The final outbreak of Geronimo and his handful of Apache followers in 1885-1886 is a frontier saga that has inspired a voluminous literature. Except for Dan Thrapp’s recent books, however, this is largely the work of military participants or their friends whose motives scarcely favored historical detachment. The Apache wars, moreover, almost defy orderly, systematic exposition, and even professional historians have seldom succeeded in presenting them credibly and understandably.
The strength of Faulk’s slim volume is that it sets forth a readable, coherent, and generally well-balanced account of the Geronimo outbreak and the operations of Generals Crook and Miles that finally brought about his surrender and exile to Florida. But there are weaknesses too. Beyond the standard published works, Faulk has made substantial use only of the key Gate-wood Collection at the Arizona Pioneers Historical Society and one suspects that he has not even exhausted its resources. Documentation is disappointingly sparse and sometimes of questionable authority. This is a major flaw in a work rich in sweeping generalizations and emphatic judgments that should rest on firmer foundations.
The three central characters of the story offer appealing possibilities for characterization and assessment. Faulk is not hesitant in meeting the challenge. He views Crook with justifiable sympathy but perhaps not so critically as the evidence may warrant, and Geronimo emerges much more the noble red man than is conventional. Faulk makes General Miles the villain of the plot, unredeemed by any virtue, and pursues him with unremitting tenacity (and unsatisfactory documentation). Miles is a vulnerable figure, to be sure, and he unblushingly seized a lot of credit that belonged to others; but his role in ending the outbreak was not devoid of achievement.
Faulk possesses obvious powers of synthesis and a talent for readable prose. He has written an interesting and useful work. One regrets that he did not invest the time, care, and reflection that would have made it definitive.
