DUANE
Duane's take
The marker's the one tellin' this tale, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now settle in, because what happened ten miles east of where you're standin' is the kind of story the Texas panhandle keeps buried in its red clay like a secret it never quite got over. We're talking about the summer of 1874, and the U.S.
Army had a campaign underway against the Southern Plains Indian Tribes — the Cheyenne, the Comanche, and the Kiowa. Seven hundred and forty-four soldiers under Colonel Nelson A. Miles.
That is not a small number. That is a column of men and horses and iron stretching out across the rolling plains like a long, unhappy shadow. The army had been pursuing the bands for several days before it all came to a head right here along the Red River.
What followed was five hours. Five hours of running battle — not a pitched line, not a clean engagement, but a chase, a fight in motion, the kind where the ground itself seems to be on your side or against you depending on the moment. And here is something that has its own particular weight in the history books: this battle marked the first time the U.S.
Army used a Gatling Gun west of the Mississippi River. The first time that machine appeared in these wide-open spaces. Now, you might expect a story with 744 soldiers and a Gatling Gun to end with a clean, decisive victory.
But war has a way of humbling expectations. The army destroyed several Indian villages. And yet — they failed to capture any of the Indians.
Failed to force them back to the reservations in Indian Territory, over in what is now Oklahoma. Not one. The bands slipped away across this hard country like the wind slips through canyon grass.
Still, the campaign that history now calls the Red River War did not end there. It ground on, and it ground down, and in the end it resulted in the ultimate removal of the Southern Plains tribes from the Texas panhandle. The land you're driving through right now — all this sky, all this silence — it was fought over in a five-hour running battle in 1874, and the people who knew it best were the ones who lost it.
What the marker says
In the opening battle of the U.S. Army's 1874 Indian campaign against the Southern Plains Indian Tribes, a force of 744 soldiers under Col. Nerlson A. Miles fought a 5-hour running battle with the Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa 10 mi. E. of this location. The army had been pursuing the bands for several days. The battle marked the first use of the Gatling Gun by the army west of the Mississippi River. Though the army destroyed several Indian villages, they failed to capture any of the Indiaans or force them back to reservations in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Known today as the Red River War, the campaign against the Indians resulted in their ultimate removal from the Texas panhandle.