An account of the surrender of Geronimo by Lt. Gatewood:

"...By squads the hostiles came in, unsaddled and turned out their ponies. Among the last was Geronimo. He laid his rifle down twenty feet away and came and shook hands, said he was glad to see me again, and remarked my apparent bad health. He announced that the whole party was there to listen to General Miles' message."

"It took but a minute to say,"Surrender, and you will be sent with your families to Florida, there to await the decision of the President as to your final disposition. Accept these terms or fight it out to the bitter end."

"For an hour or two Geronimo narrated at length their many troubles-- the frauds and thievery perpetrated by the Indian agents and the many injustices done them generally by the Whites. He announced that they were willing to cede all of the Southwest except their Reservation, but that to expect them to give up everything, and to a nation of intruders, was too much; they would move back on the little land they needed, or they would fight until the last one of them was dead. 'Take us to the Reservation-- or FIGHT!' was his ultimatum as he looked me in the eye."

"I couldn't take him to the Reservation; I couldn't fight; neither could I run, nor yet feel comfortable."

"[I told them] that the rest of their people on the Reservation, between three and four hundred, were being removed to Florida; and therefore if they went back to the Reservation it would mean living among their enemies, the other Apaches. This piece of news was an unexpected blow."

"Geronimo said, 'We want your advice. Consider yourself not a White Man but one of us; remember all that has been said today and tell us what we should do. As earnestly and emphatically as possible I replied, 'Trust General Miles and surrender to him.'

"Geronimo wanted me to repeat at length my description of General Miles. When I had done so he state that their whole party, twenty-four men, fourteen women and children, would go and meet the General and surrender to him."

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting and Dinner of the Order of Indian Wars of the United States, 1929