Today in Manhunting History -- September 5, 1885: Geronimo Literally Runs Davis Out of the Army

Recognizing the futility of hunting the Apaches with cavalry and a pack train, in August 1885 Captain Emmet Crawford ordered Lieutenant Britton Davis and Chief of Scouts Al Sieber to pursue Geronimo with about 40 handpicked scouts. Geronimo led this detachment on a long chase, crossing the Sierras into Chihuahua before turning north to slip across the boundary into New Mexico, eluding the soldiers stationed there and disappearing into the interior of the Territory. Davis and the scouts had to pursue every lead while avoiding the natural barriers ripe for ambush in the mountainous terrain, and thus traveled “a hundred and forty or fifty miles to cover a hundred as the crow flies.” Davis’s detachment was given provisions for three days, which they made last for six. When their rations gave out, they kept on Geronimo’s trail, living “on the flesh of the ponies the hostiles had killed and such roots, berries, etc., as the country afforded and the scouts knew to be edible.” Lieutenant Davis’s men rode and walked 500 miles through the mountains and deserts before finally limping back across the border at Texas and reaching Fort Bliss on September 5.

Filthy, exhausted, and sick of the war, Davis resigned his commission and set off to manage the ranch of a family friend in Mexico.