How long did The Yuma War go on for?
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The Yuma War was the name given to a series of United States military operations conducted in southern California and what is today southwestern Arizona from 1850 to 1853. The Yumans were the primary opponent of the United States Army, though engagements were fought between the Americans and other native groups in the region. Conflict generally took the form of guerrilla warfare, and, over the course of three years, the army engaged in pursuing unfriendly natives, protecting American settlers crossing the Colorado River and preventing conflict between the native tribes. A peace treaty in summer of 1853 was signed, ending hostilities between the Yuma and the United States, but it sparked a short war between the Yuma and the Cocopah. During the conflict, the historic Fort Yuma was constructed and became an important outpost on the frontier.
Yuma War
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Immediately after the Mexican–American War in 1848, the U.S. Army built Fort Yuma here to protect travelers from Indians raiding the area. It was the center point of conflict in the Yuma War of 1850–53. From 1864–1890, the fort and nearby facilities was the main army base to support the US Army's efforts to control the Indians throughout the greater southwest.
Yuma Crossing
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Unbeknown to Heintzelman, the Yuma were preparing for a siege of Fort Yuma. In October 1851, a letter arrived at San Diego from Lieutenant Sweeny which asked that Heintzelman immediately send aid to the fort. Provisions were low, scurvy had broken out and dozens of Yuman warriors had surrounded the post. Sweeny expected an attack but Hentzelman's only response was a letter of his own stating that there was no reason to believe the Yuma were hostile. But when news arrived that four of Sweeny's command had been killed by around 800 Yumans, Heintzelman sent sixteen men under Captain Delozier Davidson with a train of mules and wagons. The squad arrived at the fort on December 6 but abandoned it soon after for a new camp six miles to the south near Pilot Knob.
Yuma War
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It was still only 10.30 a.m., and the column had already been in action twice. Duchesne now halted his men to allow them to regroup, eat an early lunch and replenish their ammunition. The French buried their dead and the gunboat "Éclair", which had finally linked up with the column, took the wounded on board and ferried them up to Tuyen Quang. An hour later the march resumed. At 3.30 p.m. the column entered the Yu Oc defile, whose exit towards Tuyen Quang was blocked by two fortlets and by a series of trenches. Abattis nearly 300 metres deep covered the path. A force coming from Tuyen Quang could not have crossed this pass. Around 7 p.m. the advance guard approached the citadel. Guessing that the sentries in the besieged fortress would be nervous, the buglers played the first few bars of "Le Boudin", the famous Legion refrain, to which the troops in Tuyên Quang replied. A scouting party coming from the fortress carried lanterns, to facilitate the crossing of the last stream.
Battle of Yu Oc
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In November 1850, United States Army Captain Samuel P. Heintzelman met with Yuman leaders at the Salton Sea to negotiate a peace. Apparently successful, the captain returned to Vallecitos where he began preparing for his new orders which were to establish a post at Yuma Crossing to protect the area from outlaws and hostile natives. The column, thinned by desertions of soldiers to the goldfields, left San Diego on October 3, 1850 with about 100 men of the 2nd Infantry while a fourth company marched to build a post with a warehouse at Vallecitos, as a supply depot for the Yuma post. The expedition reached Yuma Crossing on November 27, and began the construction of Camp Yuma, then just a camp of tents, a hospital and an orchard. American forces included ninety-two enlisted men, two officers and a medical officer for the hospital. Heintzelman's command was supplied via steamship from California, through the California Gulf and up the Colorado to the fort. This was difficult however due to the Colorado's strong current and by the time the steamships could make it all the way around Baja California, they had to manage the Colorado which took time. Thus the Californians had to rely on supplies sent overland, it was difficult as well but proved to be successful.
Yuma War
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As result of the peace, the Cocopah cut their alliance with the Yuma and conflict broke out in May 1853. First the Cocopahs besieged three Yuman villages, killing Chief Macedon, four other warriors and ten women and children. Twelve prisoners were taken and a herd of Yuman horses captured. Cocopahs then massacred Chief Jose Maria's camp, killing three men and twenty-three women and children. Heintzelman noted that this massacre was an "unprovoked aggression on part of the Cocopah". A burial detail was formed and sent to the scene of the attack, within Mexican territory and present day Arizona. The bodies were burned according to American tradition and then the detail returned to the fort. Days later, Chief Maria arrived at Fort Yuma and informed Heintzelman that the high Cocopah chief had released some Yuman women and children but the majority were still in captivity. Maria also told the captain that the Cocopah were retreating into the mountains and that the Yuma were preparing their own raid in retaliation.
Yuma War
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When conflict with the Cocopah ceased the Americans at Fort Yuma received a new objective which was to prevent further bloodshed between the American tribes. Chief Irataba went to Fort Yuma where he asked the Americans to deliver a sort of contract to the four other Mohave war chiefs. The four braves were Kapetame, Asikahota, Tapaikuneche and Hatsurama, and with Irataba they were known as the "Five Brave Men". All ranked equally and all received five letters from the American army, which, if accepted, they would no longer attack other Americans tribes or American settlers and they would not prevent the army from building forts and roads on their land. If the stipulations were not met the United States would go to war against the Mohave. With some convincing from Aratave, the four other chiefs eventually agreed to be peaceful and the Yuma War came to an end.
