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Show WALCOTT-MCNALLY INCIDENT lack of information concerning this territory. The seemingly insignificant deaths of Walcott and McNally provide a classic example of what the military faced when serving justice in an unknown and unforgiving land— a lesson repeated numerous times. Indeed, that July, even as the military attempted to apprehend one of the killers and retrieve the dead miners’ bodies, the Soldier Crossing incident occurred. In this skirmish, Utes fought to a standstill an expedition of 175 men led by Captain Henry P. Perrine, commander of F Troop, Sixth Cavalry, from Fort Lewis, Colorado. The military lost two men. The captain’s drubbing occurred because he lacked knowledge of terrain, while his enemies successfully made their way toward Navajo Mountain.9 So the Walcott-McNally incident represented a number of such brushes in the “land of death,” furnishing a lesson that the military and others had to learn and relearn until their knowledge of the land became comparable to that of their foes. First news of the Walcott-McNally murders filtered into the agency via word of mouth. Riordan sent a Navajo scout named Pete to investigate. In the meantime, Henry L. Mitchell, a well-known firebrand living in Riverside (now Aneth), Utah, sent to the agent a copy of a letter that he had mailed to a friend of Walcott’s. Mitchell reported two things. First, since February 8, Walcott and McNally had lost contact with fellow prospectors after splitting with a larger group to follow rumors of rich copper deposits. A month later, the other miners arrived on the San Juan River but knew nothing about their companions. Mitchell, who had lost a son and an acquaintance to Ute and Paiute depredations while prospecting in Monument Valley four years earlier, suspected the worst. Suggesting that “it is a common thing for the Navajos to kill white men that are travelling through the country,” Mitchell felt the time had come to teach the Indians a lesson they would not forget. That brought him to his second point. Mitchell had recently skirmished with a number of Navajos, killing one of them and “hop[ing] others [were] wounded or killed.” This led to the stationing of Perrine’s Fort Lewis troops in the vicinity of Mitchell’s ranch in order to keep the lid on such problems—problems that would eventually contribute to the fight at Soldier Crossing.10 Concern grew. Riordan wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that he himself had had a brush with the rumored perpetrators, who cornered him and another white man. The Navajos debated for several hours before letting the two go. As far as the agent was concerned, “this band of cut throats in that region” needed to be punished, “and if the party sent out is not strong enough to bring them in, I propose to send the entire 9 See McPherson and Hurst, “The Fight at Soldier Crossing.” Henry L. Mitchell to Fred Fickey Jr., April 16, 1884, Letters Received—Adjutant General’s Office, 1881–1889, Record Group 94, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Letters Received— AGO). For more on Mitchell, see Robert S. McPherson, “Navajos, Mormons, and Henry L. Mitchell,” Utah Historical Quarterly 55 (Winter 1987): 50–65. 10 253 |
