by S. C. Gwynne
12. Mackenzie’s Official Report, October 12, 1872.
13. Carter, Old Sergeant’s Story, p. 84.
14. Smith, The Boy Captives, p. 13.7
15. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie, pp. 419ff.
Eighteen THE HIDE MEN AND THE MESSIAH
1. Thomas W. Kavanagh, The Comanches, pp. 474ff.
2. Rupert N. Richardson, “The Comanche Indians and the Fight at Adobe Walls,” Panhandle Plains Historical Review (Canyon, Texas) 4 (1931): 25.
3. Quanah’s feathered headdress is on display at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.
4. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, p. 150.
5. T. Lindsay Baker and Billy R. Harrison, Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the Trading Post, p. 3.
6. Colonel William F. Cody, The Adventures of Buffalo Bill Cody, p. viii.
7. Baker and Harrison, p 29; T. R. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 523.
8. Baker and Harrison, p. 4
9. James L. Haley, The Buffalo War, p. 22.
10. Ibid., p. 26.
11. Ibid., p. 8.
12. Francis Parkman, The California and Oregon Trails, p. 251.
13. Baker and Harrison, p. 25.
14. Ibid., p. 41.
15. Fehrenbach, The Comanches, p. 523.
16. W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 188.
17. Thomas Battey, Life and Adventures of a Quaker Among the Indians, p. 239; and Baker and Harrison, p. 39.
18. Haley, The Buffalo War, p. 51.
19. Ernest Wallace, Ranald Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 119.
20. Kavanagh, The Comanches, p. 445; Haley, The Buffalo War, note on p. 232.
21. Letter: Agent J. M. Haworth to Enoch Hoag, May 5, 1874.
22. Battey, p. 302.
23. This was Coggia’s Comet.
24. Zoe Tilghman, Quanah Parker, Eagle of the Comanches, pp. 82–84.
25. Battey, p. 303.
26. Baker and Harrison, p. 44.
27. Quanah interview with Captain Hugh Lennox Scott, 1897, Fort Sill Archives.
28. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 320.
29. Haley, The Buffalo War, p. 57.
30. Letter: Agent J. M. Haworth to Enoch Hoag, June 8, 1874.
31. Quanah interview with Scott.
32. W. S. Nye Collection, “Iseeo Account,” pp. 58–60, Fort Sill Archives.
33. Quanah interview with Scott.
34. Olive King Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon, p. 167.
35. “Quanah Parker in Adobe Walls Battle,” Borger News Herald, date unknown, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum Archives.
36. Haley, The Buffalo War, p. 73.
37. Baker and Harrison, pp. 75ff.
38. Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon, p. 186.
39. Baker and Harrison, p. 66.
40. Ibid., pp. 64–66; Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon, pp. 162ff.
41. Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon, p. 181.
42. Robert G. Carter, The Old Sergeant’s Story, p. 98.
43. Quanah interview with Scott.
44. Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 194.
45. Ernest Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, pp. 256–57.
Nineteen THE RED RIVER WAR
1. Thomas Kavanagh, The Comanches, pp. 472–74. These are rough estimates. The precise number of Comanches is not known, mainly because it was impossible to tell, on a historical basis, which Indians were on or off the reservation by measuring the number of rations drawn. The best estimate for ration-drawing Indians was 2,643, made in March 1874 by Agent Haworth. Clearly many of those were Comanches who later went back into the wild. Kavanagh analyzes the various estimates of Indian populations from censuses taken in November 1869, December 1870, and March 1874. We know that roughly 650 Comanches were in Quanah’s, Black Beard’s, and Shaking Hand’s bands; that is not counting the Comanches who surrendered in unknown numbers after Palo Duro Canyon.
2. When all the tribes in the southern plains surrendered, the number of adult males was little more than seven hundred; this is my estimate based on that and on the ratio of fighting men to total population in the surrendered tribes; see Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 200.
3. Letter: C. C. Augur to Mackenzie, August 28, 1874, in F. E. Green, ed., “Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas, 1873–79,” Museum Journal, West Texas Museum Association (Lubbock, Texas), 10 (1966): 80ff.
4. Ernest Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 124.
5. Nelson Miles to AAG, Dept. of Missouri, September 1, 1874; Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence, p. 87.
6. James L. Haley, The Buffalo War, p. 193.
7. J. T. Marshall, The Miles Expedition of 1874–5, p. 39.
8. Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, pp. 125–26.
9. Ibid., p. 131.
10. Augur to Mackenzie, August 28, 1874; Mackenzie Official Correspondence, p. 81.
11. Robert G. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie, p. 484.
12. “Mackenzie’s Expedition through the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon as described by a special correspondent of the New York Herald,” October 16, 1874, Museum Journal 10 (1966): 114.
13. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie, p. 485.
14. Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 136.
15. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie, p. 488.
16. John Charlton’s account in Captain Robert G. Carter, The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 39.
17. Charlton in Carter, The Old Sergeant’s Story, p. 107, and Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 140.
18. Charlton in Carter, The Old Sergeant’s Story, p. 108.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 109.
21. Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 139.
22. “Journal of Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Messenger to the Quahada Comanches,” Red River Valley Historical Review 3, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 227.
23. Ibid., p. 229.
24. Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, p. 255, citing untitled Dickson manuscript.
25. “Journal of Mackenzie’s Messenger,” p. 237.
26. Ibid., p. 237.
27. Wayne Parker, Quanah Parker, Last Chief of the Kwahadi Obeys the Great Spirit, manuscript.
28. Ibid., p. 239.
29. W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 229.
30. William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 15.
31. Ibid.
Twenty FORWARD, IN DEFEAT
1. Charles M. Robinson III, Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie, pp. 186–88.
2. William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, pp. 20–21, Mackenzie to Pope, letter, September 5, 1875.
3. Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief : The Life and Times of Quanah Parker, p. 144.
4. Letter: Ranald S. Mackenzie to Isaac Parker, September 5, 1877 (Fort Sill Letter Book).
5. Charles Goodnight, “Pioneer Outlines Sketch of Quanah Parker’s Life,” Amarillo Sunday News and Globe, August 6, 1928.
6. Accounts of both actions are in letters from J. M. Haworth to William Nicholson, August 26, 1877, Kiowa Agency Microform, National Archives; and Colonel J. W. Davidson to Asst. Adjutant General, October 29, 1878, House Executive Document, 45th Congress, Third Session, p. 555.
7. John R. Cook, The Border and the Buffalo, pp. 249ff.
8. Neeley, p. 153.
9. Herman Lehmann, Nine Years Among the Indians, pp. 186–87.
10. Scott Zesch, The Captured, pp. 220–21, citing Haworth and Mackenzie correspondence.
11. Lehmann, pp. 187–88.
12. Ibid., p. 232.
13. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 26.
14. Wellington Brink, “Quanah and the Leopard Coat Man,” Farm and Ranch, April 17, 1926.
15. Harley True Burton, “History of the JA Ranch,” Southwestern Historical Quarterl
y 31, no. 2 (October 1927).
16. Brink.
17. Burton.
18. Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 212.
19. Lillian Gunter, “Sketch of the Life of Julian Gunter,” manuscript made for Panhandle Plains Historical Association, 1923, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum archives.
20. G. W. Roberson to J. Evetts Haley, June 30, 1926, manuscript in Panhandle Plains Historical Museum archives.
21. Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman, p. 30.
22. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 31.
23. Council Meeting of May 23, 1884, Kiowas, 17:46, Oklahoma Historical Society.
24. H. P. Jones to Philemon Hunt, interview, June 21, 1883, Kiowa Agency files, Oklahoma Historical Society; George Fox to Philemon Hunt, October 13, 1884, Kiowa Agency files.
25. Quanah Parker to Charles Adams, interview, May 13, 1890, Kiowa Agency files, Oklahoma History Center.
26. James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Story of Her Capture, pp. 78–79.
27. Hugh Lennox Scott, Some Memories of a Soldier, p. 151.
28. Hobart Democrat-Chief (Oklahoma), August 4, 1925, interview with Knox Beall who said that Grantham was adopted and also Quanah’s business adviser.
29. Commissioner T. J. Morgan to Agent Adams, interview, December 18, 1890, Kiowa Agency files, Oklahoma Historical Society.
30. Profile of Charlie Hart by Evelyn Fleming, manuscript, Quanah Parker papers, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum.
31. Knox Beall to R. B. Thomas, interview, November 5, 1937, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma; Beall to Bessie Thomas, April 15, 1938.
32. Lehmann, pp. 233–34.
33. Dick Banks to Bessie Smith, interview, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma.
34. Robert B. Thomas, undated manuscript, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma; also Beall to Thomas, November 5, 1937.
35. Anna Gomez to Ophelia D. Vestal, interview, December 13, 1937, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma.
36. Letter: Bob Linger to Quanah, March 9, 1909, in Neeley Archive at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.
37. Star House still exists, in somewhat deteriorated condition, in Cache, Oklahoma. My tour of it included the dining room, which, based on photographs from the early twentieth century, is substantially as it was. The only way to tour it is by inquiring at the old trading post in Cache.
