USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. II > Part 6
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Part of the Cheyennes and part of the Comanches had been guilty of more or less raiding during 1873. The Cheyennes had killed three Government surveyors on the Cimarron, in the present limits of Woods County. The Arapahoes, though closely affiliated with the Cheyennes, refused to join them in their warlike opera- tions. Likewise, the Kiowas, restrained by the hope of the libera- tion of the two chiefs who were imprisoned in Texas, had refrained from raiding or committing any other depredations. After Satanta was freed, some of the Kiowas joined the Comanche bands which went raiding among the frontier settlements of Texas. A number of young Comanche braves, who were in Texas on a raid, were killed by some of the Tonkawa warriors, who were scouting in the Govern- ment service. The Comanche women wailed for their dead and ap- pealed to their living to revenge the death of their brethren. Plans were laid for the extermination of the remnant of the Tonkawa Tribe. Learning of this, the Comanche agent, James M. Haworth, notified the post commander at Fort Griffin, Texas, who promptly caused the Tonkawas to be removed to a place under the protection of that post. When this was reported to the Comanches by some of their spies they held a council with the hostile Cheyennes and
were built of adobe, or sun-dried bricks, hence the name. The trad- ing settlement of 1874 was situated about a mile from the ruins of the former trading post. The buildings erected in 1874 were partly of stockade walls and partly of sod walls. All of them were roofed with poles, covered with earth. It was located in Hutchinson County, Texas.
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agreed to go with the latter and exterminate the buffalo hunters in the Panhandle country.2
Although the people at Adobe Walls knew that some of the In- dians were on the war-path, they were not fearful of a general war and they were not afraid of an attack by small war parties. This condition led to carelessness on their part and they were totally un- prepared for the attack when it came, at daylight on the morning of June 27, 1874. Indeed, it was only by accident that they were not surprised and all killed while asleep.3 There were 700 Indians in the attacking party; there were twenty-six white men and one woman in three of the buildings of the little trading settlement. Two other white men, asleep in their wagon just outside, were killed at the beginning of the fight. A Quahada (Comanche) medicine man had made his people believe that his magic was so powerful as to render the bullets of the besieged buffalo hunters harmless. This accounted for the unusual daring and recklessness of the warriors, who repeatedly rode up to the very doors of the buildings during the earlier part of the fight. Later, when they found that the buf- falo hunters were expert marksmen and that their rifles were of long range, the attacking warriors became more wary. Throughout the course of the fight, the Indians were guided by the calls of a bugle.4 Most of the Indians who were killed or wounded were car-
2 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1874, pp. 219-20.
3 About 2 o'clock in the morning, two men who were asleep in the saloon were awakened by a report which sounded like the dis- charge of a rifle but which they decided was occasioned by the weight of the heavy earthen roof cracking the big cottonwood ridge- pole by which it was supported. They awakened several other men and proceeded to throw off some of the earth from the roof and also to secure a prop to reinforce the ridge-pole. By the time this work was completed, the break of day was at hand and fifteen men who had been awakened, either directly or indirectly, by threatened col- lapse of the cottonwood ridge-pole were not asleep when the alarm of the attack by Indians was given. There was no watchman to guard against danger and all of the doors had been left open so, if it had not been for this incident, it is probable that there would have been none left to tell of the surprise and attack. Strange as it may seem, although many people examined the cottonwood ridge-pole very carefully afterward, no one could find any sign of a fracture or weakness in it. The incident was regarded as being not only mysterious but providential.
4 The story of the presence of a bugler with the Indians of the Southern Plains was not a new one. The troops in the command of Col. Kit Carson, which had a battle with the Kiowas in the vicinity
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ried away by their own people, often at imminent risk to their own lives, but, at the end of the fight the bodies of thirteen dead warriors were found so close to the buildings that it would have been suicidal for their fellow tribesmen to have tried to remove them. There were fifty-six dead horses, only ten of which had belonged to the buffalo hunters, so it is certain that their rifles did great havoc in the ranks of the charging warriors.5
A few days after the fight at Adobe Walls, July 3, 1874, a band of about forty warriors attacked a wagon train of three wagons and four men at Buffalo Springs, on the Chisholm Trail. Three of the men appeared to have been killed in the fight, while the fourth was captured and, apparently, suffered death by slow torture, being tied to a wagon wheel, and burned to death. The latter was Patrick Hennessey, who was the leader of the party. His charred remains were buried by the side of the trail, near the scene of his tragic death.6 A week or two later, a Cheyenne war party tried to run off the stock of the friendly Wichitas and Caddoes but were frustrated in their design.
