The Second Battle of Adobe Walls was fought on June 27, 1874, between
Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
forces and a group of 28 Texan
bison
Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised.
Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...
hunters defending the settlement of
Adobe Walls, in what is now
Hutchinson County, Texas
Hutchinson County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 20,617. Its county seat is Stinnett. The county was created in 1876, but not organized until 1901. It is named for Andrew Hutchinson, an early ...
. "Adobe Walls was scarcely more than a lone island in the vast sea of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
, a solitary refuge uncharted and practically unknown."
[
]
Background
Adobe Walls settlement
Adobe Walls was the name of a trading post in the Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a square-shaped area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. It is adjacent to ...
, just north of the Canadian River
The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .[adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...]
fort was built there to house the post, but it was blown up by traders three years later after repeated Indian attacks. In 1864 the ruins were the site of one of the largest battles ever to take place on the Great Plains. Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson
Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and n ...
led 335 soldiers from New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
and 72 Ute
Ute or UTE may refer to:
* Ute (band), an Australian jazz group
* Ute (given name)
* ''Ute'' (sponge), a sponge genus
* Ute (vehicle), an Australian and New Zealand term for certain utility vehicles
* Ute, Iowa, a city in Monona County along ...
and Jicarilla
Jicarilla Apache (, Jicarilla language: Jicarilla Dindéi), one of several loosely organized autonomous bands of the Eastern Apache, refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athaba ...
Apache Scouts
The Apache Scouts were part of the United States Army Indian Scouts. Most of their service was during the Apache Wars, between 1849 and 1886, though the last scout retired in 1947. The Apache scouts were the eyes and ears of the United States mil ...
against a force of more than 1,000 Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
, Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and eve ...
and Plains Apache
The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan group who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are centered in Southwestern Oklahoma and Northern Texas an ...
. The Indians forced Carson to retreat, though he was acclaimed as a hero for successfully striking a blow against the Indians and for leading his men out of the trap with minimal casualties. This is known as the First Battle of Adobe Walls
The First Battle of Adobe Walls was a battle between the United States Army and American Indians. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache (Kiowa Apache) tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to at ...
.
After the "enormous slaughter" of the buffalo in the north during 1872 and 1873, the hunters moved south and west "into the good buffalo country, somewhere on the Canadian . . . in hostile Indian country".[Dixon, O., Life and Adventures of "Billy" Dixon, 1914, Guthrie: Co-operative Publishing Company] In June 1874 (ten years after the first battle) a group of enterprising businessmen had set up two stores near the ruins of the old trading post in an effort to rekindle the town of Adobe Walls. The complex quickly grew to include a store and corral (Leonard & Meyers), a sod
Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls.
In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...
saloon owned by James Hanrahan, a blacksmith shop (Tom O'Keefe) and a sod store used to purchase buffalo hides (Rath & Wright, operated by Langton),[ all of which served the population of 200-300 buffalo hunters in the area. By late June, two hunters had been killed by Indians 25 miles downriver, on Chicken Creek, and two more were killed in a camp on a tributary of the ]Salt Fork Red River
The Salt Fork Red River is a sandy-braided stream about long, heading on the Llano Estacado of West Texas about north of Claude of Armstrong County, Texas, flowing east across the Texas Panhandle and Western Oklahoma to join the Red River abo ...
north of present-day Clarendon.[ "The story of the Indian depredations had spread to all the hunting camps, and a large crowd had gathered in from the surrounding country" at the "Walls".][
]
American Indian alliance
The remaining free-ranging Southern Plains bands (Comanche, Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
, Kiowa and Arapaho
The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...
) perceived the post and the buffalo hunting as a major threat to their existence. The 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty
The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by re ...
reserved the area between the Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...
and Canadian River as Indian hunting grounds. Yet, since 1873, several buffalo hunting parties operated in the area, in violation of the treaty, prompting Indian outrage. In the spring of 1874, the Indians held a sun dance
The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by some Native Americans in the United States and Indigenous peoples in Canada, primarily those of the Plains cultures. It usually involves the community gathering together to pray for healing. Individuals ...
