Due to corruption and unhealthy conditions at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona, Nock-ay-det-klinne began holding ceremonies known as ghost dances at the village of Cibecue.

Cruse replied, "he entirely distrusted his scouts in event of the rising of the White Mountains [Apache] and believed all or nearly all would go with the enemy and recommended their discharge."

On August 13, Carr telegraphed the departmental headquarters: It is the general impression here that the men of the Indian scout company will go with their friends if they break out.

Carr decided to take his cavalry and Cruse's scouts to the Cibecue and leave the infantry at Fort Apache.

John Byrnes, a Dublin-born Irishman assigned to Company A, knew of the respect the Apache scouts had for Nock-ay-det-klinne and was alarmed.

About 10:00 am the next day, Carr left Fort Apache with five officers, 79 enlisted soldiers from Troops D and E, 6th Cavalry, and 23 scouts from Company A, to make the arrest.

Sixty soldiers, mostly of Company D, 12th Infantry, and several civilians remained at Fort Apache, with Major Cochran in command of the post.

Stanton was ordered out on a scout under Colonel Eugene A. Carr, directed to go to Cibecue Creek and arrest the medicine man.

The command arrested the Indian, then camped for the night on Cibecue Creek, despite the general excitement the operation had aroused among Apache followers of the medicine man.

This secondary trail ran diagonally up the valley, across high, open ground, through a grassy slope that stretched from the hills to the timber along the Cibecue.

Carr later described the creek as "a small mountain stream, across which you can jump in many places, and step in some; and the brushy bottom does not average one hundred yards in width.

When Carr reached the fork, he realized Cruse had taken the longer route, having learned the previous night from Mose that Nock-ay-det-klinne lived two or three miles above the Verde Crossing.

Several officers, who studied the situation, later agreed with Byrnes that the scouts had been trying to lead the force into an ambush that the White Mountain Apaches had set up along the creek bottom.

Later, when Carr's officers and key civilians thought back on the events, they believed Sanchez was counting the soldiers when he rode down their column.

They said the grass was better on this side and there were cornfields across the creek; the scouts did not want the command's horses and mules to eat the Apaches' corn.

He made [an] excuse for not coming before, that he had a patient to attend, and the Indians would have blamed him if he had left the sick man; but said he had cured him, and he had gone home this morning and he, Nock-ay-det-klinne, was now ready to go with me.

I then ordered a guard detailed [one noncommissioned officer and eight men]; told him who was in charge of that, Sergeant [John E] McDonald, Troop E, 6th Cavalry; that if he tried to escape, he would be killed.

During this delay of about 10 minutes, Carr and the front half of his command followed the trail through its narrow part, then disappeared around a sharp turn and entered the heavy growth of cottonwood trees, high willows, and underbrush in the creek bottom.

About when Carr turned toward the creek, a scout named Sergeant Dead Shot came up to him and complained that the guard would not let Nock-ay-det-klinne's friends travel with him.

He turned south on an old trail that went around the growth, past an old ranch, and down the east side of the creek to the campsite he observed earlier.

The attacking Apaches mostly kept their distance so the battle was fought mainly at rifle range, but when the scouts turned against the soldiers, a brief close-range engagement occurred.

The scouts then repulsed the Apaches with their rifles, rescuing the cavalry, before giving them support as they finally launched a counter-attack that killed many of the Indians.

Later, Carr said, "I wrote in my own book the position and age of the body as well as I could see by the moonlight to write and placed it on the breast of each one, showing what his name was and when he was killed and that he was buried on the 30th day of August by our command."

The recovery of this Indian, if left in the hands of his friends, would have given him a commanding influence over these superstitious people, which would have resulted in endless war.

Burns, fearing failure, took an ax and crushed the forehead of the deluded fanatic, and from this time forward, every person murdered by these Apaches was treated in a similar manner.The force left the battle site about 11:00 pm.

About 15 years later, Lieutenant Carter wrote, That the loss was no more was due in a great measure to the coolness and courage of General Carr.

Having effected the object of the march – the arrest of a notorious and mischief-making medicine man, – without difficulty, and with no resistance on the part of his people, the troops had set about making camp for the night, when suddenly they were fired upon, not alone by the friends of the medicine man, but by their own allies, the Indian scouts, who had hitherto been loyalty itself.

The confusion and dismay, which such an attack at such a time, necessarily caused might well have resulted in the annihilation of the entire force, and constituted a situation from which nothing but the most consummate skill and bravery could pluck safety.The battle ended with a strategic Apache victory, despite their inability to rescue their leader, due to the soldiers' retreat.

When brave boys opened fire on them; Then E Troop charged most gallantly Across the bottom low and deep; Those murderers ran – they fairly flew – To "foot hills."

Gallant Carter and Cruse – brave men – And MeCreery, God bless him, Did surgeon's duty, yes more too; Handled his carbine steadily.