The Bowdoin Orient

March 9, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 19

O.O. Howard, Part 18: The Seminoles and the Apache

by KID WONGSRICHANALAI, STAFF WRITER

   Second Lieutenant Oliver Otis Howard, fresh out of the Military Academy at West Point, stepped off the ship and surveyed the town of Savannah, Georgia. He had never been to the South before, and his assignment in the Department of Florida seemed filled with adventure.
   It was 1856, and young Oliver had no idea that eight years later he would be at the head of an army of thirty thousand men poised to burn Savannah to the ground. His career in the Union Army, however, was far ahead of him.
   As an ordinance officer, he reported to General William S. Harney, his department commander, and settled down to a routine of handing out and collecting weapons. At that time, there was a sort of running war going on in Florida as General Harney attempted to conquer the Seminole Indians.
   Stationed at Fort Brooke, Howard paid little attention to the Seminole War, which was being fought all around him. He was more concerned with his young family, which he had left North. Feeling ever lonely, he turned inward and began to study the Bible. Within a few months, Howard would become a true believer in the gospel.
   As General Harney left the Department of Florida, a new officer assumed control, and this new commander sent Howard, along with a few companies of men, an interpreter, and a guide, to find Seminole Chief Bow Legs. Howard was to offer the Chief a peace agreement.
   Searching high and low, the small expedition failed to encounter Chief Bow Legs, but after Howard left Florida, a treaty was made. Howard believed that the treaty came partially as a result of his efforts in trying to communicate with the Seminole chief.    After his first assignment dealing with Native Americans, Howard went on to become a math instructor at West Point, and soon enough, the Civil War was upon him. After his successful career in the Western Armies, Howard accepted the position of Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, charged with helping to bring four million former slaves into freedom.
   This assignment turned out to be a bad career move for Howard. He was assailed from all sides for his actions as Commissioner and the problems would continue into the 1880s.
   There was, in 1872, an assignment that would place Howard back in the field and away from the headache of Washington politics. The government needed Howard to help negotiate a peace treaty with the warring Apache Indians under Cochise in the Arizona desert. Howard accepted the task, and on March 7, 1872, he left Washington for Arizona.
   All hell had broken loose in the desert. The story was a common one. Settlers had been pushing westward in search of a better life
--for some that meant gold, and for others that meant a ranch or land--when they encountered Native Americans, who had been living on the land for centuries.
   Both sides became violent, and soon a war was on. This time it was courtesy of Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, and General George Crook, a hard-fighting Civil War veteran who subscribed to General Phil Sheridan's maxim: the only good Indian is a dead one.
   In a last-ditch effort to prevent a war, the Government sent Howard west to try to calm things down. Arriving at Fort McDowell, Howard met with General Crook and persuaded him to halt his campaign until Howard had tried his hand at peace negotiations.
   Howard's efforts soon brought peace with a number of tribes, including members of the Apache, Papago, and Pima. Howard's visit to different tribes and efforts to create a new reservation in which the Indians could be happily settled, helped smooth things out considerably.
   With his new friends, Howard returned to Washington in June 1872. Still, a major portion of his assignment had been left unaccomplished. Cochise was still on the rampage, and in May, Howard gave up hope of finding him. He ordered Crook to begin again his war against Cochise. This was music to General Crook's ears.
   However, President Grant didn't like the idea very much, and as soon as Howard reached Washington, the President sent him back to Arizona.
   Howard returned and began his search for Cochise yet again. This time, however, he had the aid of a "scout" named Thomas Jeffords. Howard assured Jeffords that he meant no harm to Cochise and was willing to travel anywhere to find him, with or without military escort.
   This being said, a strange cast was assembled in the desert. Howard, the scout, and two Native American guides rode into the heart of Cochise's territory. The general was going out on a limb, knowing full well what became of intruders who displeased the Apache Chief. Still, he went along in search of peace.
   It must have been an interesting sight to see. Two Indians, a rugged cowboy-type scout, and a major general in the United States Army crossing the desert in search of a legend and in a quest to prevent bloodshed. This was the stuff of great Western adventure movies, minus, of course, the gunfights.
   In late summer 1872, Howard was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thousands of hostile Indians, without an escort, and with no escape plan whatsoever. His willingness to come thus far must have proved his worth to Chief Cochise who soon came to a satisfactory agreement with Howard. A new reservation was carved out on the Mexican border and the Apache promised peace.
   However, his agreement was not written down, and in time, misunderstandings of the terms of the treaty would cause some trouble for General Crook, but in the meantime, Howard had accomplished his mission and was heading home.
   The people of Arizona did not especially enjoy his return from the desert, however. They wanted blood and kept demanding that Crook go in with guns blazing and sabers drawn. Controversy would arise in the years following the agreement as Indian raids into the Mexican border and Cochise's claims of immunity from U.S. military control made the settlers fear for their livelihood.
   Meanwhile, Oliver Howard was in the Department of Columbia, commanding the Washington Territory, Alaska, Oregon, and Idaho. It was 1874, and there was peace throughout his department. But in 1877, he would be on the campaign trail again, this time following the path of a desperate Nez Perce Indian by the name of Chief Joseph.
   To Be Continued.
   Next Time: Land of the Free

Sources Used:
   Carpenter, John A. Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard. Fordham University Press, New York. 1999
   McFeely, William S. Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard and the Freedmen. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. 1968
   Howard, Oliver Otis. Nez Perce Joseph: An account of his ancestors, his lands, his confederates, his enemies, his murders, his war, his pursuit and capture. Lee and Shepard Publishers, Boston. 1881

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O.O. Howard, circa 1870.
(Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College Library)