← Legends of the Old West
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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.
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If there's one thing we all know.
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At this point, it's that we live.
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On the northwestern road around the Pinaleno Mountains, the distance between Fort Grant and Fort Thomas was about 45 miles in two wagons pulled by six mules each the convoy hoped to complete the trip by mid afternoon. At 7am 16 men loaded into the two wagons and began the trip. The first wagon in line was called a Doherty Wagon. It was a long wagon with a canopy over the top for shade and benches along the insides. It was originally used as a hospital wagon during the Civil War and now it carried four men and a strongbox of gold and silver. The four men were two army privates, one of whom was driving the clerk and Major Wham. The strongbox, which likely sat near Wham's feet, was made of oak and fastened with iron strips with the treasure inside. It weighed at least 250 pounds. In the second wagon, a simple open wagon which was common in the west, rode 12 men, 11 soldiers and their civilian wagon driver. Most of the soldiers were from the 24th infantry, but there were two from the 10th Cavalry. Regardless of rank or unit, they all crammed into the wagon. Shortly after the two wagons rolled out of Fort Grant, they received an unexpected guest. Frankie Campbell, a black woman who was a former cook and was now married to a soldier at Fort Grant, rode up to the convoy with a flourish. While most of the men were dressed in the traditional navy blue uniforms of the army, Frankie wore a bright yellow shirt, a red wine colored riding skirt and a big floppy hat. She and her husband earned extra money as gamblers and since she knew it was payday, she wanted to tag along with the convoy and collect gambling debts from the soldiers at Fort Thomas. On her big bay horse, she trotted out in front of the mule drawn wagons and with that, the convoy was off. The initial hours of the trip were uneventful. Aside from the challenges of the harsh Arizona terrain, the convoy hugged the base of the Penalino Mountains as it headed for the gap between the Santa Teresa Mountains. There were two ranches in the gap, the Norton Ranch and the Holiday Ranch. Frankie often rode ahead of the procession. She passed Barney Norton's ranch and then she arrived at Wiley Holiday's ranch. Wiley wasn't home, but his wife, Harriet invited Frankie to join her and her children for lunch. Frankie accepted the offer and took a welcome break inside the adobe ranch house to wait for the convoy to catch up. It was a hot, dusty ride and the Holiday Ranch was the last decent place to stop before a long stretch of open desert. The ranch was also a good marker for the trip. When travelers reached the ranch, they had nearly completed the trek around the northern end of the mountains. The only major obstacle that remained was the narrow crevice of Bloody Run. After that, the path widened out to the mostly flat Gila river valley as it headed toward the main road to Fort Thomas. Frankie waited at the ranch for the convoy to catch up with so they could ride together for the final 18 miles of the trip. Back along the trail, the wagons arrived at Barney Norton's ranch at noon. The soldiers exchanged the mule teams for animals which had been waiting at the ranch, ate a quick lunch and made a personnel change. Sergeant Benjamin Brown left the escort wagon and climbed up onto the driver's bench of the payroll wagon with Private Hamilton Lewis. Lewis continued to drive, but now his sergeant sat next to him. After a pause of about 20 minutes, the convoy was back on the road. About 25 minutes later, Frankie Campbell and her hosts heard the rumble and clanking of the wagons as they approached the Holiday Ranch. Frankie left the house, climbed onto her horse and rode out in front of the convoy. As they passed the ranch, three miles up the road was the Apache ambush site known as Bloody Run. Despite the name and the site's reputation, the soldiers weren't anticipating trouble. And they certainly weren't aware that a group of 12 to 15 men had been planning a hold up for three days. According to author Larry Ball, the man who has done more research on the Wham Paymaster robbery than anyone else, the robbers started building fortifications in the boulders above the road. Three days before the army convoy rolled up to Bloody Run, they piled brush around the natural rock formations and constructed a barricade around the cedar tree which would act as their primary staging point. They seemed to have known about the route and the timing of the payroll convoy through an insider who had been at Fort Grant. And now, at about 1pm on May 11, about 15 minutes after the convoy passed the Holiday Ranch, the bandits heard and then saw the convoy approach Bloody Run. Stationed high above the narrow road that sloped down a hill in front of them. They watched from hidden positions as Frankie Campbell, the unexpected addition to the group, guided her horse down the path. At about the time she reached the boulder in the middle of the road at the bottom of the hill, the first wagon started down the slope behind her. The robbers watched from behind the primary barricade at the cedar tree. As the first wagon, the one with the