James N. Gregory

“ Population movements in the United States have generally gone from East to West in parallel lines, once the Atlantic seaboard was settled. And so this great gold movement from East to West brought settlement of the intermediate lands between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean by the natural contrasting types of North-South peoples.
The great Oregon and Santa Fe Trails serviced the people of the more northerly parts of our country, but for those in the southern parts a newer trail had to be found and by simple geography it had to cross Texas. ”

“ The settlers suffered constantly and the Indians learned new tricks. Many more learned how to live off government bounty on the reservations in Indian Territory, then hit the war path along with their wild brethren from the Texas Panhandle. They were amply protected on their return to the reservations by the Indian agents in charge, who believed their wards could do no wrong. Why, they would ask, would an Indian steal cattle when he had all the buffalo meat he wanted? ”

“ Hundreds of warriors, the flower of the fighting men of the Southwestern Plains tribes, mounted upon their finest horses, armed with guns and lances, and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide, were coming like the wind. ”

“ Now the Comanche as a mounted man probably roamed the great plains from present Wyoming to Durango, Mexico. It was easy to make a living on such a range. It abounded in buffalo; and the wise Comanche knew all the water holes. He drove the wily Apaches to the south until they crossed the Rio Grande and settled in a quasi-peaceful manner in Mexico, or later chose Arizona and New Mexico and preyed on the settlers, immigrants and prospectors.
From the records, the Comanche does not appear to have been a breeder of horses, cattle or sheep. ”

“ A North-South trade route had existed for some two hundred years connecting Spanish Santa Fe, far north toward the headwaters 9 of the Rio Grande, south through the Paso del Norte to the settlements in the mother country of Mexico. The Santa Fe Trail extended to California, would cross this trade route at Santa Fe, well up in the Rocky Mountains, while the route through Texas would cross it at El Paso. And so these two places became the supply dumps where the great wagon trains took on horses, mules, beef and other supplies that would see them across the final leg of the journey west. ”

“ But the lure that led men to our West was not gold alone. The El Dorado of man’s dreams, be it a gold vein, oil patch, store on Main Street, cattle ranch, or farm in Peaceful Valley, can very well lie in any new and unexplored lands. ”

“ Along the upper Rio Grande, the raids into Texas were made by Indians: the Kickapoos, Lipans and Apaches. These tribes had settled in that great arid and sparsely inhabited area that extends south of the Rio Grande from Laredo to El Paso. That part of Mexico was a no-man’s land. The small Mexican and Indian villages were a law unto themselves. The Mexicans often joined the Indians on their raids, and the cattle and horses brought back found a ready market in the Mexican villages. ”

“ Satanta got up to defend himself before his accusers. Over six feet tall, the perfect figure of an athlete and well known as the orator of the plains who could sway councils of both whites and Indians, he could well have influenced the jury by mute silence, but instead he lied and dissembled to save his life. He never mentioned the wrongs done his people by the whites. ”

“ The site chosen as the replacement for Fort Chadbourne, to be called Fort Concho, was at the confluence of the North Concho River with the combined waters of the Middle Concho, Spring Creek, Dove Creek and the South Concho, the last three named streams being fed by bountiful springs. This abundance of water and the geographically central location marked the spot as the natural convergence of trails from East, Northeast and South Texas before they headed westward for Horsehead Crossing and El Paso. Nature had been kind to this oasis in an otherwise desolate region. ”

“ A Saxon’s scalp decorating a Comanche’s war shield might be avenged by an Indian’s entire skin decorating a rude barn door.
Matters were better controlled after the annexation of Texas by the United States and after the close of the Mexican War. But it took manpower and supplies to do it, something the new republic had been slow in acquiring. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided, among other things, that the United States would make every effort to keep the Indians from raiding into Mexico ”

“ The settlers near the Rio Grande, from Del Rio to the mouth of that river near Brownsville, suffered from raids out of Mexico by both Mexicans and Indians, while the northern prongs of the new settlements were exposed to the Comanches and Kiowas. It was a bitter struggle, fought generally in small isolated settlements where the determined Anglo-Saxon fought for his new home against an equally determined Indian fighting to preserve his ancient homeland and range. ”

“ The Negro regiments on the Texas frontier during these Indian times were the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry.
[5] During the Civil War the cattle on the open Texas ranges increased many fold with the loss by the Confederacy of control of the Mississippi River. After that war they so far exceeded local demand that cattle drives on a much larger scale than ever before attempted, got under way. The Chisholm and Western Trails, “from anywhere in Texas,” on north through the western part of the Indian Territory entrained cattle in Kansas for the Eastern feedlots. ”

“ Now take your time and browse through the Fort Concho Museum. Drive through the City over streets that bear the names of Beauregard, Mackenzie, Shafter, Grierson and Chadbourne. It is all worth it, because without it, there would soon be little to show us of the comparative life that existed in our Southwest only a few short years ago. ”

“ A vast area of plains, deserts and mountains, an unmapped and untraveled wilderness was now owned by the Northern Republic. It was inhabited mostly by Comanche, Apache, Kiowa and other warlike Indian tribes, and it stretched from the settlements of South and East Texas, and from the lower Missouri River area to the new American settlements on the Pacific Coast. ”

“ To get out north of El Paso would take you across the Llano Estacado which in those days was considered a vast treeless plain, unbroken by any topographic changes, and completely devoid of water holes.
The accompanying map, published in 1856 in Yoakum’s History of Texas, shows clearly the political subdivisions and settlements of Texas in those times. A substantial part of the State, from the Panhandle to the upper Rio Grande, appears to be completely uninhabited and, therefore, politically unorganized. ”

