AKA George Nicholas Bascom

Born: c. 1837
Birthplace: Owingsville, KY
Died: 21-Feb-1862
Location of death: Valverde, NM
Cause of death: War
Remains: Buried, Santa Fe National Cemetery, Santa Fe, NM

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Military

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Launched Cochise on the warpath

Military service: US Army (1854-62, to Captain)

George Bascom was an American soldier who graduated near the bottom of his class at the US Military Academy, and was stationed in the wild west, at Arizona's Fort Buchanan. As a 24-year-old 2nd Lieutenant in 1861, he was sent with a detachment of 54 troopers to investigate the kidnapping of a rancher's step-son. He had Cochise and other Chiricahua Apache arrested, interrogated, and threatened, and took hostages from among Cochise's relatives, though the evidence suggests that another band of Indians, the Coyotero, were behind the raid. Called "the Bascom affair", this blunder inspired Cochise to take up arms and make bloody war on the whites for more than a decade. Bascom was promoted to Captain and killed in the American Civil War, barely a year after his historic confrontation with Cochise.

    University: US Military Academy, West Point (1858)

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