After the Lieutenant had made
examinations of the location we started back to headquarters.
The Lieutenant and I fell back to the rear in order to have a
private conversation relative to the situation. He said: "To be
honest with you, I don't think it safe to go in there with less
than two thousand soldiers, especially at this time of the year.
If the Indians are as strong as they look to be, and have the
advantage of the ground that they seem to have, it would only be
sport for them to lie behind those rocks and shoot the soldiers
down as fast as they could enter the canyon. This is the first
time I ever went out hunting Indians, found them, and had to go
away and let them alone. To tell the truth, I don't know what to
do, for if I report to the General he will come at once with all
his forces and accomplish nothing when here."
The Black canyon is in the northwest corner of Arizona, where it
joins on to California and Nevada. Since that time there have been
more soldiers killed in that place than in all the balance of
Arizona territory.
After he had thought the matter over for a day or so he decided to
move the command up near Black canyon, catch small parties out
from there, and try in that manner to weaken them, or he might
succeed in drawing them out, and in that way be able to get a
fight out of them on something like fair ground.
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