The warriors that attacked Adobe Walls made an extensive raid. Writing
from Cheyenne Agency, at Darlington, in September, 1874, a Government
employee gave this information to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs:
"We are informed by Little Robe, White Shield, and other Cheyennes
that Lone Wolf, a Kiowa chief, was the first to commence the present
Indian trouble, by going with a band of his warriors on a raid into
Texas. Big Bow, a Comanche, soon followed. After these parties
returned the Kiowas, Comanches, and Cheyennes made the attack upon
Adobe Walls. After that fight the combined forces separated into a
number of war parties; some went into Texas, others into New Mexico
and Colorado, and still others along the Fort Sill and Wichita
Railroad and the Kansas border. We have had well-authenticated
accounts from Indians and from other sources that the number of
individuals killed in New Mexico amounted to 40; Colorado, 60; Lone
Wolf's first raid into Texas, 7; Big Bow's first raid into Texas, 4;
the Adobe Walls fight, 3; southwest from Camp Supply, buffalo-hunters,
3; between Camp Supply and Dodge, buffalo-hunters, 5; in the vicinity
of Medicine Lodge and Sun City, 12; on Crooked Creek, 2; on the trail
north from Cheyenne Agency, 5; on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railroad, 4; Washita and Fort Sill agencies and vicinity, 14; Dr.
Holloway's son, Cheyenne Agency, 1; Mr. Dougherty, beef contractor for
these three agencies reports at least thirty persons recently killed
in Texas, 30; total, 190.
"White Shield this day informed me that the Kiowa chief, White Horse,
on his last raid into Texas killed eleven persons and captured three
children. The children, he states, are now in the Kiowa camps. White
Shield says he has heard of several other captives with the Comanches
and Kiowas, but these three mentioned are all he has seen."
It has been said that the Indians abandoned the fight because of the
wounding of Quanah Parker, the Comanche chief, and again because the
"medicine" man found that his "medicine" was bad. To be more exact,
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.
In the fall of 1877, many of the Comanches became dissatisfied with
their life on the military reservation at Fort Sill and fled to their
old home on the Staked Plains. Chas. Goodnight was running his cattle
in the lower end of Palo Duro, and the Comanches were soon killing
beef. When he heard of it, he mounted his horse and rode down to where
they were and made a private peace treaty with them, agreeing to give
them two beeves a day as long as they remained, if they would not raid
his herd. His proposal was accepted, and the compact was kept until
the soldiers arrived and compelled the Comanches to return to their
reservation.
I met Quanah at that time, having gone out with the troops. As we were
riding along one day, he began talking about the fight at the Walls.
When I told him that I was one of the men that had fought against him,
he leaned over on his horse and shook my hand. We became good friends.
A number of different stories have been related about Quanah's mishaps
in the fight. A man who knew him well in later years said that Quanah
told him that early in the fight on the first day his horse was shot
and killed at a distance of between 400 and 500 yards from the
buildings. The horse fell suddenly, pitching Quanah headlong to the
ground his gun falling from his grasp and bounding away. When Quanah
saw that his horse was dead, he took shelter behind an old buffalo
carcass over which wood-rats had piled weeds and grass, making a heap
about waist high. Then something happened that Quanah was never able
to explain. He was struck a terrific blow between his shoulder blade
and his neck. He was badly stunned but managed to gain his feet and
ran and hid himself in a plum thicket. At first he thought somebody
had hit him with a heavy stone, but as only his own men could have
done this, he abandoned this notion and concluded that he had been hit
by a spent or deflected bullet. His right shoulder was useless most of
the day, and he could raise his gun with difficulty. He left the
battleground by riding behind another Indian.
Had it not been for the cracking of the cottonwood ridge pole in
Hanrahan's saloon, the Indians would have come upon us unawares and
all of us would have been killed, yet we never could find a single
thing wrong with the log. Every hunter that came in after the fight,
as well as every man at the Walls, examined that cottonwood ridge log
over and over to find the break, but it could not be found. The two
men who were sleeping in the building declared that the noise sounded
like the report of a rifle.
The fight at Adobe Walls broke up buffalo-hunting in that section just
as the Indians had planned. This was the last buffalo-hunting I ever
did as a business. Hanrahan owned a big outfit and lost everything.
