Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts

General George Crook planned and organized the principal Apache campaign in Arizona, and General Nelson Miles took credit for its successful conclusion on the 1800s, but the men who really won it were rugged frontiersmen such as Al Sieber, the renowned Chief of Scouts. Crook relied on Sieber to lead Apache scouts against renegade Apaches, who were adept at hiding and raiding from within their native terrain. In this carefully researched biography, Dan L. Thrapp gives extensive evidence for Sieber’s expertise, noting that the expeditions he accompanied were highly successful whereas those from which he was absent met with few triumphs. Perhaps the greatest tribute to his abilities was paid by a San Carlos Apache who, no matter how miserable life might become, because, he said, Sieber would find him even if he left no tracks.

Dan Thrapp, who was a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, was a foreign correspondent for the United Press in Argentina, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom and, for a number of years, an editor for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote extensively on the West. He books include Victorio and the Mimbres Apaches, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Donald E. Worcester, (1915-2003) was a native of Tempe, Arizona and Professor of History in Texas Christian University. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a student of Herbert E. Bolton. He wrote extensively on the Spaniards of the New World, as well as Latin American and North American civilization.