At
the Meade Historical Society annual banquet in February of
1989, Bill Chalfant, an attorney from Hutchinson, was the
speaker for the evening. He told of a book he had written
about a famous Indian battle that took place in 1859, on the
banks of Crooked Creek just a few short miles north of
Meade.
I
was in the audience that evening totally intrigued by his
account which was the first time I had ever heard of the
Battle of Crooked Creek or even thought much about the
Indians that occupied this area long before Meade was
established.
Bill and I kept in touch over the last two years and finally
this fall his book was released by the University of
Oklahoma Press. I obtained a copy for review and offer now a
short synopsis of the book and encourage everyone to obtain
a copy and get ready for some very interesting reading about
a time in history when the soil we walk on today hosted a
drama that played an important part in the settling of the
west and the shaping of our nation.
In
the Prologue of
Without Quarter,
Bill describes our portion of the plains and what the area
of Crooked Creek meant to the Indians who inhabited it.
“Crooked Creek is a small stream that flows in a generally
south-southeasterly direction across southwest Kansas to its
junction with the Cimarron River. In years past, before
white men came, it provided favored camping grounds for
Kiowa and Comanche Indians – of the latter particularly the
Kotsoteka and Yamparika bands. In the upper reaches it was a
scant eighteen miles south of the Santa Fe Trail’s Middle
(Cimarron) Crossing of the Arkansas River. The Lower
Crossing and the river’s South Bend were only a few miles
farther to the northeast. More importantly, Crooked Creek
was at the western edge of prime buffalo country, making it
a superior location for the villages of Plains Indians. A
scattering of cottonwood groves and occasional stands of
scrub trees and bushes – ash, hackberry, mulberry, and
willow – along the narrow bed provided wood, water, and a
little shelter. The great herd of buffalo, a multitude of
pronghorn antelope, and innumerable deer and elk supplied
fresh meat. With the coming of the Europeans and the opening
of the road to Santa Fe, the trade caravans afforded new
opportunities to supplement their material goods and food
supply. All in all, at least to the nomadic hunters of the
plains, the valley of Crooked Creek provided most of the
things necessary for a good life.”
“As the westward movement of whites assumed greater
proportions and the trickle of traders became a massive
influx of immigrants, gold seekers, hunters, and others,
whites turned into a threat to the way of life of the
natives, and to their very existence. The Indians fought
back the only way they could against the superior numbers
and weapons of the intruders; they raided the trails,
attacked the settlements, and killed whites in an effort to
expel them. It was to no avail, of course, and in the end
most of the Indians’ country was taken from them. This
violent reaction brought retribution in the form of the
army, white militia, and rangers. Military posts dotted the
plains, and mounted troops took to the field to find and
fight the elusive warriors. The story was to be repeated
often in the West, with cavalry attacks upon unsuspecting
Indian villages and death of women, children, and the old as
well as of fighting men. One such attack took place on
Crooked Creek.”
Though the book gives us an overall history of all the
Indians that inhabited the Plains it concentrates mostly on
the Comanche tribe. A map showing the tribal territories of
the southern Great Plains shows our area as being the
northern edge of Comanche territory as it extended south of
the Arkansas River that basically runs along highway 50
between Garden City and Dodge then northeast to Great Bend
and again southeast to Hutchinson and Wichita. From the
Arkansas the territory extends south into the middle of
Texas including the entire western half of Oklahoma and a
small portion of eastern New Mexico.
The Comanche were excellent horsemen and fierce warriors.
Efforts to control the Indians were useless, though many
tried, from Spanish and Mexican rulers to Texans trying to
protect the settlers edging their way west. Many treaties
were made and broken.
The ever westward push of white settlement increased after
the end of the Mexican War in the late 1840’s. The gold rush
to California began and increased harassment along the Santa
Fe Trail caused the American government to take a serious
look at defending the whites against the Indians.
In
1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed Jefferson Davis as
Secretary of War. Davis was instrumental in strengthening
and reorganizing the U.S. Army, changing the country’s
military policies, and training officers and men for waging
war on horseback across the Great Plains. By 1855, he had
convinced Congress to authorize two mounted regiments that
would be designated as cavalry, the first in the American
military to bear that title.
From their organization in 1855 to the start of the Wichita
Expedition in 1858, the book describes the First and Second
Cavalry, from the training they received to the officers in
charge. The Second Cavalry was sent to the Texas frontier
and the First Cavalry patrolled along the Santa Fe Trail and
the Kansas Plains.
On
August 9, 1858, Special Order No. 71 was issued authorizing
a punitive expedition by troops of the Second Cavalry from
Fort Belknap, Texas, into lands assigned to the Choctaw
Nation. These troops were to actively pursue the Comanche
and Kiowa Indians in their own territory, place them on
reservations and keep them from raiding into Texas and
provoking tribes already contained.