. Comanche medicine man Isatai'i
Isatai'i ( Comanche ''isa'' 'wolf or coyote' + ''tai'i'' 'vagina'), Isatai, or Eschiti (c.1840 – 1916) was a Comanche warrior and medicine man of the Kwaharʉ band. Originally named Kwihnai Tosabitʉ (White Eagle), after the debacle at Adobe W ...
promised victory and immunity from bullets to warriors who took the fight to the enemy.[
]
Battle and siege
On June 25, 1874, Hanrahan and his party of hunters departed Dodge City, Kansas
Dodge City is the county seat of Ford County, Kansas, Ford County, Kansas, United States, named after nearby Fort Dodge (US Army Post), Fort Dodge. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 27,788. The c ...
, for Adobe Walls. The party encountered a band of Cheyenne on June 26 at Sharp's Creek, 75 miles southwest of Dodge City, who ran off all of their cattle. The party then joined a wagon train that was en route to the Walls, arriving just hours before the major battle took place. Some 28 men were then present at Adobe Walls, including James Hanrahan (the saloon owner), 20-year-old Bat Masterson
Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a U.S. Army scout, lawman, professional gambler, and journalist known for his exploits in the 19th and early 20th-century American Old West. He was born to ...
, William "Billy" Dixon, and one woman, the wife of cook William Olds.[
At 2:00 am on June 27, the ridgepole holding up the sod roof of the saloon made a loud cracking sound, although two men nearby thought that it sounded like "the report of a rifle".][ According to some sources Hanrahan awoke the camp by firing a gun, then telling the others that the sound had come from the ridgepole. The reason for his action was that he knew about the attack in advance but did not tell anyone, afraid that men would leave the camp, hurting his business.]["Empire of the summer moon", S.C. Gwynne, 2010, ] Everyone in the saloon and several other men from the town immediately set to repair the damage. Thus, most of the inhabitants were already wide awake and up at dawn when a combined force of Comanche, Cheyenne and Kiowa warriors swept across the plains, intent on erasing the populace of Adobe Walls. In Dixon's words:
There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight. In after years I was glad that I had seen it. Hundreds of warriors, the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern Plains tribes, mounted upon their finest horses, armed with guns and lances, and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide, were coming like the wind. Over all was splashed the rich colors of red, vermillion and ochre, on the bodies of the men, on the bodies of the running horses. Scalps dangled from bridles, gorgeous war-bonnets fluttered their plumes, bright feathers dangled from the tails and manes of the horses, and the bronzed, halfnaked bodies of the riders glittered with ornaments of silver and brass. Behind this headlong charging host stretched the Plains, on whose horizon the rising sun was lifting its morning fires. The warriors seemed to emerge from this glowing background.[
]
The Indian force was estimated to be in excess of 700 strong[ and led by Isatai'i and Comanche chief ]Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker (Comanche ''kwana'', "smell, odor") ( – February 23, 1911) was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grew up among the Kwah ...
, son of captured white woman Cynthia Ann Parker
Cynthia Ann Parker (October 28, 1827 – March 1871), also known as Naduah (Comanche: ''Narua''), was a white woman who was notable for having been captured during the Fort Parker massacre at about age nine, by a Comanche war band and adopted in ...
. Their initial attack almost carried the day; the Indians were in close enough to pound on the doors and windows of the buildings with their rifle butts. The fight was in such close quarters that the hunters' long-range rifles were useless. They were fighting with pistols and Henry
Henry may refer to:
People
*Henry (given name)
* Henry (surname)
* Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry
Royalty
* Portuguese royalty
** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal
** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...
and Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
lever-action rifles. After the initial attack was repulsed, the hunters were able to keep the Indians at bay with their large-caliber, long-range Sharps rifles. Nine men were located in Hanrahan's saloon—including Bat Masterson and Billy Dixon—11 in Meyer's & Leonard's Store, and seven in Rath & Wright's Store.[
The hunters suffered four fatalities, three on the first day: the two Shadler brothers asleep in a wagon][ were killed in the initial onslaught, and Billy Tyler was shot through the lungs as he entered the doorway of a building while retreating from the stockade.][ On the fifth day William Olds accidentally shot himself in the head while descending a ladder at Rath's store.][ A search following the initial battle turned up the bodies of 15 Indians killed so close to the buildings that their bodies could not be retrieved by their fellow warriors.
