Winning West Texas From the Comanches - Personalized Limited Edition
"This campaign was not only comprehensive, but was the most successful of any Indian Campaign in this country..."
That's how General Sheridan described Ranald "Bad Hand" Mackenzie's campaign against the Kiowas and Comanches in 1874-75. That campaign included the decisive Battle of Palo Duro Canyon.
The actions of Mackenzie and the 4th U. S. Cavalry were documented by one of his officers - a young West Point graduate, Robert Goldthwaite Carter, who arrived in Texas in 1870. The newly married Carter honeymooned in a tent at Fort Concho. Within a year, he had rendered gallant service that would make him a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.
Carter's military career was short, thanks to wounds received in battle in 1876 but he packed a lifetime into six years on the Texas frontier. The Fourth Cavalry made tracks through the Texas frontier forts (Belknap, Clark, Richardson, McKavett, Phantom Hill, Griffin, and Concho), into present-day Oklahoma, Kansas, and into Mexico in pursuit of names you know far better than Robert Carter's:
- Kicking Bird, Satanta, Lone Wolf and their bands of Kiowas
- Mow-way and his Kotsoteka Comanches.
- Quanah Parker and his Quahada Comanches.
When the Colt revolvers and repeating carbines were silent, there was camp life. Captain Carter ably describes the northers, fleas, food, and habits of U. S. Army life in Texas. He shares his observations on the habits of the 4th Cavalry's Tonkawa guides, too.
This is a big book - nearly 600 pages. Here's a sampling off the top of my head of what you'll find between the covers:
- Buffalo stampedes
- The legend of Fort Phantom Hill
- The captures of Satanta, Setank, and Big Tree
- The cowboy trial of Satanta
- Texas' great gypsum belt
- A real prune pie
- Tragedies of Blanco Canyon
- Scalp poles and the death of Gregg
- Riding with a shattered leg
- Tonkawa guides take Comanche scalps
- Camp medic collects Comanche skulls
- Warren Wagon Train massacre
- An epidemic of desertions
- Whaley's Ranch on the Big Wichita
- Looking after Lt. McKinney
- Frontier wedding at Jacksboro
- Buffalo calf riding
- The poisoned nanny goat
- Midnight council on the Fort Sill Trail
- Direct disobedience of orders
- Direct charge on Mow-way's village
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Capturing 3,000 horses
- Tasting human flesh
- March from Ft. McKavett to the Rio Grande
- Brackettville, "the ulcer of every garrison"
- The Remolino Raid
- A 32-hour march from Mexico
- Killing 1,500 Comanche ponies
- Mopping up the Texas Panhandle
The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon marked the end of life as the Comanches knew it. That's why the secondary title of Carter's book is "Winning West Texas From The Comanches." Everything they needed to survive the winter of 1874-75 was lost in the battle. Stores of food, buffalo robes for warmth, valuable horse flesh - all gone. It was a turning point in Texas history and Carter was an eyewitness to it.
Captain Carter had strong opinions on everything from military deserters to Quanah Parker. He doesn't write glittering prose but you always know where he stands.
The Physical Details
- Hardcover in personalized dust jacket
- 576 pages
- Limited Edition of 254 hand-numbered copies
- Pure frontier Texas character