We were now so strong in numbers and so many days had passed without
the coming of relief from Dodge that we organized a party of about
twenty-five men to go up there and find out why help was not coming.
Jim Hanrahan, the oldest man among us, was placed in command. It had
now been about a week since the fight.
A serious row was barely averted the night before we pulled out for
Dodge. Guns were scarce, and after the death of Olds "Bat" Masterson
had borrowed the Olds gun, a better gun than the one used by Masterson
who had lent his gun to another man. When it was learned that we were
going to Dodge, Mrs. Olds sent for her husband's gun. "Bat" sent back
word that he wanted to keep the gun until morning, promising that he
would promptly return it at that time. This was not agreeable to Mrs.
Olds, and she sent a man named Brown to Hanrahan's to get the gun
without further talk, as she feared that she might lose the gun.
Brown made a few mistakes in his language in discussing the matter
with Hanrahan, the latter having said several times that he would be
personally responsible for the gun and would guarantee that it was
returned to Mrs. Olds. Brown crowded matters until Hanrahan grabbed
him by the neck, shook him as a bulldog would a rabbit, and then threw
Brown out of the saloon, saying, "Get out of my building, you ----,
----"! Hanrahan drew his own gun and had Brown covered, ready to pull
the trigger, which I believe he would have done, if several of us had
not disarmed him, and then reasoned with him not to go any further,
because if shooting began there was no telling what might happen, as
both men had friends. Next morning "Bat" returned the gun to Mrs.
Olds.
The row spread ill feeling among a number of the men, and though blood
that had been spilt in fighting for each other was scarcely dry on the
ground, yet some were now ready to begin fighting each other. This was
the way of the west in those times--every tub had to stand on its own
bottom every minute of the day. It was the code that every able-bodied
man had to live by. If, however, a man should fall sick or be in bad
luck or crippled, the boys stuck to him until he was able to take care
of himself. The quarrel caused a little embarrassment to me, for as we
rode away next morning and were passing Leonard & Myers store, the men
there yelled out, "Goodbye, we don't care for any of you leaving,
except Billy Dixon."
We went up Short Creek until we got out on the Plains, where we left
the main-traveled freight road and bore more to the west, as we felt
that the Indians might be watching this main road. We made it to the
head of the Palo Duro the first day and went into camp. By making a
long ride our next camp was San Francisco Creek. Here we found where
buffalo-hunters had built a camp, and the body of Charley Sharp, who
had been killed by the Indians. He had been dead about a week, and the
body was shockingly mutilated. Sharp was a partner of Henry Lease, and
had remained in camp while Lease went to Adobe Walls for supplies.
Sharp bore the nickname "Dublin." Sharp's Creek in Beaver County,
Oklahoma, bears his name. We buried the body where we found it.
Bearing to the northeast, we came into the Dodge City and Adobe Walls
road at the Cimarron River. Another day's ride brought us to Crooked
Creek. We were now out of dangerous country, and reached Dodge City
safe and sound.
Ours was the first crowd to reach Dodge City after the fight at Adobe
Walls, and the whole town turned out to see us. Everybody was anxious
to learn the particulars, and we were asked thousands of questions.
News of what had happened at the Walls had driven most of the
buffalo-hunters to Dodge City, their camps stretching up and down the
Arkansas near town.
We learned that a relief party, composed of buffalo-hunters and
residents of Dodge, had started south in command of Tom Nixon. There
were about forty men in the party. Nixon was killed a year or two
later by "Mysterious Dave" Mathews. He was a well-known frontiersman.
We did not take life nor ourselves very seriously those days, and were
soon entering into the fun at Dodge with the greatest enthusiasm,
forgetful of the perils and hardships that so lately beset us. Things
at Dodge were run for the fullest enjoyment of the present--there was
not much material to occupy students of ancient history. The town had
changed little since we had gone away. Several of the men who had come
north from the Walls went straight to the depot and bought tickets for
their homes in the east. They had enough of the Indians to last them
several years, and were not ashamed to stand up and say so. Most of us
were "locoed" with the sports and pastimes of the land where the wool
was long and the customs wild. Drouth, scarcity of water-holes,
"northers," rattlesnakes, Indians, even the United States Army, could
not have driven us east of the ninety-ninth meridian of longitude.