By noon the Indians had ceased charging and had stationed themselves in groups in different places, maintaining a steady fire on the buildings; by 2 pm the Indians rode out of range at the foot of the hills, and by 4 pm the besieged started venturing out from the buildings to gather relics and bury the Shadlers.][ The Indians stayed in the distance while deciding how to handle the situation, effectively laying siege to Adobe Walls.
During the second day the besieged buried or dragged away the dead horses.][ George Bellfield's outfit made it to the Walls, as did Jim and Bob Cator, while Henry Lease volunteered to ride to Dodge City while two hunters visited the surrounding camps to warn them that "the Indians were on the war path".][
]
On the third day after the initial attack, 15 Indian warriors rode out on a bluff nearly a mile away to survey the situation. At the behest of one of the hunters, Dixon, renowned as a crack shot, took aim with a rifle that he had borrowed from Hanrahan and cleanly dropped a warrior from atop his horse. "I was admittedly a good marksman, yet this was what might be called a 'scratch' shot."[ Seeing their fellow warrior killed from such a distance apparently so discouraged the Indians that they decamped and gave up the fight.
More hunters came in on the third and subsequent days so that, by the sixth day, the garrison amounted to about 100 men.][ Those in the camp might have experienced it as a siege, although sieges were not part of Comanche warfare or battle strategy. Nevertheless, Indians were close by during the days after the initial attack. Quanah had been wounded,][ which might have taken the edge off the attack, as was always the case with Comanches when the war chief fell in battle.] The Indians retired soon afterward. "The Indians probably came to the conclusion that if they remained long enough, charged often enough and got close enough, all of them would be killed, as they were unable to dislodge us from the buildings."[ Casualty reports vary, although most agree that there were fewer than 30 total deaths.
Within a week of the fight, 25 men headed to Dodge City, including Hanharan, Masterson and Dixon, only to learn upon arrival that a relief party of 40 men under Tom Nixon had already headed south to bring back "Mrs. Olds and the greater part of the men".][
By August a troop of cavalry made it to Adobe Walls, under Lt. Frank D. Baldwin, with Masterson and Dixon as scouts, where a dozen men were still holed up.][ "Some mischievous fellow had stuck an Indian's skull on each post of the corral gate."][ The killing had not ended, however; one civilian was lanced by Indians while looking for wild plums along the Canadian River.][ The next day the soldiers and remaining men left Adobe Walls, heading south to join General ]Nelson A. Miles
Nelson Appleton Miles (August 8, 1839 – May 15, 1925) was an American military general who served in the American Civil War, the American Indian Wars, and the Spanish–American War.
From 1895 to 1903, Miles served as the last Commanding Gen ...
' main command on Cantonement Creek.[ The Indians later burned the village to the ground.][
]![Billy Dixon grave stone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Billy_Dixon_grave_stone.jpg)
Billy Dixon's shot
Controversy prevails over the range of Billy Dixon's shot. Baker and Harrison set it at about 1,000 yards, while a post-battle survey by a team of U.S. Army surveyors measured the distance at 1,538 yards. For the rest of his life, Billy Dixon never claimed that the shot was anything other than a lucky one; his memoirs do not devote even a full paragraph to "the shot". He, however, did confide to people in the area that he took the shot near an outcropping of rock that hunters regularly shot from their camp in a betting game.Forensic archaeologists have discovered that the guns in use at Adobe Walls included several Colt Paterson
The Colt Paterson revolver was the first commercial repeating firearm employing a revolving cylinder with multiple chambers aligned with a single, stationary barrel. Its design was patented by Samuel Colt on February 25, 1836, in the Unit ...
's, some Smith & Wesson Model 3
The Smith & Wesson Model 3 is a single-action, Cartridge (firearms), cartridge-firing, Revolver#Top break, top-break revolver produced by Smith & Wesson (S&W) from around 1870 to 1915, and was recently again offered as a reproduction by Smith & W ...
's and at least one Colt Single Action Army
The Colt Single Action Army (also known as the SAA, Model P, Peacemaker, or M1873) is a Trigger (firearms)#Single-action, single-action revolver handgun. It was designed in 1872 for the U.S. government service revolver trials of 1872 by Colt's P ...
pistol, along with numerous rifles in calibers . 50-70, .50-90, .44-77, .44 Henry Flat and at least one .45-70. At the time Sharps did not use designations like .50-90 ("Big Fifty" Sharps). Instead, it designated cartridges by bore size and case length. Technically, the "Big Fifty" was known as the .50 Sharps 2-1/2 Inch.
