Heroes of the Santa Fe Trail

by Randy D. Smith

  In 1867, work was begun on two enlisted men’s barracks at the north end of the square. Each building was 161 by 43 feet, and on the north side at the center of each structure, a kitchen was attached. Each unit contained quarters for two companies, one on each end, with orderly and mess rooms for both companies. Both kitchens were built over storage cellars. By 1871, the size of the post had dwindled, and the east barracks was converted into a hospital to replace a dilapidated adobe hospital that had been northeast of the square.

  Forty-foot-square rooms with ten-foot ceilings were designed to house approximately eighty men in each wing of the buildings. The buildings were heated by a series of large cast-iron wood-burning stoves. Bunks were double and two-tiered sleeping two up and two down. Large roofed verandahs were built on the south sides of the buildings.

  At the west end of the square are three officers’ quarters, with the post commander’s residence in the center. On either side were identical buildings designed to quarter four captains and eight lieutenants. The three buildings each had a simple floor plan, with a center hall running completely through the buildings. Kitchens were added to the west of each building. The post commander’s residence had a second story above the kitchen for servants’ quarters. All the buildings had large verandahs facing east, with wooden privacy fences to the west.

  Completing the square on the east side was a shop building to the north that housed a bakery, saddle shop, wheelwright and carpenter shop, and blacksmith shop. To the south was the new commissary storehouse that was used to store foodstuffs and later as an isolation ward for the hospital and schoolhouse. Other wooden structures for laundries, stables, icehouses and hospital stewards’ quarters existed, but have not been rebuilt. The general appearance of the fort resembled that of a well-ordered village rather than a walled fort.

  Although no one of great fame served at the fort, a number of notables visited the garrison or had indirect dealings with it. J.E.B. Stuart was at the post in 1860, before he joined the Confederacy. The infamous John Chivington was there during the Civil War. Kit Carson, serving as a peace commissioner, visited Fort Larned following the signing of the treaties of the Little Arkansas. George Custer of the 7th Cavalry spent a week there as part of General Winfield Hancock’s expedition of 1867. Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody had dealings there following the war. Henry M. Stanley wrote about the post while acting as a correspondent four years before his encounter with David Livingston in Africa. The two best-known officers were Majors John E. Yard and Richard Dodge.

  The garrison was usually made up of both cavalry and infantry companies, sometimes supplemented by an artillery battery. Black soldiers served there from 1867 to 1869, when men of the 10th Cavalry were part of the garrison. These black troops were among the best units to serve at the post and developed a strong reputation among the tribes as fearless and worthy adversaries.

  Perhaps the most important military campaign to be based from Fort Larned was Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s expedition of 1867. Hancock compiled a brilliant Civil War record and was a man of extreme personal courage. His performance during Pickett’s charge at the Battle of Gettysburg remains a legendary example of heroism. But, like so many officers from the East he did not understand the mentality or culture of the Plains Indian.

  Winfield Hancock

  In February 1867, Indian interpreter Fred Jones made the claim that Kiowa chief Satanta demanded all military posts removed from the Plains. Santa Fe Trail traffic was to be stopped at Council Grove and railroad construction ended at Junction City. If this was not done the tribes would unite and drive the whites from the region. This ridiculous account and other false reports convinced military leaders that an Indian uprising was menacingly near. It was decided that a military campaign would be undertaken in the spring to defeat those tribes that had not taken residence on assigned reservations.

  Hancock, commanding the military department, organized a force of 1,400 troops to march down the Santa Fe Trail and enforce the treaties. Among the force were George Armstrong Custer and his newly organized 7th cavalry and civilian scouts Wild Bill Hickok, Jack Harvey and Tom Atkins.