“ If a Comanche or Kiowa Indian observed Fort Phantom Hill today for the first time, he would probably name it, “Many chimneys that do not smoke.” The buildings are gone and he would not be interested in their foundations. ”

“ We crossed immense herds of cattle today, which are allowed to run wild upon the prairies, and they multiply very rapidly. The only attention the owners give them is to brand the calves and occasionally go out to see where they range. The remains of several ranches were observed, the occupants of which have either been 22 killed or driven off to the more dense settlements, by the Indians. ”

“ By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, the War Department had finally followed the advice of such able soldiers as Joe Johnston and Chase Whiting. The forts received a new alignment and were manned mostly by cavalry. Supplies were sent in as before, from bases like San Antonio. The wagons, pulled by oxen or mules, were well guarded in most instances by soldiers. The contracts for furnishing the supplies and their transportation were let to civilians. ”

“ Friendly East Texas Indians almost starved on the reservations, and the more warlike plains tribes had no idea of staying there even when they agreed to move in. The old men’s tales of conquest and horse stealing were more than the young bucks could take. ”

“ Federal munificence has fostered and nourished them, fed and clothed them; from their strongholds of protection they have come down upon us ‘like wolves on the fold’; treaties have been solemnly made with them, wherein they have been considered with all the formalities of quasi nationalities ”

“ Many Civil War leaders, both Confederate and Union, received much field training from 1849 to the outbreak of that war in 1861, building and manning the forts, chasing, but seldom catching, the Indians, guarding the wagon trains and mail bags and exploring the wilderness for better trails and water holes. ”

“ This drubbing had a salutary effect on the Indians. The captives were sent to Fort Concho for prisoner exchange, and many warriors sought safety on the reservations. Their Chief Satank was dead and Chiefs Satanta and Big Tree were in the penitentiary at Huntsville. The next spring the remaining one hundred captive women and children at Fort Concho were delivered back to the reservation at Fort Sill amid great rejoicing by the braves. They began to feel that the pale face was not such a bad hombre after all. ”

“ Renegade Mexicans, half breeds and outlaw Americans who lived in Mexican settlements in New Mexico, from whence they traveled in small bands, usually by wagon or oxcart, to the Llano Estacado where they met the Comanches, Kiowas or other Indians and traded guns, ammunition, whiskey and other desirable items for the products of the raids. ”

“ This combined with other factors, such as the restlessness of the Indians on the reservations, and the slaughter of the buffalo, united the efforts of the Comanche tribe. Along with the Kiowas, now aided by the Cheyennes, they started trouble all over again. Once more the raids, during the spring of 1874, hit the Texas frontier, and as usual the soldiers while sleeping, had their horses stolen. Buffalo hunters in their lonely camps on the Panhandle plains were murdered and scalped. ”

“ Here they usually encountered hostility from the native tribes of the Great Plains whose superior numbers threatened their entire existence. They were considered intruders and were obliged to turn to the United States troops, where possible, for protection. Their natural ability as “trackers” made them a necessary unit in any force of troops that sought to engage hostile Indians.
The Seminoles from Florida were pretty well mixed with Negro blood upon their arrival in East Texas, and later in the Indian Territory. ”

“ Just east of the old Adobe Walls ruins, on the north side of the Canadian River in what is now northeastern Hutchinson County, twenty-eight men and one woman fortified themselves in three new adobe buildings that had just been completed as a trading post in anticipation of the northern migration of the great buffalo herds. ”

“ Mackenzie appears to have been overall commander. However, the biography of Nelson A. Miles seems to give Miles considerable credit for subduing the Indians in our West. He was a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War and rose to high rank, higher than that reached by Mackenzie. Biographies can often be misleading, parts of them being word of mouth stories from the principal himself. Miles could never have been called a ‘modest’ man. ”

“ Such business sagacity however, did not apply in later times to the Republic of Texas, where each succeeding year saw new settlers break ground and homestead farther up the river valleys, whose streams had their origins in the motherland plains of the Comanche and Kiowa. ”

“ His column moved out March 27, 1871, cavalry, pack mules and wagons. The bachelor commander even allowed wives of the men to accompany the expedition as far as the new headquarters at Fort Richardson.
The weather was crisp and cold as they forded the North Concho and soon passed Mt. Margaret, named after “the most accomplished, loving and devoted wife of one of our favorite captains, E. B. Beaumont”— (Beaumont-Beautiful Mountain) , so wrote Captain Robert G. Carter, historian and winner of The Congressional Medal of Honor in the Indian Wars, who was a member of the expedition. ”

“ Mackenzie realized those things and knew he could receive no cooperation from Grierson at Fort Sill, so in September, acting on orders, concentrated a force of eight companies of the 4th Cavalry, two companies of the 11th Infantry and thirty Tonkawa Indian scouts at old Camp Cooper near Fort Griffin. The infantry would be used to guard the supply bases as he moved northwesterly in the hope of engaging the wild brethren under Chief Quanah. He bivouaced in the mouth of Blanco Canyon and lost sixty odd horses to an Indian raid that night. ”

“ On February 18, 1870, a citizen was killed and scalped within one-quarter of a mile of the post limits at Fort Concho. In January of the same year, eighteen mules were stolen from the Q.M. corral at that same post. The same year, 1870, while Colonel Grierson was building Fort Sill in the Indian Territory, Chief Kicking Bird, a Kiowa, defeated the Command of Captain C. B. McClellan near the present town of Seymour. As late as March of 1872, a wagon train was waylaid near Grierson Springs in Reagan 21 County and the teamsters killed by the Indians. ”

“ Now to further protect immigrants and mail bags on the route west and to protect settlers of central and northern Texas who were still moving higher up the river valleys, it set up Fort Chadbourne as a pivot between the new western line and the new lower Rio Grande Valley line. ”