The Chiricahua and other Apache bands were also attracted though, and they considered the Santa Rita Mountains to be sacred ground, and they defended it accordingly by raiding and ambushing settlers.

As the American Civil War began, United States Army troops were withdrawn from the frontier of Arizona to fight the Confederates in the South.

[1] Writer and explorer John Ross Browne visited the area in early 1864, and he described the situation in his book "Adventures in the Apache Country."

After hearing the massacre, the boys turned around and rushed back to Mowry where a four-man posse was formed and sent to the canyon within minutes but by that time it was already to late and the Apaches had escaped.

The doctor fell to the ground, and instead of being hung from a tree and burned alive, which was a usual Apache method of torture, Titus shot himself in the head with his revolver.