BOLD LEADERSHIP, GOOD HORSES
When Captain Reuben F. Bernard (pictured) set out after Cochise following the massacre at Dragoon Springs, he was 35 years old and considered one of the Army’s most effective small-unit commanders and Indian fighters.
Bernard enlisted in the 1st Dragoons on Feb. 19, 1855, and within five months of arriving at his post skirmished with two Apache bands—the first of a reported 103 fights historian Don Russell has enumerated during the officer’s quarter-century in the field. He saw frequent
