Arizona citizen., 1877-03-24

r Jne manner Tn winch the tnlricIhU; T Indians were first brought upon tn, b reservation by General Howard; tha 3 disapproved of the management O the Indians by Agent Jef'ords, that . looked upon the murders and rob r berries by these Indians in Sonora, as 2 disgrace 10 the nation, and that now they had broken out and killed threC men in Arizona, thought the lime } had arrived to break up the reservation and put a stop to this disgraceful con ;l duct And to do this effectively. all branches of the government should
 unite and heartily cooperate To thi. . General Kautz replied that he had
 been led to believe that JeffOrds was a very fair Agent, and that he would do nothing towards correcting this great wrong unless ordered by the Secretary of War. I am free to confess that ii was hard for me 10 repress my indig-
 nation, and l felt shen il was about as hopeless a task for me tO undertake tu
 get General KauLz 10 do anything as
 to vivify and make serviceable the 1 Cardiff Giant But l telcgraphed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. and
 asked him to get the Secretary of War
 to instruct General Kaltz to act
 which resulted in the latter getting his instructions. He has told of the
 pomp and paraphernalia of war with
 which he moved on the enemy, and it
 is unnecessary for me 10 repeat it. A portion of the Chiricahaas consented to go; a portion went the other way. He says he instructed Colonel Comp
 ton, with the White Mountain Indians.
 to follow the trail of the absconding
 Indians, and to my charge that the ! Colonel followed a few miles and
 abandoned a plain trail at time when
 the chief of scouts told him he could
 not help but overtake the Indians in
 few hours, the General says he did not know how unsatisfactorily Colonel
 Compton had performed that duty
 until after he had returned to Prescott.
 Now General Eautz told me, and half
 dozen others, the identical facts re- fcrred to, upon his arrival in Tucson,
 0n his way from Bowie to Prescott,
 and he knew very well then that ! Colonel Compton had abandoned that
 trail, and returned 10 the post; and he knew equally well that when the Colo nel abandoned the trail he did not
 carry il Tn with him; and il would
 have been an easy matter, if General KautZ had desired t0 catch those h.
 dians, tO have sent COmpton's scout
 back, with the instructions to follow
 the trail and punish the IndIans; and
 if his officer discbeyed, court-marual
 hIm. Had the General cone this little
 simple act, with ample force to back
 him, there would not have been q
 single murder perpetrated by Indians
 in southeastern Arizona since that tune
 And because I complain ofthis culpablc negligence, the General says 1 want to prOtract the war l begged him when in Tucson to leave one company of his Indian scouts to go after these Indians ;' l told him plainly then what would bc the result unless they were pursued by
 those friendly Indians. But he turned
 a deaf ear to my enireaties, and the company of scouts which were sent by him to Camp Apache, remained
 there in idIeness up to the time they were recently moved to southeastern Arizona. And I will here state that. any charge or iusinuauon that l have. ever favored or desired troops moved
 into southern Arizona, for speculative or for any other purpose, is without the shadow of foundation Tn fact II never have asked for anything but In dian scouts, and have stated over and over again that troops without the as
 sistance of Indian scouts were of mol benefit in subduing hostile Indians.
 General Kautz says, T don't think that the removal Of the Chiricahua In dians has been satisfactory to some, for. the reason that the agent had overI nine hundred Indians 10 feed beforeI the removal, whereas the number isl now reduced to three hundred and twenty, and somebody's trade is pro-. porlionately reduced" If this fling. hits any one, General Kautz must bel the man, for he told me he thought. JctlordS fair agent He says he. thinks the removal was injudIcious and he would not act in the matter un-. ul l procured instructions from the Secretary of War, which compelled . him to act; while l opposed and ex-' posed the malconduct of the agent. and finally secured his removal. I. find, so far as Indian agents are con cerned, that the difference between General Kautz and myself is this: A bad Indian agent seems to be satisfac-
 tory to him, while a good and success
 ful agent receives his bittercst con- demnatIon and wrath; l have lived long enough to learn that the good or. bad are lot confined to any section ort class off men; 1 have almost constantly f since I have been Governor of thisI Territory, been obliged 10 make war. on bad Indian agents, but when find