Aftermath
At once, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke of the Second Regiment of Dragoons organized an expedition to pursue the Jicarilla. With the help of Pueblo Indian and Mexican scouts under Captain James H. Quinn, with Kit Carson as the principal guide. After a winter pursuit through the mountains, Cooke caught and defeated them April 8, 1855, at their camp in the canyon of Ojo Caliente. Dispersing in small bands, the Jicarilla evaded further pursuit, but many died from the harsh cold weather. [14]
Much of the blame for the loss of life was put on Davidson, as he was accused of risking the lives of his soldiers when he could have avoided the ambush. [15] However, Brig. Gen. John Garland praised Davidson when stated that "The troops displayed a gallantry seldom equaled in this, or any other country and the Officer in Command, Lieut. Davidson, has given evidence of soldiership in the highest degree creditable to him. To have sustained a deadly control of three hours when he was so greatly outnumbered, and to have retired with the fragment of a company, crippled up, is amazing and calls for the admiration of every true soldier." [16]
On March 10, 1856, Garland called a court of inquiry to meet at Taos, New Mexico. [15] After many witnessing declarations, the court declared that Davidson could not have avoided the confrontation and "that in the battle he exhibited skill in his mode of attacking a greatly superior force of hostile Indians; and prudence, and coolness, and courage, throughout a protracted engagement; and finally, when he was obliged to retire from the field, owing to the great odds opposing him, the losses he had sustained, and the scarcity of ammunition; his exertions to bring off the wounded men merit high praise." [17]
Christopher Houston Carson was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and news articles; exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime novels. His understated nature belied confirmed reports of his fearlessness, combat skills, tenacity, as well as profound effect on the westward expansion of the United States. Although he was famous for much of his life, historians in later years have written that Kit Carson did not like, want, or even fully understand the fame that he experienced during his life.
Jicarilla Apache, one of several loosely organized autonomous bands of the Eastern Apache, refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning "little basket", referring to the small sealed baskets they used as drinking vessels. To neighboring Apache bands, such as the Mescalero and Lipan, they were known as Kinya-Inde.
The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. After the Mexican–American War in 1846, the United States inherited conflicted territory from Mexico which was the home of both settlers and Apache tribes. Conflicts continued as new United States citizens came into traditional Apache lands to raise livestock and crops and to mine minerals.
The First Battle of Adobe Walls was a battle between the United States Army and American Indians. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to attacks on white settlers moving into the Southwest. The battle on November 25, 1864, resulted in light casualties on both sides but was one of the largest engagements fought on the Great Plains.
The Ute Wars were a series of conflicts between the Ute people and the United States which began in 1849 and ended in 1923.
The 1st Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army regiment that has its antecedents in the early 19th century in the formation of the United States Regiment of Dragoons. To this day, the unit's special designation is "First Regiment of Dragoons". While they were the First Regiment of Dragoons another unit designated the 1st Cavalry Regiment was formed in 1855 and in 1861 was re-designated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment. The First Dragoons became the 1st Cavalry Regiment since they were the oldest mounted regiment.
Pilar is an unincorporated community in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. It is located on the Rio Grande.
John Wynn Davidson was a brigadier general in the United States Army during the American Civil War and an American Indian fighter. In 1850, he co-led the Bloody Island Massacre of 60-200 Pomo Native American old men, women, and children as part of the wider California genocide.
Lafayette Head was the first Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, serving from 1876 to 1879 under Governor John Long Routt.
The Battle of Ojo Caliente Canyon, or simply the Battle of Ojo Caliente was an engagement of the Jicarilla War on April 8, 1854. Combatants were Jicarilla Apache warriors, and their Ute allies, against the United States Army. The skirmish was fought as result of the pursuit of the Jicarilla after the Battle of Cieneguilla just over a week earlier.
The Jicarilla War began in 1849 and was fought between the Jicarilla Apaches and the United States Army in the New Mexico Territory. Ute warriors also played a significant role in the conflict as they were allied with the Jicarillas. The war started when the Apaches and Utes began raiding against settlers on the Santa Fe Trail. Eventually, in 1853, the U.S. Army retaliated which resulted in a series of battles and campaigns that ended in 1854 when a large military expedition managed to quell most of the violence. However, some minor skirmishing continued into 1855.
The White massacre was an engagement between American settlers and a band of Utes and Jicarilla Apaches that occurred in northeastern New Mexico on October 28, 1849. It became notable for the Indians' kidnapping of Mrs. Ann White, who was subsequently killed during an Army rescue attempt a few weeks later.
George Alexander Hamilton Blake was a cavalry officer in the United States Army during the American Indian Wars, the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War.
Fort Massachusetts was a military installation built in the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado. It was located near the western bank of Ute Creek on the base of Mount Blanca and sat at an elevation of 8,000 feet, approximately 6 miles north of present-day Fort Garland.
The Fort Pueblo massacre was an attack that occurred on December 25, 1854, against Fort Pueblo, Colorado, also known as El Pueblo, a settlement on the north side of the Arkansas River, 1⁄2 mile west of the mouth of Fountain Creek, above the mouth of the Huerfano. The attack followed the deaths of Chief Chico Velasquez and others who died of smallpox after having been given blanket coats which the Muache believed had been deliberately contaminated. Coalition forces of over 100 Muache Utes and Jicarilla Dindes under the leadership of Chief Tierra Blanco led the attack against Fort Pueblo, killing 15 men, and capturing one woman, and two boys. Later on, the Muache killed the woman south of Pueblo at the Salt Creek. 2 women and 1 man survived the joint military operation, and the two boys who were captured, eventually returned.
Flechas Rayadas or Striped Arrows was a Jicarilla Apache chief of the band that, together with Francisco Chacon's warriors, defeated Lieutenant Davidson's detachment of 60 men from the First Regiment of Dragoons in the Battle of Cieneguilla, in the Embudo Mountains, on April 4, 1854, killing 22 and wounding 36. On April 7, as Lieutenant Colonel Cooke was pursuing the Jicarillas, General Garland sent word to Cooke that Flechas Rayadas had offered to return all the horses and arms captured in that fight if peace could be made; the chief's proposal was rejected.
Francisco Chacon was a Jicarilla Apache chief, leader in the Jicarilla uprising of 1854. He led the band that defeated the Davidson detachment of the First Regiment of Dragoons in the Battle of Cieneguilla: the Jicarilla, led by Francisco Chacon, their principal chief, and Flechas Rayadas, fought with flintlock rifles and arrows, killing 22 and a wounding another 36 of 60 dragoon soldiers, who then retreated to Ranchos de Taos lighter by 22 horses and most of the troops' supplies.
Lobo Blanco or White Wolf was a Jicarilla Apache chief of the band that, with 30 warriors, raided the horse herd of the Second Regiment of Dragoons at Fort Union, and, reached up near the Canadian River, was defeated by Lieutenant Bell's Dragoon detachment in the Battle of Canadian River on April 4, 1854, before the Battle of Cieneguilla; repeatedly wounded, the chief was finally killed crushing him under a boulder.
Chico Velasquez was a leader of the Jicarilla Apache and Ute people. He was originally closely associated with the Jicarilla and was blamed for attacks on Americans in the early part of the Jicarilla War. Velasquez met with American leaders in 1850 and promised not to take up arms against Americans and Mexicans. By 1854 he was working with the American governor of New Mexico David Meriwether to recover stolen American livestock. As reward for searching for a fugitive murderer, Velasquez was given an embroidered gray coat, but that coat and blankets given to the Ute at the same time were infected with smallpox. The disease killed Velasquez and many other Ute and was one of the causes of the Fort Pueblo Massacre.
United States 