Strong efforts were made to induce all of the tribes to join in the general uprising. Most of the Comanches went out on the war- path ; the Penateka Band went to the agency, however, as did most of the Yampirica Band also and others were reported as being desir- ous of coming in but were prevented from doing so by force or in-
of Adobe Walls ten years before, heard a bugler sound "the charge," as did Forsyth's scouts in the Battle of Beecher's Island, on the Arickaree River, in September, 1868. Whether the bugler was a renegade white man, or a Mexican, or a mixed-blood Indian, is even yet a mystery, but that he was a reality, there can be no doubt. Robert M. Wright, in his book "Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital," pp. 123-4, tells of hearing the bugle in the Kiowa Village.
5 The most credible account of the Battle of Adobe Walls is that contained in the "Life of 'Billy' Dixon," pp. 200-36. Dixon was one of the defenders of the settlement of buffalo hunters and was a factor in the defeat suffered by the Indians.
6 The train of freight wagons was en route from the terminus of the railroad at Wichita, Kansas, to the Wichita Agency, near Ana- darko. Patrick Hennessey, who was in charge of the train, had been warned that there was danger of an attack but he scouted the idea of danger. His grave became a landmark on the Chisholm Trail. Nearly fifteen years afterward, when Oklahoma was settled in a day, a townsite was laid out near by and the town was named Hennessey in his honor. It is situated in the northern part of King- fisher County. It has been claimed that he was killed by white out- laws disguised as Indians, but evidence in support of this is lacking.
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timidation exercised by the hostile warriors. Most of the Cheyennes also took part in the outbreak. A strong faction of the Kiowas, following the lead of Lone Wolf and Woman's Heart, left the reser- vation with the Cheyennes and Comanches, but the majority of the Kiowas, led by Kicking Bird, went to the agency and registered as friendly Indians, subject to frequent roll call. Because the Kiowas did not all go on the war-path, none of the Plains Apaches went. With few if any exceptions, all of the Arapahoes also remained on their reservation.7 The outbreak did not include the Indians of the Wichita Agency, all of whom remained at peace.
A serious fight occurred at the Wichita Agency on the 22d of August. It was believed to have been due in the beginning to a mis- apprehension. The Nocona Comanches, who were there to surren- der, disavowed any intention or disposition to participate in the fight and it is probable that most of the fighting on the part of the Indians was done by Lone Wolf and his Kiowa followers who were present. Satanta and several others who had been registered at the Fort Sill Agency as friendly Indians, were at the Wichita Agency when the fight began. Several days later they went to the Chey- enne and Arapahoe Agency, at Darlington, where they surrendered. When these men were returned to Fort Sill, they were no longer treated as friendly Indians but were turned over to the post com- mander and were thereafter held as military prisoners. Satanta was considered as having violated his parole by leaving the reserva- tion and he was returned to the Texas penitentiary at Huntsville.8
7 Had all of the Kiowas with the Plains Apaches and the Arapa- hoes, gone out with the Cheyennes and Comanches, this last general Indian war would have been much more serious than it was. Kicking Bird, who was a man of great influence among his own people (the Kiowas), is believed to have been held firmly on the side of peace by the influence of Thomas C. Battey, the Quaker school teacher, who, just at that time, was leaving the Indian Territory in broken health.
8 Satanta, who was in many ways a most remarkable man, had in his own personality typified the spirit of opposition to the en- croachment of the white race upon the hunting grounds of the Indian. A man of strong physique and commanding presence, he held a large place in the estimation of his own people. As a warrior he had the reputation of being both crafty and cruel. He excelled as an orator and was an adept in the ways and wiles of de- magoguery. He was possessed of a keen sense of humor and could use sarcasm with telling effect when occasion seemed to require. Four years after his reincarceration in the Texas penitentiary, October 11, 1878, he committed suicide by throwing himself from a window in the second story of the prison hospital.