The Wichita Expedition was under the command of Earl Van
Dorn and consisted of four companies of the Second Cavalry.
They established a temporary post, Camp Radziminski, at the
southwest edge of the Wichita Mountains (if I am reading the
map right, this is near present day Snyder, Oklahoma, 36
miles west of Lawton).
After establishment of the camp late in September, Van Dorn
led his troops on the first offensive action of the
expedition into what was later named the Battle at the
Wichita Village. This action was a direct assault on a
Comanche village, which claimed the lives of some seventy
Indians and at least three soldiers. The fight lasted nearly
two hours and ended when….”the superior firepower of the
cavalry weapons prevailed over the bows and arrows of the
Comanche and the Indians fled the field.”
Van Dorn himself was critically wounded in the battle, but
was back in command of the expedition within five or six
weeks. The troops spent the unusually hard winter of
1858-59, scouting the Indian Territory and preparing for
action in the spring. “With one eye on the calendar and the
other on the grass and the sky, Van Dorn decided that the
expedition would depart Camp Radziminski on the last day of
April. The route would be nearly due north to the Canadian
and beyond to the Arkansas. Wherever they might be, the
Wichita Expedition was going to find and fight the Comanche
once again.”
Early in their trip a young Comanche boy was captured. The
boy gave Van Dorn the location of massive Indian villages to
the north-northwest camped along Crooked Creek. The troops
marched for ten days, much of the time through raining
stormy weather and over difficult terrain until they reached
the Cimarron River. They crossed the river and made camp on
the north banks on May 10. (From looking at the map this
would have been just into the southwest corner of Clark
County.)
While at this camp a small party of five Comanche warriors
were discovered. One warrior was killed but the others
escaped, “into the broken country to the west and north.”
(what would be the southeast corner of Meade County.)
By
May 12, the troops had made camp along Crooked Creek, which
by the map would have been near the site of present day
Meade. The following morning they once again took to the
trail of the Comanche, still experiencing heavy rains and
some hail as they marched. By 2:00 pm they had traveled some
twenty-one miles and stopped to make camp and rest.
Once again Indians were discovered near their camp and
troops were dispatched to scout the area. They followed the
Indians a short distance southeast and, once a Comanche
village was found, sent a messenger back to alert Van Dorn.
Still traveling through pouring rain, Van Dorn and his
troops arrived at the scene of the village, and the pages of
Without Quarter
describe the Battle of Crooked Creek in its every detail.
The Indians were no match for the six companies of cavalry.
Forty-one warriors and eight of their women died in the
fight. Only five men survived, too badly wounded to fight to
the death. Van Dorn departed Crooked Creek on May 15,
dividing his command and leaving two companies near the
battle site until the wounded recovered sufficiently to make
the journey. By the time the last of the troops departed,
there were two soldier’s graves on the banks of Crooked
Creek and the wounded were transported on litters made from
poles and buffalo hide from the Comanche lodges. By May 31,
all the troops had returned to Camp Radziminski, completing
the scout.
The rest of the book goes on to describe the lesser actions
of the Second Cavalry as its existence leads up to the start
of the Civil War, at which time Texas seceded from the Union
and the soldiers were transported to the east coast for new
assignments. The author summarizes his story by telling the
reader what happened to each of the officers he has become
acquainted with throughout the book. Some of them served in
the Union Army and some of them in the Confederacy, some
even to return to the cavalry after the war.
The plight of the Comanche Indians that roamed our county
over a century and a half ago is a sad story. “The struggle
for survival by the Comanche moved from Crooked Creek to
other arenas, and the story was to be repeated often before
the end of their freedom came in 1875. Yet the fierce
encounter that had taken place along its banks did have more
significance than might appear from the casualty figures.
For a limited time at least, the violent and unexpected
offensive actions of the Second Cavalry during the Wichita
Expedition had the Comanche on the run, with no apparent
safe haven and no place to stop for even a brief rest. It
accomplished its purpose of reducing the raiding parties and
easing pressure on the frontier settlers. Two soldiers died
and fifty Comanche were killed during the expedition’s march
to Crooked Creek; of the latter, forty-two were men and
eight women, while the rest of the band was captured.
Imperial conquest of their domain by a flood tide of
seemingly irresistible alien people had brought them to this
end. History cannot be altered, but it somehow seems
important that their story not disappear, as have so many
others, lost forever in the dark of time.”
Through the pages of
Without Quarter,
the Battle of Crooked Creek was revealed for the first time
to many of us. Those of us who live in Meade County can’t
help but feel moved as we read the account of the Cavalry’s
crossing over the Cimarron River. As the author describes
the terrain we can easily follow their march in our mind’s
eye all the way to the site of the battle approximately
thirteen miles north of Meade.
Without Quarter
beautifully documents a little piece of our hometown
history.