  Hancock’s force arrived at Fort Larned on April 7, where he planned to meet with Indian agents and tribal leaders. A snowstorm on the 9th delayed the meeting for several days. The Cheyenne and Sioux made camp along the Pawnee Fork and waited for contact. Hancock marched the major portion of his command to the camps for the conference. Such a large body of soldiers frightened the tribes, especially the women and children, and the encampment was quickly abandoned. Hancock convinced himself that the Indians must have had hostile intent or they would not have fled. He sent Custer and his 7th in pursuit to the north. Custer failed to overtake the Indians but when he reached the Smoky Hill Trail, they found that Indians had attacked some stage stations. Assuming that it was the same Indians from Pawnee Fork, Hancock ordered the abandoned villages burned.

  Hancock marched his command to Fort Dodge where he met with several Kiowa chiefs, including Satanta. After hearing Satanta’s impressive promises of peace and good will, Hancock presented the chief with a major general’s uniform as a symbolic gesture of trust. He then gave up his campaign and returned to his headquarters at Fort Leavenworth.

  Satanta waited patiently for the general and his force to leave then proceeded to steal the livestock at Fort Dodge in a raid, wearing, of course, his new major general’s uniform. Far from being a deterrent, Hancock’s burning of the villages along Pawnee Fork contributed to an increase in tribal resistance during the summer of 1867. Fort Larned was under increased pressure to escort caravans and pursue Indian attackers.

  Although there were opportunities for contact with travelers, the soldiers were generally isolated until the establishment of the town of Larned. Other than two sutler’s stores, there were few other outlets for the men. Desertion rates were high, especially during a cholera epidemic in 1867 that took six lives. As with most western posts of the period, there was a high degree of alcoholism. In the early years there were also several cases of scurvy due to the poor diet of the men. Later, the soldiers’ gardens supplied fresh vegetables that helped greatly with morale.

  By the early 1870s, the circumstances that had led to the placement of the fort had passed, and in 1872, Lt. Gen. Phil Sheridan recommended that the fort be abandoned. On July 13, 1878, the garrison was sent to Fort Hays, and only a small detachment was left to guard the property. On March 13, 1884, the property was sold at auction to the Pawnee Valley Stock Breeders’ Association. In 1902, the land was sold to Edward Frizell, and the family developed the fort into a successful farming and livestock operation. In 1961, the Department of Interior designated Fort Larned a national historic landmark. The government purchased the property in 1966.

  Today, the restored fort is a unit of the National Park Service system and a national historic site. The fort is open every day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

  Modern reconstruction of Fort Larned near Larned, Kansas

  Although never a major post on the western frontier, Fort Larned is typical of hundreds of almost-forgotten military establishments that for a short time provided essential protection for the founding of the West. Immensely important for a few short months or years, they were swiftly passed by as the population of the United States swept across the frontier. Suddenly without value they were abandoned and often disregarded. Fort Larned stands as a symbol of military installations that served as the buttress of civilian settlement along the Santa Fe Trail.

  Chapter 13

  Kit Carson & The First Battle of Adobe Walls

  Kit Carson

  An almost-forgotten battle between Indians and whites for control of the Santa Fe Trail demonstrates the brilliant leadership capabilities of one of the West’s most famous men.

  In 1845, William Bent attempted to establish a trading outpost on the north side of the Canadian River in what is today part Hutchinson Co
unty of the Texas panhandle. Bent hoped the outpost would help increase profits for his Bent-St. Vrain trading empire which centered at Bent’s Fort near LaJunta, Colorado, and dominated trade between Indians and whites along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, unlike most of Bent’s ventures, Adobe Walls failed and was abandoned within a year. Hostile Comanche Indians did not feel the ties to Bent as did the Cheyenne, one of whom became Bent’s wife, and after months of harassment and poor trading opportunity, Bent accepted his losses and gave u the scheme. He left an imposing sod fortress as the only reminder of his failed venture. The structure became a lonely haven for the occasional traveler or hide-hunter needing a relatively safe place to make camp. Like most sod constructions, which demand constant upkeep and maintenance, the fortress soon became nothing more than a crumbling ruin in an otherwise featureless landscape of grassy horizons, low mesas and table-flat plains.