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During the remainder of the summer and the succeeding autumn the war was continued. The friendly Indians were gathered near the agencies where it was not only possible to watch them but also to see to it that they were not molested by the hostile elements of their own tribes.9 Warriors from the Darlington Agency.raided as
SATANTA
far north as the Republican River, in Northern Kansas and South- ern Nebraska. The buffalo hunters who had been killing the ani- mals on a wholesale scale merely for their hides, were forced to sus- pend operations throughout the Southern Plains Region. Numerous outrages and atrocities were committed by the hostile warriors, not
9 The friendly Indians, encamped at Fort Sill and at Darlington, suffered much privation during the course of this war because of the insufficiency of food. They were not permitted to leave their village to hunt game, yet the Government did not furnish sufficient rations to prevent hunger. Despite this, they remained at peace.
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only on the buffalo range but also among the frontier settlements. But atrocities and outrages were not limited to the Indian side of the conflict. The friendly Indians who were enrolled and encamped near Fort Sill-mostly Kiowas and Plains Apaches, with several bands of Comanches-had over 1,900 head of horses stolen by white thieves from Texas during the year.10 Likewise, horse thieves from Kansas stole forty-three head of horses from Little Robe, the Chey- enne chief, just before the outbreak and they were offered for sale at Dodge City a couple of weeks later.11 Little Robe's son, who went to try to recover the stolen horses was severely wounded. One of the most flagrant and unwarranted incidents of the war was the attack upon a small Osage hunting party, which was in no way con- cerned in the struggle. Agent Isaac T. Gibson told of it in his re- port to the commissioner of Indian Affairs:12
"Upon hearing of the threats and preparations made by some of the Plains Indians to make war on the whites, I anticipated the order of the Department by sending runners to the Plains, where the Osages had just gone with their women and children and herds of ponies. In order to find buffalo, they scattered over that vast country and it was impossible to reach all the parts of bands with the information. One party of twenty-nine persons, including ten women and children, wandered to the state line of Kansas. Asking some white men who came to their camp if they knew of any buffalo they were directed forward into the state to a sandy and unin- habited portion of the country, where they at once proceeded and found buffalo, a number of which they killed and dried the meat. They had no thought of doing wrong, as this was on their former reservation, where they had reserved the privilege of hunting as long as game could be found there and the country remained un- settled. The party was preparing to start home when they discov- ered a company of people in the distance. They decided to await their arrival and learn who they were. They proved to be about forty white men, mounted and armed with breech-loading guns and revolvers. They stopped when within half a mile of the Osages. The Osages sent out two of their men to speak to them; they shook hands friendly, then disarmed the Osages and detained them. Other Osages, two together, continued coming up until eight were treated as the first and held as prisoners. As no more were seen coming, it
10 " A Quaker Among the Indians," pp. 316-7.
11 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1874, p. 233.
12 Ibid., pp. 226-7.
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was thought best to make sure of these, and the work of death com- menced. Four were shot on the spot and four miraculously escaped the murderous fire. The white men then charged on those who re- mained in camp. They sprang on their ponies, not having time to gather up saddles, clothing or anything else, and fled for their lives. They were pursued three or four miles under a shower of bullets, but fortunately no more of them were killed.
"At night, two of the party returned to look after the dead and their property. Three bodies were found, two of them scalped and otherwise mutilated after death. Fifty-four ponies, colts and mules, that they had left behind when escaping, had been driven off by the marauders and all their other property either carried off or destroyed. They made the journey to their reservation in five days, without food, some of them on foot and most of them nearly naked. I immediately supplied them with food and clothing, and examined them separately in relation to their treatment and misfor- tunes, and obtained from them the facts here given. They also posi- tively affirmed that they had but four guns (muzzle-loading) and two revolvers with them and that the white men took two of the guns and the two revolvers from those who were taken prisoners.
