“Two of the most uneventful, and at the same time eventful, years of my life, were spent at Fort Apache, Arizona,” Army wife Katharine Cochran wrote.
“Uneventful, because we were four or five hundred miles from every body and every thing, got our mail by buckboard once a week, then relapsed into our usual monotonous life, read and re-read our letters, exchanged papers, magazines, etc., with our friends, and discussed the topics of the day (two or three weeks old).”
Born in 1852, Katharine Sadler Madison had married Army Capt. Melville Cochran in 1872. The couple had five children during their travels with the military, four were with them at Fort Apache.
If this passel of children was not enough to keep Katharine occupied, she also faced an uprising at the fort that threatened her entire family.
The August 1881 Battle of Cibicue Creek has been written about by numerous historians but seen through a woman’s eyes, Katharine’s account of the incident that occurred between the soldiers at Fort Apache and White Mountain Apaches, illustrates the dangers military wives and their families faced on the early western frontier. She wrote of the battle in her 1896 book, “Posie; or, From Reveille to Retreat, An Army Story.”
“The valleys for miles around were filled with Indians camping and planting corn,” Katharine noted.
“In August, their ‘Green Corn’ dance occurred, the ceremonies being very interesting. This year, of which I write, they were unusually exciting. There appeared in their midst a Medicine Man (Nockadelcline), who claimed that he could raise the dead — a shrewd rascal, with a power as absolute as if he really was what he claimed to be.
“We could hear the sound of their tom-toms day and night, and although few of them now came into the post, we were well informed of their meetings. Nockadelcline exacted large rewards from them for his services, such as money, blankets and ponies. At last he announced that their dead warriors were alive up to their waists, and that the only way he could complete the resurrection was for all the white people to leave the country.
“The commanding officer of the fort (Colonel Eugene Asa Carr), appreciating the dangerous condition of affairs, sent for Nockadelcline and some of the leading warriors to come in and have a talk, thinking that he could quiet them; but instead of coming, they moved their field of operations to the Cibicue, about 50 miles distant.
“Finally, our gallant colonel decided to go after Nockadelcline and bring him back, a prisoner, to the fort, and in this way, if possible, save the lives and homes of the many settlers throughout the country.
“The colonel started off with the cavalry and scouts, leaving the infantry company to guard the fort. There was not one in the command that left, nor one in the little command that remained behind, who did not have grave apprehensions for the future.”
As an increasing number of Apaches passed through the garrison toward Cibicue Creek, Melville Cochran, now a major and in charge of the fort while Colonel Carr was away, sent a courier to warn the troops, but those at the fort had no idea if the man would make it through. Several days passed before word reached the fort that the colonel and his men were on their way back.
“My dear reader,” Katharine wrote, “can you realize how we all felt! Can you imagine what were the hopes and fears of those wives who had been waiting two days and nights without sleep!”
Carr had found Nockadelcline sequestered at the creek and after arresting him, he and his men started back to the fort only to be confronted by hostile Apaches. In the ensuing battle, Nockadelcline was killed along with his family and a number of Apaches. Seven soldiers perished.
The day after the troops returned, Katharine watched as a multitude of Apaches congregated nearby, setting fire to nearby buildings that housed a goodly supply of grain. “We were now in a perfect state of siege,” she said, “entirely cut off from the rest of the world— the telegraph wires down, the rivers swollen. We did not know whether five hundred or five thousand Indians surrounded us, or whether the couriers had succeeded in getting through with the dispatches asking for aid.”
The exchange of gunfire between the soldiers and Apaches increased throughout the day. Katharine, fearing for her children’s lives (her youngest had been born at Fort Apache just four weeks prior), settled her youngsters in front of the house’s adobe fireplaces, hoping the resilient breastwork would protect them from the fusillade of bullets.
“I commanded a view of the entire fight,” she said, “watched my husband under fire for an hour or more, listened to the whiz of the enemies’ bullets and to the deafening storm from our own men.”
The night raged on. “There was little or no sleep for any one,” continued Katharine. “Every few hours there was a new skirmish.”
After five days under attack, reinforcements arrived.
According to Katharine, “Of all the couriers sent out only one got through. The road was lined with dead bodies for miles; every one had been killed who happened on it those few fatal days. ... In a very few days large bodies of troops began to come in from other parts of the territory, and from New Mexico, and we had nothing more to fear.”
Two weeks after the Cibicue conflict, Major Cochran was ordered to report to Prescott’s Fort Whipple. Katharine bundled up her children and set out for their new assignment.
“Before many days the faint notes of a bugle came floating to our ears,” Katharine wrote, “and we were soon within sight of our new home. That first glimpse of the quarters, the parade ground and the flag, made Whipple Barracks seem most attractive after days of ‘roughing it.’”
The major retired from the military in June 1898. Katharine died in Florida on August 26, 1903. Melville followed her on May 4, 1904.
Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, home to heroic soldiers and their stalwart spouses.
