Battle of Salt River Canyon was a Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts engagement fought in Arizona, 1872.
Known also as the Battle of Salt River Canyon or the Skeleton Cave Massacre, this clash marked the opening major encounter of the Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872, waged under Lieutenant Colonel George Crook's leadership. The fight formed one episode within the broader Yavapai War, a conflict spanning 1871 to 1875 fought against the Yavapai, a Native American tribe located in Arizona.
Known also as the Battle of Salt River Canyon or the Skeleton Cave Massacre, this clash marked the opening major encounter of the Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872, waged under Lieutenant Colonel George Crook's leadership. The fight formed one episode within the broader Yavapai War, a conflict spanning 1871 to 1875 fought against the Yavapai, a Native American tribe located in Arizona.
On the morning of December 28, 1872, Crook's troops came upon a Yavapai refuge hidden within Skeleton Cave, set into the Salt River Canyon northeast of what is now Phoenix, Arizona. His command that day numbered 130 men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment under Captain William H. Brown, reinforced by thirty Apache scouts.
Positioning themselves near the cave's entrance, the soldiers caught the Yavapai off guard in the midst of a dance held to mark a successful raid. With the cave encircled, gunfire erupted from every side. Because the band inside would not give up, part of Brown's command directed their shots toward the cave's roof, while others, working alongside Crook himself, sent boulders and stones crashing down from the heights above. A single warrior managed to slip past the final barrage by crawling flat on the ground. Believing himself clear of danger, he leapt atop a boulder, loosed a war cry, and began firing toward the troops. A soldier positioned roughly 800 yards distant answered with a shot that struck the man in the chest and killed him instantly. When the fighting ended, around 75 bodies lay within the cave, among them several women and children. Not a single warrior lived through the slaughter. Those women and children who survived were rounded up and sent to Camp Grant. Chief Nanni-chaddi numbered among the fallen inside the cave; he had once boasted that no soldier would ever locate his hideaway. Knowledge of this refuge had belonged only to the Yavapai and the Tonto Apache, yet it was Apache scouts who guided the army there, turning against their own people in the process. Crook did not stop there, striking again weeks afterward at Turret Peak in an assault the government likewise counted as a triumph. By 1873 the Yavapai had sought peace at Camp Verde, although sporadic clashes lingered on until 1875.
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