The Battle of Cibecue Creek was an engagement of the Apache Wars, fought in August 1881 between the United States and White Mountain Apaches in Arizona, at Cibecue Creek on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. After an army expedition of scouts and soldiers arrested a prominent medicine man, they were taking the prisoner back to the fort when ambushed by hostile Apaches. During the conflict, soldiers killed the wounded medicine man, and most of the twenty-three Apache scouts mutinied, in the largest such action in United States history. The soldiers retreated to Fort Apache and on the following day, the Apache mounted a counterattack. The events sparked general unrest and led Apache warriors to leave the reservation and join Geronimo.