Depending on the bullet used, the case could be loaded as any of what was later designated .50-90, .50-100 or .50-110. The .50-90 loading used the heaviest bullet and gave the best performance at relatively short ranges out to about 100 yards. The two heavier loads used relatively lighter bullets and gave better performance at extended ranges. This makes it more likely that Billy Dixon's shot was made with a .50 Sharps 2-1/2 Inch case loaded to .50-110 specification. In Sharps' nomenclature, the .50-70 was first known as the .50 Sharps 1-3/4 Inch and later as the .50 Sharps 2 Inch, and was sometimes referred to as the "Little Fifty."
Aftermath
Buffalo hunting ended in that region of the country "just as the Indians had planned".[ The result of Adobe Walls was a crushing spiritual defeat for the Indians, though it was seen as a military victory. It also prompted the U.S. military to take its final actions to crush the Indians once and for all. Within the year the long war between whites and Indians in Texas would reach its conclusion.
In September, just three months after Adobe Walls, an army dispatch detail consisting of Dixon, scout Amos Chapman, and four troopers from the 6th Cavalry were surrounded and besieged by a large combined band of Kiowas and Comanches. During what became known as the Battle of Buffalo Wallow, with accurate rifle fire they held off the Indians for an entire day. An extremely cold rainstorm that night discouraged the Indians, and they broke off the fight; every man in the detail was wounded and one trooper killed. For this action Dixon, along with the other survivors, were awarded the ]Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor. ...
.
Significance
This fight is historically significant because it led to the Red River War
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to displace the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains, and forcibly relocate the tribes to reservatio ...
of 1874–75, resulting in the final relocation of the Southern Plains Indians to reservations in what is now Oklahoma. A monument was erected in 1924 on the site of Adobe Walls by the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society.
On June 27, 1924, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the second Battle of Adobe Walls was held at the site in Hutchinson County. A marble shaft bearing the names of those who took part in the battle was unveiled. W.T. Coble and his wife, the owners of the Turkey Track Ranch on which the site is located, deeded five acres of land to the Panhandle Plains Historical Society in Canyon, Texas
Canyon is a city in, and the county seat of, Randall County, Texas, United States. The population was 14,836 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Amarillo, Texas, metropolitan statistical area. Canyon is the home of West Texas A&M University and ...
, for the permanent preservation of the historic spot. The society subsequently founded the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.[Lester Fields Sheffy, ''The Life and Times of ]Timothy Dwight Hobart
Timothy Dwight Hobart (October 6, 1855 – May 19, 1935) was an American businessman, best known as the manager of the JA Ranch. He was also mayor of Pampa, Texas
Pampa (from the Quechua: ''pampa'', meaning "plain") is a city in Gray Count ...
, 1855-1935: Colonization of West Texas'' (Panhandle-Plains Historical Society, 1950), pp. 282. There is an exhibit of the battle in the Hutchinson County Historical Museum in Borger Borger may refer to:
*Borger (name), a surname and given name
*Borger, Netherlands
*Borger, Texas, U.S.
See also
*
* Boorger
* Börger
* Borge (disambiguation)
* Børge
* Burger (disambiguation)
Burger or Burgers may refer to:
Food and drin ...
.
References
* Rupert N. Richardson, "The Comanche Indians at the Adobe Walls Fight", ''Panhandle-Plains Historical Review'' 4 (1931).
* G. Derek West, "The Battle of Adobe Walls", ''Panhandle-Plains Historical Review'' 36 (1963).
* T. Lindsay Baker and Billy R. Harrison, ''Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the 1874 Trading Post'' College Station: Texas A&M University Press (April 4, 1986), trade paperback, 452 pages,
Further reading
*
* Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History - Author; S.C. Gwynne
External links
The Battle of Adobe Walls
Texas State Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adobe Walls, Second Battle Of
1874 in Texas
Battles involving the Comanche
Battles involving the United States
Conflicts in 1874
Native American history of Texas
Texas–Indian Wars
June 1874 events