  On two separate occasions, Adobe Walls became another type of symbol. Desperate encounters were fought there between Indians and whites. In 1874, the famous Battle of Adobe Walls took place there between a group of buffalo hunters and an alliance of Indian tribes under the mystic leadership of the Comanche medicine man, I-sa-tai. History has left many accounts of that encounter. But oddly, very little is written of an earlier battle that took place at Adobe Walls which may have been the largest Indian-white struggle in the history of the settlement of the West, dwarfing even Custer’s blunder on the Little Big Horn. This omission is even odder when one considers that it involved forces led by Christopher “Kit” Carson.

  Carson is one of the most famous characters of the mountain man legend. A beaver trapper in his teens, Carson was trained by some of the best of the early mountain men, Jim Bridger, Tom “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick and Jim Clyman. He rose to national prominence when he acted as a guide for John C. Fremont’s expedition of western exploration in 1842.

  Carson captured the imagination of the East and became the hero of several dime novels. He had acted as a professional hunter for Bent’s Fort after the “shining times” of the beaver trade had ended and established himself as a rancher near Taos, New Mexico. He married into the same influential Spanish family as his brother-in-law Charles Bent and was a leader of early Anglo New Mexico after the Mexican War of 1847. Carson prospered in the Southwest because of two qualities. He was a fearless man and most of all, a levelheaded leader. Modern historians are often critical of Carson because of his relentless and ruthless persecution of the Indian. It is true that he gave very little quarter, often using cruel and sometimes inhuman tactics but Carson was a man for his times. He fought to win using cunning intelligence to overcome a foe that was extremely dangerous and every bit as cunning as he. What seems cruel today is simply a reflection of another time and another standard of justice.

  Modern Cheyenne describe another trait of this “persecutor” of the Indian, claiming that he fathered no less than 15 children by Indian wives. If this claim is true, Carson built and used alliances within the tribes that have not been forgotten. That tribe considers Carson a brave ancestor from which it is an honor to trace one’s heritage. When Fremont met Carson and used him as a guide in 1842, the young scout’s leadership skills and knowledge of the West impressed him. Fremont publicized Carson as a kind of Hawkeye. Carson also had the good sense not to challenge the flighty and unpredictable Fremont, but serve him as an able second in command. Few men possessed the diplomacy to get along with Fremont for any length of time. To be so highly thought of by the likes of Fremont demonstrates the skillful ability of Carson to not only lead but to follow wisely.

  By 1864, as the Civil War raged in the east, Carson was in the twilight of his years. A short, barrel-chested man in his fifties, he had only three years left to live. He carried near his heart an aneurysm that would be aggravated by a fall from a horse and eventually kill him. Serving as a colonel of the New Mexico Volunteers, he subdued the Navajo in a relentless campaign of starvation and pursuit.

  Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa Indians were waging a reprisal for broken promises all along the Santa Fe Trail. Brigadier General James Carleton, commander of the hard-pressed Department of New Mexico ordered Carson to “give those Indians, especially the Kiowas, a severe drubbing. You know where to find the Indians; you know how to punish them; the rest is left with you.”

  Carson assembled his forces in October, 1864, at Fort Bascom on the Canadian River near the Texas line. Texas was part of the Confederacy, which meant that Carson’s force might have to deal with enemy soldiers, as well as hostile Indians. Fort Bascom was little more than a tent encampment and Carson proposed a strike two hundred miles from the post along Palo Duro Creek. Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho and Plains Apache had been reported there preparing for winter camp. Estimates of Indian strength ranged to over five thousand. Carson had defeated large numbers of Navajo in a winter campaign and felt that it was the only way to confront the Indians with his small force. He assembled a force of five companies of cavalry and two of infantry numbering fourteen officers and approximately three hundred and twenty men. One of his units, Company K, 1st California Volunteer Infantry under Lieutenant George Pettis, had two small mountain howitzers. The little smoothbore cannons were made of bronze, were less than three feet long and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. The cannons could throw a twelve-pound explosive shell approximately nine hundred yards. They weren’t the biggest guns in the war, but they were highly mobile and vastly superior to nothing, which was what the Indians had.