money box, stopped at the site of the boulder, Sergeant Benjamin Brown hopped down and investigated the obstacle. Behind him, the second wagon began its descent. The soldiers who had been in the wagon were now walking down the slope and Sergeant Brown instructed them to help him with the boulder. The men laid their rifles on the ground in a clear sign that they had no idea what was about to happen. But as they clustered around the boulder, they talked for a few seconds, and then some of them turned and looked up the wall of rock toward the cedar tree. At that moment, two bandits stepped out from behind the barricade. The first man, who held a pistol in each hand, shouted at the soldiers to get out of the way, and then he opened fire. Then his partner opened fire. Then 10 to 12 more men moved out from behind the barricade and took up firing positions on the ground. Eleven soldiers were as exposed as they could be. Major Wham and three others were vulnerable in the wagon right behind them. The driver of the second wagon was in the best position because he was separated from the group in front of him by something like 50 yards. When the bandits rained down a barrage of gunfire, Frankie Campbell, who was several yards ahead of the column, lost control of her horse. It bucked and reared until it threw her out of the saddle. The horse raced back up the road, and Frankie scrambled into a cluster of rock and brush. A mule in the first wagon team was killed. Two in the second team were killed. The surviving mules went nuts and nearly dragged the wagons over the ledge of rock on the other side of the road and down the hill into the valley below. Private Hamilton Lewis was an easy target. As he sat in the driver's seat of the first wagon, he took a bullet to the side in the opening moments of the barrage. It knocked him out of the wagon. As the mules jumped and thrashed, he clambered over the ledge of rock on the side of the road and down into a ravine. Then he started following Frankie's horse back toward the holiday ranch. In the wagon behind Lewis, the civilian wagon driver did the same thing. He was fortunate to be some distance removed from the immediate gunfire, and he jumped off his wagon and ran from the shootout. In the first wagon, Major Wham's clerk and the other army private leapt over the side and hustled down below the ledge of rock. It only provided limited cover, but it was better than nothing. That left Major Wham alone in the wagon. He tried to stay with his valuable cargo, but the panicked mules made it impossible. As they continued to drag the wagon, he jumped out and hurried behind the rock ledge with the rest of the soldiers. By that time, the soldiers were scattering. Most found cover behind the rock ledge and began to return fire. Corporal Isaiah Mays initially dove under the escort wagon and fired with his pistol until he joined the men behind the ledge on the road. Sergeant Benjamin Brown, who was the most accurate shooter in the group also returned fire with his pistol. He and two privates continued to fire as they retreated back up the road until a bullet thudded into Brown's side and knocked him to the ground.
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As Sergeant Brown fell to the ground, one of the two soldiers with him made it over the rock ledge. Brown and the soldier who was still with him continued to fire at the bandits in the boulders above them. The situation for all the soldiers was becoming desperate. Soon after Sergeant Brown received his wound, he was hit in both arms and those shots finally knocked him out of action. One or both of the soldiers who had been with him helped him over the ledge and out of immediate danger. By that time, all of the soldiers were on the other side of the rock ledge that lined the road. They were essentially lying on the side of a hill which sloped down into the desert and eventually into the dry wash of Cottonwood Creek. The rock ledge was above them and they fired over the top of it at the bandits, but the ledge only provided the barest cover. The soldiers kept up the firefight, but they suffered injuries at a rapid pace. Major Wham, who was unarmed during the mission, grabbed the weapon of a wounded soldier and started to fire at the bandits. The gun battle was nearing the half hour mark and the men of the convoy weren't faring well. Eight of the 11 soldiers who were assigned to guard the payroll were wounded. A couple of the soldiers were already moving down the hill out of the line of fire. But Major Wham didn't want to give up on the mission. He was personally responsible for the payroll and it would be a serious loss to the army and his reputation if the bandits took it. With some of the soldiers retreating down the hill away from the road and Major Wham and a couple others still firing from the rock ledge, the bandits again shouted for the Major to leave the area. It appeared as though the bandits were shooting to scare or wound, not to kill. Multiple times. They ordered the soldiers to get away from the wagons, and after 30 minutes of firing, it finally happened. Most of the soldiers were wounded and helping each other as they moved down the hillside. Major Wham decided they could not save the payroll, and he and the few remaining fighters near the road moved down the hill toward Cottonwood wash. They continued to lob shots toward the wagons, but they eventually stopped when they gathered at a makeshift