Yuma War
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Heintzelman then returned to San Diego where on February 8, 1852, he set out on the Yuma Expedition, to reinforce Fort Yuma. With 160 infantry and cavalry, Heintzelman arrived at the fort in March, only to find it nearly destroyed. All of the captain's personal belongings left at the post were missing or destroyed, the fruit orchards were withered and his raft sunk. Heintzelman was very upset and proclaimed in his book that Captain Davidson was a coward for abandoning the fort. Captain George Stoneman, who served with distinction in the American Civil War, commanded the American cavalry during this march. In the spring and summer of 1852, United States Army operations against the Yuma were halted. Terrible sand and rain storms, combined with the heat, prevented Heintzelman's garrison from doing anything other than trying to cope with the weather. Relations between the Cahuilla and the Cupeno broke down in 1852 and the two tribes went to war.
In February 1852, the schooner "Sierra Nevada", Captain Alfred H. Wilcox, made her way sixty miles up the Colorado. There the supply contractors George Alonzo Johnson and his partner Benjamin M. Hartshorne constructed two fifty-foot flatboats to be used for transporting supplies. When the boats were finished they were loaded with provisions and sent north to the fort. One of the boats was swamped in the river and lost its entire cargo but it was refilled and eventually reached Yuma Crossing. The other boat was not as successful and had to offload its goods at Ogden's Landing far south of the fort. After this event, Heintzelman accepted that he would have to rely on supplies from overland. Captain Edward H. Fitzgerald was ordered to escort a supply convoy to the fort with forty dragoons at his disposal. At camp in the desert, eighteen miles from Fort Yuma, Fitzgerald's herd of mules and horses was attacked. Defending the animals were eight soldiers and one civilian who fought the Yumas for eighteen hours. In the end all but one of the soldiers were killed while the Yumans suffered four dead. Captain Fitzgerald retreated to the fort, leaving his casualties behind, where he informed the garrison of his defeat. Captain Heintzelman organized a burial detail of sixty men and when they arrived at the San Luis battlefield, the bodies of the slain were found stripped and bady mutilated by buzzards. Fitzgerald's defeat angered Heintzelman much, he requested from his superiors permission to attack the Yumas on the Arizona side of the river but it was denied. According to Heintzelman, the Yumas grew confident after the Battle of San Luis. In August, the schooner "Capacity" arrived off the Colorado's mouth and by September the ship was anchored where the "Sierra Nevada" once was. There they began construction of a sixty-five by sixteen foot paddle steamer named "Uncle Sam". "Uncle Sam" was launched by November and on December 3, it arrived at Fort Yuma and delivered thirty-two tons of goods. The American garrison celebrated the steamer's arrival, its skipper, Captain James Turnbull took Heintzelman on a cruise of the Gila and Colorado before he had to steam back down to the California Gulf.
Yuma War
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During the construction of the camp, there was no fighting between the Yuma and the United States army due to the peace Heintzelman had concluded, but peace would not last long. Heintzelman occupied his time with mapping the area, noting the depths of the Colorado, and recording temperatures. The hottest it got according to Heintzelman was 121 degrees Fahrenheit. Ultimately the problem of maintaining a post, surrounded by two vast deserts became untolerable so the Captain Heintzelman was ordered to withdraw his company in July 1851 for Santa Ysabel and then to San Diego. He left ten men and Lieutenant Thomas William Sweeny to guard the ferry. Their orders were to continue protecting the area from hostiles and to prevent immigrants from settling on Yuman soil. A day before departing, Heintzelman gathered some Yuman chiefs together where he informed them of the situation.
Yuma War
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That move, however, did not presage her early participation in the war which had broken out in Korea just two weeks earlier for, after visits to Sasebo in Japan and to Subic Bay in the Philippines, she returned to Guam on 2 August 1950 and resumed duty in the Pacific Trust Territories for another year. During that 12-month period, she visited Japanese ports and, no doubt, performed missions in distant support for the United Nations forces fighting in Korea. She also made several voyages to Pearl Harbor and operated at various islands—notably Kwajalein, Eniwetok, and Guam in the Trust Territories. In September 1951, she returned to Japan, arriving at Sasebo on 17 September 1951. With that arrival, "Yuma" began her seven months of duty in the combat zone. She made numerous voyages between Japanese ports and Wonsan, Korea, in support of the troops and ships fighting in and around Korea. On 10 October 1951, with , she towed the British Royal Navy hospital ship which had lost a propeller, on a westward passage through the crowded and narrow Shimonoseki Straits. This was the only hospital ship supporting UN Forces at that time.
USS Yuma (AT-94)