The details of the fight at Adobe Walls were telegraphed to Fort
Leavenworth. Troops were not despatched at once to the scene of the
uprising, the Government taking the view that it would be best not to
move until an expedition large enough to whip the Indians to a
standstill could be sent into the field, General Miles reached Dodge
City about August, going south about ten days later.
My old friend Jack Callahan, of whom I have frequently spoken, had
just been employed as wagonmaster to go with the expedition. Meeting
me in the street, he offered to make me his assistant. I had made up
my mind to accept the position, but further down the street I came
across John Curley, whom I had known at Hays City in 1868, when he was
corral-master. Curley said that he believed he could get me placed as
scout and guide with General Miles, which exactly suited me. We went
at once to General Miles headquarters, where Curley introduced and
recommended me. After asking me a few questions, General Miles turned
to his adjutant and told him to put my name down. I held this position
from August 6, 1874, to February 10, 1883, a period of nine years.
The troops moved out of Dodge City to the Arkansas and camped. General
Miles assembled his scouts and tested their marksmanship by having
them shoot at a snag in the river, calling our names as he pointed out
the objects each was to shoot at. I never missed a single time.
Lieutenant Frank D. Baldwin, now a brigadier-general, was sent to
Adobe Walls with two scouts, six Delaware trailers and a troop of
cavalry to ascertain the situation of those who had remained at the
Walls. We got there in five days. Baldwin had not recently seen much
mounted service, and was very tired and saddle-worn by the time we
reached Adobe Walls Creek.
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the day in to the Walls, seeing
that night would come before we arrived, Baldwin ordered "Bat"
Masterson and myself to ride ahead and tell the boys that the troops
were coming. This precaution was taken lest the buffalo-hunters might
mistake us for Indians and fire into us. I rode up within speaking
distance and hollowed to the men and waved my hat, to let them know
who I was. Recognizing me, they gave me a hearty reception.
There were a dozen or more men in the buildings, where they had been
shut up for about two months. At no time had they ventured far away.
They had kept their horses in the stockade, fearful of an attack by
Indians; hay for the horses had been cut in the creek bottom. When Tom
Nixon and his men came down from Dodge, Mrs. Olds and the greater part
of the men went back with him. A number, however, preferred to remain
at the Walls, however great the risk, and did so. The boys cooked me a
hot supper and I was telling them stories of the outside world when
the soldiers arrived about 9 o'clock.
The water in Adobe Walls Creek was now so low that there was not
enough for the horses, so we pulled over on Bent's Creek, and camped
on a mesquite flat, just north of the old Adobe Walls ruins.
Next morning Lieutenant Baldwin asked me to walk over the battleground
with him. Practically all the men went with us, the distance being
about a mile. The coming of the soldiers had given a feeling of
security to the men at the Walls, who now turned out their horses to
graze. Everybody was laughing and talking and telling jokes, without
the slightest thought of danger. Some mischievous fellow had stuck an
Indian's skull on each post of the corral gate.
Tobe Robinson and George Huffman, civilians, rode down the valley
toward the Canadian River to hunt wild plums which at that time were
ripe and plentiful. They had been gone only a short time when our
attention was drawn to two horsemen riding at top speed from the
direction of the river toward the Walls. Behind them came ten or
fifteen Indians quirting their ponies at every jump. The two men were
Robinson and Huffman. They had unexpectedly run into this band of
Indians who were doing their best to circle and cut off the two white
men. There we stood a mile from camp where our arms lay, unable to
render these men any assistance in their desperate straits.
Robinson and Huffman were riding side by side and were able to
maintain this position until they were rounding a little knoll just
beyond the old ruins. Here an Indian managed to ride up near enough to
run his lance through Huffman's body. Huffman fell dead from his
horse.
The riderless horse continued running beside Robinson's, the Indian
still pursuing, grabbing again and again at the rein of Huffman's
horse. Finally, he seized the rein, checked the horse, and rode back
at full speed toward his companions. All the Indians now galloped away
and disappeared among the sand hills.
