APACHE AMBUSH AT DRAGOON SPRINGS
The last moments of Colonel John Stone’s life were a terrifying blur punctuated by gunfire and bloodcurdling screams as Apache arrows, lances and bullets splintered the frame of the careening mail coach in which he was riding. The driver and three of the four U.S. infantrymen assigned to guard the coach were killed in the initial volley from warriors concealed behind brush in a gully paralleling the stage road.
The coach veered off the road as Stone and the surviving soldier fired back at their attackers. Intercepting the runaway stage, mounted warriors ultimately slew the colonel and the trooper. The furious action had lasted mere minutes, the Americans managing to fire no more than a half-dozen shots before the Apaches closed in for the kill.
After dragging the six lifeless bodies from the blood-spattered coach, the raiding party stripped the dead of their clothing and valuables, including a gold bar belonging to Stone, and left the naked, mutilated corpses in the open alongside the trail. As
