Battle of Turret Peak was a Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts engagement fought in Arizona, 1873.
On March 27, 1873, in the Arizona Territory, United States Army troops clashed with a band of Yavapai and Tonto Apaches at Turret Peak. The fight formed part of the effort led by Lieutenant Colonel George Crook to force the natives back onto reservations.
On March 27, 1873, in the Arizona Territory, United States Army troops clashed with a band of Yavapai and Tonto Apaches at Turret Peak. The fight formed part of the effort led by Lieutenant Colonel George Crook to force the natives back onto reservations.
George Crook took up a Southwest posting in June 1871, tasked with easing the violent friction that had broken out between settlers and Yavapai and Apache people across central Arizona Territory. To hunt down tribal members and force their return to reservation lands, he set the Tonto Basin Campaign into motion. This effort produced more than twenty violent encounters before it ran its course, among them a December 1872 assault on a Yavapai encampment, the Battle of Salt River Canyon, which left seventy-six natives dead. Then, on March 11, 1873, a group of Tonto Apaches struck and killed three white men. Crook's soldiers followed the trail left by these attackers, which led to a Yavapai stronghold atop Turret Peak in central Arizona.
Under cover of darkness on March 27, 1873, Captain George M. Randall led a force of soldiers and Apache Scouts up the slopes of Turret Peak, timing their ascent for midnight. To keep the approach silent, Randall ordered his men to move on hands and knees, easing over loose stones so nothing would clatter and give away their position. They held their position until first light, then launched a surprise assault on a rancheria situated near the mountain's summit.
The suddenness of the strike sent the native occupants into terror, and in their panic many chose to leap from the cliffs rather than face the attackers, plunging to their deaths on the rocks below. A portion of the defenders put up resistance, battling briefly before either falling in combat or laying down arms. When the fighting ended, fifty-seven natives had been killed, with additional numbers wounded or taken prisoner. Tragically, a handful of civilians were discovered afterward inside a cave, having lost their lives unintentionally to the soldiers' covering fire or to rocks that tumbled during the assault.
The blow struck at Turret Peak left the Yavapai and Tonto people deeply shaken in spirit. Within a fortnight, on April 6, a large number of the remaining hostiles came in to surrender to Crook at Camp Verde. In recognition of their conduct during the engagement, several soldiers who took part in the fight later received the Medal of Honor.
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