January 17, 1866; Deming, New Mexico: From April 1865 to July 1866, Company G, First Battalion of California Veteran Infantry, had the bad luck to be assigned to Fort Cummings, one of the most dangerous posts in New Mexico Territory. It was even worse luck for the six men who were out cutting wood on 17 January. The wood detail, led by Sgt. Louis Weber, was camped at Oak Grove, in Cooke's Range, about four and a half miles northwest of Fort Cummings. Four of the privates, Thomas Daley, Charles Devine, Louis Hunter, and Thomas Ronan, were close friends. They had enlisted together in Company G, Fifth California Infantry, in October 1861, had served together for four years, and had all volunteered for additional duty with the First Battalion.
On 16 January, Weber left the camp to get supplies at the fort. The next morning, about forty Chiricahuas attacked the wood camp, almost immediately killing Daley, Devine, Hunter, and Ronan. The four friends who had been together for so long now died together at the hands of Apaches.
Nathaniel B. Goldsberry was hit next, taking an arrow in the hip, and he went down. The Indians would have killed him but for John Matthews, who had once tried to desert the army but now rose to the occasion. Matthews grabbed his weapon and fought like a demon, keeping the Apaches back and pulling Goldsberry to safety. The forty warriors should have been able to overwhelm the lone soldier, but perhaps they admired Matthews's courage and let him go.
The two men walked back to Fort Cummings with word of the attack, and a relief party hurried to the scene, but the Indians were gone. Evidence indicated that one Indian had been killed and at least one other wounded. The four dead privates had been stripped naked and mutilated. A general order issued at Fort Cummings the same day said: "The troops of this post will be paraded tomorrow at 8 p.m. to attend upon the last sad rites of Privates Daley, Devine, Hunter, and Ronan." The four friends were buried together in a single grave on Cemetery Hill, about half a mile southeast of the fort. In 1892 the bodies of all soldiers buried on the hill were exhumed and reburied at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
