Transcript
A (0:02)
Ford Bluecruise Hands free Highway driving takes the work out of being behind the wheel, allowing you to relax and reconnect while also staying in control. Enjoy the drive in Bluecruise enabled vehicles like the F150 Explorer and Mustang Mach E available feature on equipped vehicles Terms apply. Does not replace safe driving. See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details. Did you know you can opt out of winter with VRBO? Save up to $1,500 for booking a month long stay. When thousands of sunny homes are waiting for you, why subject yourself to the cold? Put the snow shovel down, put the parka back in the closet, and don't you dare scrape another windshield. Slip into some flip flops, consider a sunless tan and use the monthly stays filter to save up to $1,500. Book your warm getaway at vrbo.com.
B (1:13)
In May of 1889, it had been nine years since the conclusion of Victorio's War, during which the 9th Cavalry and 10th Cavalry fought Victorio's Apache warriors all over New Mexico and Texas. It had been eight years since the murderous month of Apache attacks known as Nana's Raid in the summer of 1881, and it had been three years since Geronimo's final surrender. Geronimo, Nana, and other Apache leaders were at a prison camp in Florida, and the rest of the Apache were on the San Carlos reservation and the Fort Apache reservation in eastern Arizona. In 1889, the threat of Apache attacks wasn't gone, but it was greatly diminished. The threat of outlaws, however, was not diminished. Major Joseph Washington Wham did not expect trouble on May 11, 1889, but as the U.S. army paymaster for southeastern Arizona Territory, he always had to be ready for it. He was in charge of delivering money to forts so soldiers could receive their salaries. At the end of April, he received an order to pick up a shipment of gold and silver coins and deliver the appropriate payroll to five outposts in the eastern part of the territory. The first Two stops, at Fort Bowie on May 9 and Fort Grant on May 10, were uneventful, which wasn't overly surprising. The two forts were close to each other, and they were both close to the railroad town of Wilcox. Even if Major Wham didn't expect trouble on the next leg of the journey, it definitely featured the most dangerous stretch of road. That stretch was called Bloody Run for a reason. It had been the site of a deadly Apache ambush seven years earlier, and if an ambush at that site could work once, it could work again. The two wagons of the payroll convoy had successfully moved down through the narrow, steep alley that was Bloody Run. On one side of the road, a towering wall of boulders rose up above the path. On the other side, a short ledge of rock, almost like the curb of a modern street, lined the road. Beyond the ledge of rock, the terrain sloped down into a desert valley of dry creek beds, sand and brush. In the first wagon, Major Wayam rode with his clerk, two army privates, and Sergeant Benjamin Brown, a Buffalo Soldier of the 24th Infantry. In the bed of the wagon toward the back, near Major Wham, was the treasure, the strongbox, which contained more than $28,000 in gold and silver coins of the army payroll. It would have a value of nearly a million dollars today. So when Private Hamilton Lewis, who drove the wagon, suddenly stopped it in the middle of the road after they had already navigated the hard part, Major Wham was surprised. At the back of the long wagon, the major couldn't see the reason for the stop. When he asked what was wrong, Sergeant Brown said there was a boulder blocking the road. Brown jumped down, investigated the boulder, and determined he couldn't move it on his own. He called for the 11 soldiers in the second wagon to come up and help him. The second wagon was loaded with a mix of buffalo soldiers from the 24th infantry and the 10th Cavalry who were there to guard the shipment. They had already climbed out of their wagon, and now they walked up the road to join Brown. In order to push the heavy stone out of the way, they laid their rifles on the ground. That was when one of the men noticed that the stone had been wedged in place. He warned the others that the boulder had not rolled down the hillside on its own. As an act of nature, it had been deliberately stationed in the road. When the soldiers turned to look up the slope that towered above them to see where the boulder came from, two men stepped out from behind a cedar tree. One held a pistol in each hand, the other held a Winchester rifle. The man with the pistols shouted at the soldiers to get out of the way, and then he opened fire. From concealed positions on either side of the tree, 10 to 12 more men stepped out and started firing. At one o' clock in the afternoon, with the temperature rising to 85 degrees Fahrenheit in a desolate patch of desert, 12 soldiers stood in the road, none of them holding weapons. In the wagon right behind them sat a fortune in gold and silver. Few bandits in the west had had ever planned a better robbery. From Black