"Without delay, I sent a commission composed of reliable men, to-wit: Mahlon Stubbs, former agent of the Kaws; United States Commissioner Kellogg, and Edward Finney to visit the place of disaster and ascertain who had committed the outrage, have them arrested if possible, recover the property and learn all the facts they could in the case. They visited the town of Medicine Lodge, eight- een miles distant from the place of murder. The town was enclosed with a stockade and a company of about sixty border-men, armed with the latest improved breech-loading carbines and revolvers, were the principal occupants of the place, under the command of Captain Ricker and Lieutenant Mosley. The killing of the Osages was ac- knowledged with a vicious satisfaction, but much reticence was manifested by them in regard to details of the murder and robbery. They peremptorily refused to give any statement in writing under oath before the United States commissioner ; also refused to deliver up the property which was seen by the commissioners, and said they were accountable to no one but the governor of Kansas, to whom they had rushed immediately after committing the crime for pro- tection, he mustering them in as state militia, and dating the papers back so as to legalize this cruel massacre.
"One of the commissioners then went to see the governor of Kansas, in company with Superintendent Hoag. He refused to
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deliver up the property in question. The commissioners then re- turned to the Agency and took the testimony of some of the Indians. Negotiations are still pending for the recovery of the property and for satisfaction to the tribe for the loss of the four men. The Osages are patiently awaiting a just settlement to be made for them by the officers of the Government."
A comprehensive and aggressive campaign against the lostile Indians was planned, Col. Nelson A. Miles (subsequently lieutenant general commanding the United States Army), of the Fifth Infan- try, being placed in immediate command of the troops in the field.13 The principal events of the campaign took place in the region be- tween the Cimarron and Red rivers, in Western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. The troops that were actively engaged in the campaign were composed of battalions or companies of the follow- ing regiments, namely, Fifth Infantry, Col. Nelson A. Miles; Fourth Cavalry, Col. Ranald S. Mckenzie ; Eleventh Infantry, Col. George P. Buell; Tenth Cavalry, Lieut. Col. John W. Davidson ; Sixth Cavalry, Lieut. Col. Thomas H. Neil, and Eighth Cavalry, Maj. William R. Price. The bases from which the troops in the field were operated were Fort Dodge, Kansas; Camp Supply and Fort Sill, Indian Territory ; Fort Griffin, Texas, and Fort Bascom, New Mexico. Considerable time was required in effecting the neces- sary arrangements for the troops to take the field, so the campaign did not really begin until two months after the Indians first began hostilities.
August 30, 1874, Colonel Miles found and attacked a large band of hostile Indians near the headwaters of the Washita River. The Indians were defeated and retreated to the Staked Plains. A num- ber of minor engagements followed in rapid succession and, at the end of another month, Colonel Mckenzie, with a detachment of his regiment, attacked a large village near the headwaters of the Red River, in Texas, and drove the Indians (mostly Cheyennes) away, capturing and destroying over 100 lodges and taking also over 1,400 head of horses and mules. A few days later (October 9th), Colonel Buell attacked a band of hostile Kiowas, encamped on the Salt Fork
13 Colonel Miles, who had entered the service as a volunteer at the outbreak of the Civil war, had reached the rank of major general of volunteers at the age of twenty-six. Colonels Mckenzie, Bucll, Davidson and Neil had also been general officers in the Federal Army during the Civil war. All of them, like scores of others, had to be content with lower rank in the reorganization of the regular army after the close of the Civil war.
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of the Red River, capturing and destroying their village and its con- tents. On October 17th, Capt. Adna R. Chaffee,14 Sixth Cavalry, attacked and destroyed another village north of the Washita, the Indians abandoning their lodges and other property without making any attempt to defend the same.