38. Gomez to Vestal, interview, December 13, 1937.
39. Memoirs of Mrs. Cora Miller Kirkpatrick, in Mrs. J. W. Pierce manuscript, Quanah Parker collection, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.
40. Ernest Wallace, Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, p. 170.
41. Ibid., p. 172.
42. Ibid., p. 190.
Twenty-one THIS WAS A MAN
1. William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 65.
2. September 26, 1892, Hearing at Fort Sill, Comanches, Apaches, Kiowas, Quanah Parker Collection, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.
3. William T. Hagan, United States-Comanche Relations, p. 287.
4. Knox Beall to R. B. Thomas, interview, November 5, 1937, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma.
5. Robert Thomas, document in Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma.
6. Mrs. J. L. Dupree to Jasper Mead, interview, March 17, 1938; Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma.
7. George W. Briggs to Eunice M. Mayer, interview, June 17, 1937, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma.
8. Robert G. Carter, Tragedies of Canon Blanco, pp. 79–80.
9. “Quanah Route Day Draws Large Crowds,” Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1910.
10. Robert Thomas document, in Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma.
11. T. R. Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of the American Hunter, p. 100.
12. Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief, p. 220, citing 1985 Neeley interview with Anona Birdsong Dean.
13. Letter: T. R. Roosevelt to Francis Leupp, April 14, 1905, Indian Office Letters Rec’d.
14. Unidentified newspaper story about the school board in Quanah Parker Collection, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.
15. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches, pp. 332ff.
16. Hobart Democrat-Chief (Oklahoma), August 4, 1925.
17. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 113.
18. Frank Cummins Lockwood, The Apaches, p. 326; Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 129.
Twenty-two RESTING HERE UNTIL DAY BREAKS
1. “Quanah Route Day Draws Large Crowd,” Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1910.
2. Ibid.
3. William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief, p. 124.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
As I hope will be apparent to the reader, much of this book was constructed using a large number of firsthand accounts from the era. When sweeping through three hundred years of history, secondary sources are of course helpful as guides and summaries, but the most valuable resources are always the unfiltered ones. I was extremely fortunate, living in Austin, Texas, to be able to avail myself of the astounding literary and archival materials at the University of Texas libraries, especially the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which, in the pursuit of Comanche history, must be regarded as ground zero. Extensive archival materials were also used from the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum archives in Canyon, Texas, and at the Western History Collection at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. The latter contains the Indian Pioneer History Project, a set of interviews conducted in the 1930s with people whose memories stretched well back into the nineteenth century. I used this heavily in my last chapters on Quanah, and indeed much of what I know about him in the last few decades of his life come from those voluminous interviews. Also extremely useful is Kiowa Agency material at the Oklahoma Historical Society/Oklahoma History Center, which has great detail on Quanah’s reservation years. The archives at the Fort Sill museum have regrettably been closed indefinitely to scholars. This required a good deal of hustling on my part to try to find those Comanche materials elsewhere, including the incomparable 1897 Hugh Lenox Scott interviews with Quanah and other items in the W. S. Nye collection. (Many were in the Neely subarchive in Canyon.) Much of my time researching this book was spent at the Briscoe Center, with various rare books, records, dusty archives, and typed and handwritten manuscripts in front of me. (My favorite moment was when several hundred Confederate dollars came fluttering down out of a file full of handwritten manuscripts I was reading. The money looked almost new.)
That and other archival material allowed me to reconstruct the major historical events narrated in the story from authoritative, if not deep, firsthand accounts. These include the events at Parker’s Fort and subsequent captivities of family members; the rise of the Texas Rangers including the careers of Jack Hays and Rip Ford (firsthand from Noah Smithwick, Rip Ford, Major John Caperton, B. F. Gholson, Charles Goodnight, and others); the “rescue” of Cynthia Ann Parker, the Council House Fight, Linnville Raid and Battle of Plum Creek, the Battle at Adobe Walls, and the Red River War. The detailed account of the Battle of Blanco Canyon came from men who rode with Mackenzie (Captain Robert G. Carter’s “On the Border with Mackenzie” is one of the great documents of the American West). The Red River War was similarly based on contemporary accounts and aided by the wonderful compilation by the West Texas Museum: “Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas,” in two volumes, covering the years 1871–79. Captain George Pettis left behind a remarkable blow-by-blow account of Kit Carson’s fight with the Com
anches in 1860. Primary sources were also used to write some of the early history of the Comanches, most notably the writings of Athanase de Mézières, a Spanish administrator from 1769 and one of the most effective Indian agents of all time, as well as Spanish government reports.