Barrel Media, this is legends of the old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling a collection of stories about the famous Buffalo Soldiers, the courageous black soldiers of the infantry and cavalry who served in the west after the Civil War. This is episode six, the Wham Paymaster Robbery. The Arizona frontier became increasingly attractive to settlers during the second major wave of westward migration. The first happened in the late 1840s and 1850s when people flocked to the gold fields of California. The second happened after the Civil War. And while people continued to hurry west in search of riches, there were now larger numbers who went in search of land. And where the settlers went, the army went. Like the frontier of Texas, the army built forts up and down New Mexico Territory and Arizona Territory to protect the settlers. Throughout the late 1870s and 1880s, settlers drifted into Arizona despite the threat of the Apache as soldiers, many of whom were buffalo soldiers, battled the Apache and average everyday bandits. Settlers started to flood into southern Arizona after word circulated that Ed Schifflin had discovered silver. People flocked to the land around the new boom town of Tombstone at the end of 1879. Some of those people were the Earp clan, Wyatt, his brothers and their wives. But shortly before the soon to be famous residents of the territory arrived, a small group of Mormons moved south from Utah. They settled at a place called Forest Dale. But then the 28 people of the settlement learned their new home overlapped reservation land, so they were forced to relocate. A few members of the community scouted the Gila river valley until they found a promising spot. The group loaded up its wagons and traveled through rough terrain for two grueling weeks to reach its new home down the road from an army outpost called Fort Thomas. The town was called Smithville after Jesse N. Smith, the presiding authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in eastern Arizona. The small group erected canvas shelters and tents for homes, built corrals for their cattle, and planted crops along a canal fed by the Gila River. Gradually, log cabins replaced tents, and they built a church that doubled as a school. The population quickly grew from the 28 original settlers to 148 residents. Soon the town wanted a post office, but its application was denied. The residents were told that there were too many Smithvilles in the United States. Their solution was fairly easy. The town was in Graham County. Next door was Pima county, and they discovered that the name Pima was available for a town. So in 1879, Smithville became Pima, as it still is today. As the settlement grew, it expanded beyond its original role as an enclave for Latter Day Saints, Pima was strategically positioned on the road between Fort Grant and Fort Thomas. The road between the two forts was a supply route and a mail corridor, but it was not the pathway for the U.S. army Paymaster on May 11. Army payroll transports were carefully orchestrated operations. Secrecy was paramount. The exact times and routes were known only to a select few. In order to ensure the mission's security, the assignments were entrusted solely to the most seasoned and courageous individuals. But despite the precautions, it wasn't all that hard to figure out when the army payroll was going to roll through the area. In towns all over the west, everyone knew there would be a surge of activity in saloons, brothels, and gambling dens when the soldiers got paid. So it wasn't difficult to find out when the next payroll delivery would happen. On May 11, the payroll convoy didn't use the main road, which would have led it through towns like Safford, Thatcher, and Pima. Essentially, it went the back way. Fort Grant, where the convoy began, the third leg of its journey sat at the base of the Pinoleno Mountains, the tallest peak in the small mountain range. Mount Graham is the fourth tallest in Arizona at 10,720ft high, and it towered above the fort and behind it in the distance. The position of Fort Grant on the west side of the mountains meant it was shielded from the main roads and towns in the area. To get to any town or fort in the region, the soldiers had to go around the mountains to reach Fort Thomas to deliver the next round of payroll, the convoy had two choices. It could go south around the mountains and basically do a giant slow U turn to go north to reach Fort Thomas using the main roads. Or it could go north around the mountains and cut through Eagle Pass between the Pinoleno Mountains and the Santa Teresa Mountains. The generally northern route would mean driving through raw desert with the exception of a couple ranches, but it would be 25 miles shorter than the southern route. The convoy chose the northern route through the gap between the two mountain ranges. While it was shorter and there would be virtually no encounters with other travelers, it would also require them to navigate the Apache ambush site called Bloody Run.