Back

Battle of Cieneguilla

Battle of Cieneguilla
Part of the Jicarilla War, Apache Wars, Ute Wars

Metal points from the Cieneguilla Battle Site. [1]
DateMarch 30, 1854
Location
Result Apache/Ute victory [2]
Belligerents
Apache
Ute
United States United States
Commanders and leaders
Flechas Rayada[3] John W. Davidson
Strength
200 to 300 warriors [4] 60 cavalry[5]
Casualties and losses
~50 killed[4] 22 killed
36 wounded[6]

The Battle of Cieneguilla (pronounced sienna-GEE-ya; English: small swamp) was an engagement of the Jicarilla War involving a group of Jicarilla Apaches, possibly their Ute allies, and the American 1st Cavalry Regiment on March 30, 1854 [7] near what is now Pilar, New Mexico. The Santa Fe Weekly Gazette reported that the action "was one of the severest battles that ever took place between American troops and Red Indians."[8] It was one of the first significant battles between American and Apache forces and was also part of the Ute Wars, in which Ute warriors attempted to resist Westward expansion in the Four Corners region.

  1. ^ Johnson, Adams, Hawk and Miller, Final Report on the Battle of Cieneguilla: A Jicarilla Apache Victory Over the U.A. Dragoons March 30, 1854, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southwest Region, June 2009, Report No. 20, cover illustration
  2. ^ Utley, Robert M. (1981). Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-9550-2. Cooke was already on the march. He heard of Davidson's defeat by messenger on the morning of March 31...
  3. ^ On April 7 General Garland sent word to Cooke that the leader of the Jicarillas who had attacked Lieutenant Davidson's command, Flechas Rayada, had offered to return all the horses and arms captured in that fight if peace could be made. Garland to Cooke, April 7, 1854, LS, DNM, v. 9, pp. 158-159, FORT UNION Historic Resource Study: CHAPTER THREE: MILITARY OPERATIONS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, note 55
  4. ^ a b Gorenfeld< Will, The Battle of Cieneguilla, Wild West magazine, Feb., 2008
  5. ^ Bennett, James A., Forts & Forays: A dragoon in New Mexico, 1850-1856, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1996 p 53
  6. ^ Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue pg. 144; Messervy to Manypenny, April 29, 1854, LR, N-269-1854
  7. ^ Rajtar, Steve, Indian War Sites: A Guidebook to Battlefields, Monuments, and Memorials, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson , North Carolina, 1999
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Albuquerque was invoked but never defined (see the help page).