The Battle at Apache Pass
1952 film by George Sherman
The Battle at Apache Pass is a 1952 American Western film directed by George Sherman and starring John Lund, Jeff Chandler and Susan Cabot.
The film is a highly fictionalized account combining the events of the Bascom affair of 1861 and the Battle of Apache Pass of 1862.
Plot
In 1862 in New Mexico Territory, good relations between Fort Buchanan's commanding officer, Maj. Colton and Chiricahua Apache Indian chief Cochise are threatened by the arrival of government agent Neil Baylor and his dishonest scout Mescal Jack.
In breach of existing treaties, Baylor plans to resettle the Apaches to the San Carlos Reservation, and when Geronimo, the chief of the rival Mogollon Apaches, attacks the Tucson stagecoach and kills women and children, Baylor threatens to also transport the Chiricahuas to San Carlos. When confronted by Colton and Baylor, Cochise calls a council of Apache elders and they vote to banish Geronimo, who must also surrender one of his stagecoach captives, schoolteacher Mary Kearny. After assuring his pregnant wife Nona that his interest in the Mary is not romantic, Cochise brings Mary to Fort Buchanan and entrusts her to Maj. Colton, counseling him that she would be a fine wife.
Baylor and Jack plot with Geronimo to frame Cochise for Geronimo's attack on a ranch. During Colton's inquiry into the attack, his subordinate Lt.
“The Battle at Apache Pass” enters the record as 1952 film by George Sherman. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Apache and Pass can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1026615. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1861 and 1862.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Battle at Apache Pass” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.