The following account by a Tucson mail agent, W.S. Oury, was recorded in The Arizona Star newspaper:

"A True History of the Outbreak of the Noted Apache Chieftain Cochise in the Year 1861"

"In the fall of 1860 the Chiricahua Indians made a raid upon the Sonoita Valley near Fort Buchannan and drove off a lot of stock, and also carried away a boy of some eight or nine years of age, whose mother was the woman of Johnny Ward. About the 1st of February, 1861, Col. Morrison of Fort Buchannan dispatched a company of soldiers commanded by Lieut. Bascom to Apache Pass, with orders to try and get hold of Cochise, and some of his Indians, and keep them as hostages until the boy was returned."

"Cochise, who had probably seen the march of the company all day, came down the canyon accompanied by three bucks, a squaw, and a boy. He walked straight into Lieut. Bascom's tent, in which were the Lieut., Johnny Ward and the interpreter Antonio, before the tent however he was recognized by Ward, who remarked to the Lieut., "there comes Cochise." Cochise sat down in the tent, and entered into conversation with the Lieut. through the interpreter, and Ward went out and letting the soldiers know that it was Cochise who was in the tent with the officer, they at once surrounded without noise the tent, and as soon as the Lieut. was aware that everything was ready he told the interpreter to tell Cochise that he would hold him and his people as hostages until Ward's boy was delivered; the words were scarcely out of Anotonio's mouth when Cochise sprang like a tiger, at the same time drawing his sheath knife with which he made a rent in the tent, and his head following the stroke of the knife he landed outside amongst the astonished soldiers; who being recruits with no Indian experience, let him escape in the flurry, and although they fired perhaps 50 or more shots after him, he escaped unhurt; another of the bucks leaped through the hole in the tent, but a different fate befell him, a soldier knocked him down with the barrel of his musket and another pinned him through the body to the ground with a bayonet, the rest seeing the situation remained quietly in the tent and were held as prisoners."

The Arizona Star, June 28, 1877