The conflict between the Chiricahua Apache and the United States government lasted for approximately twenty-five years, from the early 1860s to the final surrender of 1886.

To understand the scale of what Lozen and the resistance fighters were part of, it is necessary to understand the full arc of this conflict and what it represented.

The Apache Wars were not a single campaign but a sustained, multi-phase conflict involving multiple Apache bands, multiple military commands, multiple political administrations, and multiple shifts in strategy and policy on both sides.

The Army’s approach to the Apache changed several times over the course of the conflict — from initial campaigns of extermination to attempts at negotiated reservation settlement, from attempts to use Apache scouts against Apache resisters to a final policy of total deportation.