies to get back to the Agua Fria ranch.

The Maricopas returned to their village in triumph, accompanied by some of the Whites. J. Ross Browne and Charles Poston interviewed Abraham Peeples' partner, Joe Dye. Dye's account added the detail that the Indians smuggled weapons into the conference. He further stated that Woolsey fired the first shot, killing the Apache chief on the red blanket, and that Lennan was killed in the fray that followed.

Mary Woolsey, who claimed she got the story from her husband, told the story many years later that Woolsey touched his hat as the signal for the killing to start. Delayed first-hand accounts by Abraham Peeoples and Daniel Ellis Conner include embellishments that add nothing of significance and that have to be viewed suspiciously through the fog of passing years.

Mike Burns, an Apache-Mohave, years later gave the only account fro the Indian perspective. His second- or third-hand version of the affair does not mention poison - except for the Apache use of poisoned arrows.

Were Woolsey's actions justified? At the time there was no doubt in the minds of the settlers or territorial officials. It seems that only those who were far removed in time or distance from the incident found his actions questionable.

We each will have to make our own judgements about fairness and morality in a deadly war between races. Personally, I find it very hard to fault men faced with certain death for using every resource at their command.

So where did the poison story begin? It is impossible to say, but a reasonable theory is that it was started by his political foes.

The first known publication of the poison rumor came in 1878 when Woolsey was running for Congress. The Arizona Sentinel of Yuma, a political foe of his, referred to it in a nasty editorial that denigrated Woolsey's political accomplishments. I do not know how or if Woolsey responded, but a Phoenix newspaper took up his defense and labeled the Yuma paper's attacks on Woolsey as "without any foundation in fact."

A suggestion that Woolsey was responsible for a different poisoning episode was in a newspaper story published 14 years after his death. The rather fanciful story has him going on a prospecting trip in 1865 on foot with two strangers somewhere beyond Wickenburg. The story contains all of the required elements: an Indian attack, a "talk" and poisoned pinole, but there is no source given and it appears to be just another Territorial tall tale.

Once started, a story like this has a life of its own. Most historians doubt it happened, but the tale is solidly in Arizona folklore. Writers of popular history continue to give the tale life if not credibility. Never is there any source given or is any documentation cited.

As with many rumors, and folklore tales there may be a kennel of truth somewhere, but it seems doubtful that the details are true or that more will ever be known.

Should history remember Woolsey as a hero or as a villian? Shakespeare had an apt summary in his play "Julius Caesar": "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones."

Al Bates is an active member of the Prescott Corral of Westerners International.

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