The tragedy had happened so quickly that we could hardly believe our
eyes. The Indians made no effort to mutilate or carry off Huffman's
body. Robinson reached us in safety, though shaking with excitement.
From the Indian standpoint, the warrior who had killed Huffman and
escaped with his horse had covered himself with glory. Sight of the
tents in the mesquite flat doubtless caused the other Indians to give
up the chase, or else both Huffman and Robinson would have been lanced
to death.
Considerable time was lost in rounding up our horses, which were
grazing in the valley, and getting into our saddles, to go in pursuit
of the Indians. Before we could reach the Canadian the Indians had
vanished in the sandhills of White Deer Creek. We found two fagged
ponies which the Indians had abandoned.
We carried Huffman's body to the Walls and dug a grave close beside
the others. This made five graves. Some day I hope a stone will be
erected to mark the spot. These men gave all they had--their lives--to
help make this a civilized country.
Next day the soldiers and the men we found at the Walls started south
to join the main command on Cantonment Creek. We crossed the Canadian
near the mouth of Tallahone, where J. A. King now has a cow ranch. On
Chicken Creek we found two Indians who had stopped for noon, and had
built a small fire. Their ponies were near at hand, tied to some
sagebrush, and their blankets had been spread out on the ground to
dry. We succeeded in killing one of them, but the other warrior
certainly had a fine quality of stuff in his "medicine" bag, for he
mounted his pony and got away, despite the bullets that split the air
around him. He was too hard-pressed to get his blanket and a butcher
knife which he left sticking in the ground.
The noise of our guns stampeded a big bunch of buffaloes further up
the creek. They kicked up such a cloud of dust that we thought a war
party of Indians, possibly the same that had attacked Adobe Walls, was
coming for us, and that we had stirred up the worst kind of trouble.
Happily, we were soon able to see the buffaloes, and the world looked
brighter.
"Old nigger" Clark, our cook, driving a six-mule team, with bedding,
provisions and cooking outfit, was a long way behind when the shooting
began. He raised a welt every time he hit a mule, and by the time he
drew near us he was making the fastest kind of time, his eyes sticking
out like white china saucers. When almost upon us, his mules took
fright and ran away, and could not be stopped until men rode to his
assistance.
Ours was the last party of white men ever to leave Adobe Walls. When I
passed that way the following fall with United States troops the
Indians had been there and burned the place to the ground. The walls
were still smoking.
General Miles was with us on this trip. We camped in sight of the
battleground. He asked hundreds of questions about the fight appearing
curious about every detail. The soldiers picked up everything they
could find in their hunt for souvenirs, even bones, which I am sure
were mostly horse bones. The Indians had gathered up all the bones of
their dead and wrapped them in new blankets, depositing them at the
foot of the hills on the east side of the valley of Adobe Walls Creek.
The soldiers threw away the bones and carried off the blankets. This
was in October. The Indians had not taken any of the provisions which
had been left in the buildings. They were a suspicious people, and
were fearful that the provisions might be poisoned.
While we were at Adobe Walls on this last trip, a dog that I had owned
at the time of the fight came into camp. Her appearance affected me
greatly, as I was fond of her and loved all dumb animals. She was a
highly intelligent setter bitch, named Fannie. She had disappeared
with the other dogs the day of the fight, and I was sure that she had
been killed by the Indians or had wandered away and starved. Seven
months had passed since I had seen her.
After we had petted her and fed her, Fannie disappeared. But her
absence was brief. She came back with something in her mouth and stood
wagging her tail, to attract attention. When we saw what she had
brought to us every man grinned and was as tickled as if he were a
boy. Fannie had brought a fat, bright-eyed little puppy in her mouth.
Dropping the little fellow gently on a pile of bedding, she frisked
about with delight as each of us tried to get hold of the pup and
fondle it. Fannie bounded away while we were "fussing" among ourselves
to see who should play with pup. She came with another pup in her
mouth, laying it beside the other one. She made two more trips, until
finally her family of four little ones were playing with each other on
our bedding. The father of these pups was the big Newfoundland that
belonged to the Shadler brothers, which the Indians killed while he
was trying to defend his masters at the very beginning of the Adobe
Walls fight. When we pulled out, Fannie and her babies were given a
snug place in the mess wagon.