camp in the dry wash of Cottonwood Creek. When the bandits judged it was safe, a few of them scurried down to the road to take their prize. Others continued to fire at the group of soldiers several hundred yards away to keep them pinned down, while one of the bandits smashed open the payroll strongbox with an ax. There's no clear record of how the robbers transported the heavy load of gold and silver off the road, but they likely loaded it into sacks and strapped the sacks to a mule. About an hour after the bandits forced the soldiers to retreat down into the dry wash, the bandits fled the ambush site. Major Wham and a couple other soldiers trudged across the desert and back up the hill toward the road and verified what they already knew. The payroll was gone. Frankie Campbell, who had stayed hidden during the entire event, crawled out from behind the rocks and brush and started helping the wounded. Major Wham and the most able bodied soldiers rigged the four remaining mules to the payroll wagon and used it for its original purpose. The wagon was originally designed as an ambulance for the civil war, and now it was again. Major Wham loaded six wounded men into the wagon and drove it the 18 miles to Fort Thomas. The commander of Fort Thomas sent a surgeon and a wagon to the ambush site to collect Sergeant Brown and the others, who were too injured to ride in the first wagon. By the end of the day on May 11, 1889, the members of the payroll convoy were at their intended destination of Fort Thomas. The physical journey was over, but the saga of the robbery was far from done. Every member of the convoy survived, but Major Wham, as expected, took the loss of the payroll hard. A U.S. marshal who investigated the robbery wrote in his report, I am satisfied a braver or better defense could, could not have been made under like circumstances, and to have remained longer would have proven a useless sacrifice of life. Without a vestige of hope to succeed. The attackers didn't bother to hide their faces, so the chances of recovering the payroll should have been high. Frankie Campbell and several of the soldiers recognized many of the robbers. Within days, a deputy U.S. marshal and the sheriff of Graham county rounded up 11 men from the town of Pima and nearby areas. The most prominent suspects were Gilbert Webb, the mayor of Pima and a prominent member of the Mormon community, and his son Wilfred. After weeks of gathering evidence, seven of the 11 men were formally charged and stood trial in federal court in Tucson. The trial spanned 33 days, from mid November to mid December, and it captivated the country. The legal battle was intense. There was high drama when the judge was accused of showing bias in favor of the defendants. And despite the testimony of the soldiers, Frankie Campbell and others, the jury found all seven suspects not guilty of robbery. No one was ever charged with any kind of crime relating to an attack on the U.S. army or with offenses related to shooting the soldiers. And lastly, none of the $28,345.10 of payroll money was ever recovered. Though that may not be as mysterious as it might seem, The payroll money was the same gold and silver currency that everyone else used. If the robbers split the money right after the robbery and maybe distributed some of the coins to other people in the area, there would be no way to distinguish the payroll coins from any other coins in circulation. Since the robbers were never convicted, there's a good chance that they spent the money freely rather than it being buried as a hoard somewhere in the desert. Major Joseph Wham was harshly criticized in public for the loss of the payroll, but he successfully lobbied Congress a year and a half after the robbery and he was formally absolved of responsibility. And between the robbery in 1889 and his successful petition to Congress in 1891, he did everything in his power to make sure the soldiers in his command were honored for their fight against the bandits. Seven or possibly eight of the privates in the detail received the Certificate of Merit for which only privates were eligible. It's probably not a coincidence that nearly all of those soldiers were wounded in the engagement. The two non commissioned officers, Corporal Isaiah Mays and Sergeant Benjamin Brown, received the Medal of Honor. Both men received the honor on February 19, 1890, which was a day when multiple Buffalo Soldiers received the Medal of Honor for bravery in action in the American West. In general, Major Wham praised the men of the detail in his official report by saying, I have never witnessed better courage or better fighting than shown by these soldiers on May 11, 1889. Next time on Legends of the Old west. The upcoming schedule will be different than in previous years. Immediately after this series will be an encore presentation of the stories of the Donner Party and the Bloody Benders. And then there will be a three episode miniseries about the Alaska Gold Rush. After that, we'll begin our regular rotation of six episodes per series. Members of our Black Barrel plus program receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show Notes or or on our website blackberrymedia.com memberships are just $5 per month. This episode was researched and written by Mandy Wimmer. Additional research and writing by me, Chris Wimmer. Original music by Rob Valiere. Thanks for listening.
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