  Carson also recruited an old friend, Ute chief Kaniache. Kaniache brought along some seventy braves, a few of which were Plains Apache, eager to revenge themselves against their hereditary enemies, the Kiowa and Comanche. In return for sugar and coffee, the promise of food for their families, and the chance for loot taken from an enemy, the Ute agreed to serve support for Carson’s column.

  On November 6, Carson’s force crossed the Canadian River and advanced east into Texas. For eighteen days the command suffered through numbing cold, snowstorms and wet weather without seeing any sign of the Indians. Several white men complained about the almost nightly singing and dancing of the Indians as they prepared for war. Carson was able to control the differences and guide the force onward. By the 24th the command was near Mule Spring thirty miles west of Adobe Walls, when Ute scouts reported an Indian trail fifteen miles from their position. Sign indicated that it was a large group with many animals. Carson reacted by ordering his cavalry and artillery forward at once with the infantry to follow with the supply wagons the next morning. By sundown the men were in the saddle and by midnight had located the trail. To avoid blundering into the Indians in the night, Carson halted his column. After a long night standing in the bitter cold with no fires, Carson’s force resumed the trail at dawn.

  Less than an hour later, three braves were spotted across the river. The Indians retreated for a thick stand of cottonwood trees and tall grass with Carson’s Ute scouts closely behind. Carson ordered his cavalry into action reasoning that he needed to move as quickly as possible to maintain the element of surprise. He kept a single company of cavalry and the howitzers with him as he followed. The howitzers used what was called prairie carriages, which were little more than wheeled travois pulled behind single mules. Care had to be taken or the cannon could easily flip over in the rough terrain. There was no provision for men to ride with the cannon so the artillery unit had to jog along on foot with the guns. As they crossed the river, tall grass, often over the men’s heads, slowed their progress. As Carson worked his group through the grass, the reports of rifles could be heard ahead as the Ute and his cavalry units scattered a large village of over a hundred and fifty lodges. Carson found his cavalry at the ruins of Adobe Walls, fighting on foot in a skirmish line against a force of over two hundred braves. The men were holding their own in spite of several wounded. On the horizon was a force of Indians numbering nearly a thousand. Carson’s force had encountered a camp of nearly five hundred lodges w
ith a fighting force of three thousand braves, the largest assemblage of Kiowa in the West.

  Carson ordered Pettis to open fire with the howitzers. As the cannon threw several volleys toward the Indian force, it immediately fell back. Because the force had retreated so suddenly, Carson felt that he had time to feed and rest his troops. As his group took a rest and cared for the wounded, he watched the Indians through field glasses. Before long it became apparent that the Indian force was not retreating but regrouping for another attack.

  What followed was a long afternoon of wave after wave of braves attacking the force. This time the Indians remained scattered, reducing the effectiveness of the howitzers. The explosive shells took several casualties, at one time completely disintegrating an Indian pony, throwing its rider twenty feet into the air, but not with such effectiveness to force an Indian retreat. Evidence later showed that traders had recently supplied the Indians with fresh rifles and ammunition. They were able to maintain a galling firefight. To add to the confusion, the Indian force had a bugler who was blowing commands directly countering Carson’s bugler. Carson’s force was able to hold the Indians at bay, but little more than that. His men were being gradually worn down with casualties. Ammunition was running low and several mounts were dead and wounded. Carson made the decision to withdraw in the late afternoon in spite of the fact that many wanted to continue the fight. Carson felt that he had lost all element of surprise and that the Indians had probably emptied their village of supplies even if he could advance in the face of steadily increasing opposition. His force withdrew on foot, one man leading four horses while the other three provided covering fire. Carson had serious doubts concerning the safety of his rear guard. The Indians even set fire to the grass in an effort to force the abandonment of Carson’s orderly retreat. Smoke became so thick that it was difficult to tell the Indian position which often surprised the troops at point blank range.