The Battle of Apache Pass was fought in 1862 at Apache Pass, Arizona, in the United States, between Apache warriors and the Union volunteers of the California Column. It was one of the largest battles between the Americans and the Chiricahua during the Apache Wars.
In early 1862 Col. James H. Carleton sent units from Fort Yuma to Tucson, Arizona, which had recently been occupied by a Confederate force, Company A, Arizona Rangers. After a small engagement known as the Battle of Picacho Pass just north of Tucson between a detachment of Carleton's cavalry and Confederate pickets, the Union forces advanced on Tucson in three columns. They arrived in Tucson on May 20, forcing the heavily outnumbered Confederate garrison to withdraw to Texas without a fight.
After capturing Confederate Arizona's western outpost, Carleton prepared to march east with his main body in July, intending to enter New Mexico through Apache Pass in southeast Arizona. To prepare for the advance of his main force, he sent a column ahead as he had on his march from Yuma to Tucson. The column was led by Capt. Thomas L. Roberts of Company E, 1st California Infantry, accompanied by two 12-pounder mountain howitzers under the command of Sgt. James D. Monihon, a 22-man cavalry escort from Company B, 2nd Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry, led by Capt. John C. Cremony and 21 wagons plus 242 mules and horses.
After Roberts reached the San Pedro River, he needed to learn whether Dragoon Springs, 28 miles further east, could supply both companies with water or if they would need to separate into smaller detachments. Capt. Roberts led the advance detachment with his infantry company, joined by three wagons, the howitzers and seven of Cremony's best horsemen to serve as scouts and couriers. Capt. Cremony remained behind with 15 cavalrymen and ten of Roberts' infantrymen, including the detachment left as a garrison at the river, where an adobe stage station building provided shelter and a defensive position to guard the remaining wagons and animals.
Roberts determined the water at Dragoon Springs was enough to support the entire force, and Cremony joined with him the next day. Together they advanced on the springs at Apache Pass in the same manner, leaving Cremony with the guard detachment.
At noon on July 15, Roberts' detachment entered Apache Pass. After traveling about two-thirds of the way through, his force was attacked by about 500 Apache warriors led by Mangas Coloradas and Cochise (Geronimo claimed to have fought in this battle but this has not been confirmed).
The Union soldiers were in a difficult position. The infantrymen had walked dozens of miles across the hot Arizona desert, heading for the spring at Apache Pass, which was now blocked to them by the well-armed Chiricahua warriors. Low on water and realizing a retreat back to Tucson without water could cost him many men, Roberts chose to fight. The Apaches had thrown up defenses consisting of several breastworks made of stone. They had also surprised the invaders with an ambush, waiting until the soldiers came within 30–80 yards of their positions before opening fire. At first the Union troops could barely see their attackers. After a few minutes of intense combat Roberts ordered a retreat and his force withdrew to the mouth of Apache Pass. His men regrouped and unlimbered the mountain howitzers for an advance against the Apaches.
The Indian Wars encompass more than three centuries of armed conflict between the United States government, American settlers, and Indigenous nations — from the Powhatan Wars of the 1620s through the final Plains campaigns of the late 19th century. The eastern conflicts — King Philip's War (1675–1676), the Tuscarora War (1711–1715), and the Creek and Seminole Wars — largely ended organized Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi by the 1840s. On the Great Plains, the Sioux Wars (1854–1890), Red River War (1874–1875), and Nez Perce War (1877) followed the displacement wrought by the transcontinental railroad and the near-extinction of the American bison — an estimated 30 to 60 million animals reduced to fewer than 1,000 by 1890. The Ghost Dance religious movement and the massacre at Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), in which US cavalry killed approximately 250 Lakota men, women, and children, marked the effective end of armed resistance. The Dawes Act (1887) allotted reservation land to individual families, opening millions of acres to white settlement and reducing Indigenous landholdings by about two-thirds over the following decades.
This page covers Battle of Apache Pass — Carleton vs Cochise & Mangas Coloradas (July 15–16 1862). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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