It took more than 5,000 U.S. Army Cavalry soldiers, led by the two experienced Army generals, in order to subdue no more than 70 (only 38 by the end of the campaign in northern Mexico) Chiricahua Apache who fled the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation and raided parts of the surrounding Arizona Territory and adjacent Sonora state in Mexico for more than a year.

Geronimo made a name for himself shortly after, when he burned the Mexican town of Arispe in retribution, with the support of the great Apache chief Mangas Coloradas.

After Mangas Coloradas was captured and executed by the US Army in 1863, Geronimo took part in his son-in-law Cochise's war of vengeance against the American settlers and miners in Arizona and New Mexico (1863-1872).

[1] However, in 1875, all the Apache tribes were resettled in a much smaller single reservation, San Carlos, nicknamed "Hell's Forty Acres", on unproductive land in the rocky desert.

These measures gave immediate results – Crook's army comprising only 42 US cavalrymen and 193 Apache scouts crossed into Mexico in May 1883 and successfully found Geronimo's band in the Siera Madre mountains.

On April 1, 1886, Crook was relieved of his command and replaced with general Nelson Miles, who defeated the Indians in the Nez Perce War (1877).

[1] Miles' first action was to relocate all the Apaches (including Crook military scouts) to Florida, in order to deprive Geronimo from his source of manpower and support in Arizona.

However, all this effort gave no results, as Apache raiders successfully applied hit-and-run tactics over the vast territories – they attacked a ranch in Arizona, then the town of Nogales a few days later, without any loses on their side.