Part of our in-depth series exploring the forts of Comancheria
Story 1
5 August 1878; Alamogordo, New Mexico: Lt. Col. Nathan A.M. Dudley ordered Capt. Henry Carroll to round up renegade Indians and bring them to the Mescalero Reservation. With Lt. Henry H. Wright, Carroll took 52 men of Companies F and H, 9th Cavalry, and 19 Navajo scouts and headed for the Guadalupe Mountains. Failing to find any Indians, he moved northwest to the Sacramento Mountains.
At the mouth of Dog Canyon, Carroll's men flushed out a small party of Apaches, and in a sharp skirmish they killed three men and captured 22 horses. Up the canyon they found more Indians, who fired at them and rolled rocks down from cliffs nearly 800 feet high. The troopers climbed up the walls in almost intolerable heat, several men suffering heatstroke. They reached the ledge at nightfall, only to find that the Indians had scattered.
In addition to the three warriors killed, the Apaches suffered two wounded and one captured. One corporal from Company H was killed accidentally.
Story 2
17 April 1880; Alamogordo, New Mexico: The day after the Mescalero Agency fight the Apache warriors who fled were found in Dog Canyon by Maj. Albert P. Morrow's battalion of Company L, 6th Cavalry, D and L, 9th Cavalry, and Indian scouts. Morrow killed 3 of them and captured 20 horses.