The vigorous and relentless campaign thus inaugurated had the effect of dampening the warlike ardor of many of the Indians. The hostile Comanches were the first to show signs of wishing to quit. They sent a message asking permission to return to the agency. When this was granted, Tabinanaka, who was a leading war chief, with about 400 of his people, started toward the agency, surrender- ing to a detachment of troops from Fort Sill, which was met on the way. Other Comanches followed, as did small parties of Kiowas. On arriving at the agency, their horses were taken from them and the men were put under military guard as prisoners of war. The Cheyennes remained recalcitrant and irreconcilably hostile, as did the Quahada Comanches also. The troops continued to harass them and thus the campaign was extended into the winter. The Indians were kept so constantly on the move that they had practically no opportunity to hunt buffalo for meat and robes. The first band of Cheyennes was captured on the North Canadian by a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry under the command of Capt. A. B. Keyes. With their lodges destroyed, hungry and half-clad, the main body of the Cheyennes continued the struggle with the courage of des- peration. The work of supplying the troops in the field with sub- sistence and forage was a difficult one nor was it an easy task to maintain communications.
Many thrilling incidents occurred during the course of the cam- paign. One of these which has come down to us easily equals in dramatic and tragic effect that of any of the stories of the long struggle between the red men and the white men for final suprem- acy throughout the region of the. Great Plains. It is related in the "Life of 'Billy' Dixon," 15 and, briefly stated, is as follows :
14 Twenty-six years later, after having distinguished himself in the service during the Spanish-American and Philippine wars, Gen. Adna R. Chaffee was selected as the commander of the American contingent in the allied army which marched to the relief of Peking, during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Eventually, General Chaffee, who had entered the military service as a private in the regular army at the outbreak of the Civil war, became chief of the general staff of the United States Army, with the rank of lieutenant general. 15 "Life of 'Billy' Dixon," pp. 254-80.
Vol. II-5
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"On September 10th, 1874, Col. Nelson A. Miles, whose imme- diate command was then operating on MeClellan Creek, in the Pan- handle, a few miles west of the Oklahoma line, ordered Amos Chap- man and William Dixon, scouts, and four enlisted men of the Sixth Cavalry, namely, Sergeant Z. T. Woodhull and Privates Peter Rath, John Harrington and George W. Smith to carry dispatches to Camp Supply. This little party, aware of the great risk of such a journey, traveled after night and hid during the day in a secluded ravine. The morning of the second day a large war party of Comanches and Kiowas was unexpectedly encountered. The white men were quickly surrounded and had to make a fight for their lives. Dismounting in order to fight on foot, Private Smith was selected to hold the horses. He was scon shot and all of the horses stampeded, with coats, can- teens and haversacks attached to the saddles. Without food or water and in a most exposed position, the situation was all but hope- less. Finally the keen eyes of one of the scouts detected a buffalo wallow-a slight depression, ten feet in diameter. One after another, they made a run for it-all except Chapman and Smith, both of whom were too severely wounded. Drawing their belt knives they promptly began to deepen the depression by digging the earth, which was fortunately sandy, and throwing it out, stopping frequently to fire at the Indians when they threatened to charge or to approach the two wounded men. Smith was supposed to be dead, as he had not moved since he fell. Chapman's left knee had been shattered and he could not walk. At imminent risk to his own life, Dixon finally ran to Chapman (who was a larger man than himself) and carried him to the buffalo wallow on his back. The besieged men continued to dig their place of refuge deeper until they had quite a wall of earth about it.
"The September day grew hot as the sun neared the zenith and the men suffered severely from thirst, yet the visions of the frightful tortures which they would have to undergo, if captured, caused them to fight on with sheer desperation. The wounded men-and they were nearly all wounded by that time-suffered greatly from thirst, but there was no water. But there was plenty of excitement, for the encircling cordon of warriors gave them no surcease from their watchful anxiety. They were careful of their ammunition and never wasted a bullet and a number of the Indians paid for their temerity by wound or death as the result of getting within range of some of the marksmen in the buffalo wallow. And then, just when their thirst seemed to become unbearable, a great black cloud gathered in the west and the lightnings began to play and the
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thunder crashed and rolled, and soon the rain came in blinding sheets, and water-precious water-muddy, yes, and bloody, too, from their own clotted wounds, trickled down the slopes of their earthen refuge and gathered into a little pool where they could and did drink. Then the wind shifted to the north and the temperature fell till all were chilled to the marrow. The Indians having with- drawn to a distance, one of the men went to secure the cartridge belt and revolver of Smith and was surprised to find him still alive. He was carried to the buffalo wallow but did not live long.
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