Battle of Devil's Creek

Part of Geronimo's War, Apache Wars

Date	May 22, 1885
Location	near Alma, New Mexico
Result	United States victory

Belligerents

United States

Apache

Commanders and leaders

James Parker

Charles B. Gatewood

Geronimo

Strength

unknown

~25 warriors

Casualties and losses

3 wounded

unknown

The Battle of Devil's Creek was a military engagement during Geronimo's War, fought on May 22, 1885 near Alma, New Mexico. Though it was a minor skirmish, it was the first battle of the Geronimo campaign and ended after the Apaches were routed from their positions.

On May 16, 1885, about twenty-five Chiricahuas were on one of their many raids into Arizona and New Mexico from northern Mexico. That day the renegades had killed two miners near Alma and stole some horses so on May 17 Captain Allen Smith set out from Fort Apache, Arizona and headed for the site of the latest murder. Smith was leading a force of two companies from the 4th Cavalry and some of the Apache Scouts under Lieutenants Leighton Finley and Charles B. Gatewood. On the sixth day Smith's command was riding through canyonlands along Devil's Creek, in the Mogollon Mountains, when suddenly the Apaches opened fire with rifles from the top of a large cliff. During the fight the ensued, one Apache scout and two American soldiers were wounded and two of their horses were killed. The soldiers and scouts who fought in the battle believed Geronimo was leading the renegades but author Gregory Michno says it was a warrior named Chihuahua. Captain Smith reported the following about the encounter;

One American soldier, in a post-war account of the engagement, said that "several men had been bathing in the stream when the Indians opened up and they carried on the fight in their birthday uniforms." At the time Lieutenant Leighton Finley was in the 10th Cavalry but he was detached from his unit to command the Apache scouts when they rode with the 4th Cavalry. At the request of Lieutenant James Parker, a future general, Lieutenant Finley wrote the following account of the skirmish at Devils Creek;

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