Kiowa chief Satanta had a bugle, and he knew how to use it. During the battle on November 25, 1864, near the ruins of William Bent's abandoned adobe trading post on the Canadian River, Satanta answered Kit Carson's bugler call for call, sending contradictory signals to confuse the soldiers. It was a small, brilliant detail in a fight that nearly became a catastrophe for the U.S. Army. Carson had marched into the Texas Panhandle expecting to punish a few raiding bands. Instead, he found himself surrounded by an estimated 1,200 to 3,000 Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apache warriors -- and only his two mountain howitzers and a lifetime of frontier cunning kept his command from being overrun.
General James Henry Carleton, commander of the military District of New Mexico, ordered the campaign to punish the Kiowa and Comanche for attacks on wagon trains along the Santa Fe Trail. The tribes saw these wagon trains as trespassers who killed the buffalo they depended on for survival. Carson, the legendary scout-turned-soldier, assembled his force and marched east with Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts he trusted implicitly. Inclement weather, including an early snowstorm, slowed the column. On November 24, the 1st Cavalry reached Mule Springs in Moore County, approximately west of Adobe Walls -- the crumbling ruins of Bent's old trading post and saloon, located 17 miles northeast of present-day Stinnett in Hutchinson County.
Two hours after daybreak on November 25, Carson's cavalry found and attacked a Kiowa village of 176 lodges. Chief Dohasan and his people fled, spreading the alarm to allied Comanche villages nearby. Guipago rallied warriors to protect the retreating women and children. Carson advanced four miles to Adobe Walls and dug in, using one corner of the ruins as a field hospital. Then he saw the scale of his problem: numerous villages stretched along the river, including a large Comanche camp of roughly 500 lodges. Warriors poured forward in numbers far beyond what Carson had anticipated. He dismounted his cavalry around the two howitzers and prepared for the fight of his life.
The Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache warriors attacked repeatedly, mounted and painted, throwing themselves over the sides of their horses at full gallop to fire from beneath the animals' necks. Dohasan, Satank, Guipago, and Satanta led the Kiowa charges. Carson's howitzers were the difference between survival and annihilation. The first shells caused the warriors to pull back, but they returned in even greater numbers. By afternoon, Carson was running low on ammunition. He ordered a retreat to the Kiowa village in his rear, but the warriors tried to block his path by setting fire to the grass along the river. Carson set backfires of his own and withdrew to higher ground. At twilight, he ordered the Kiowa village burned. Kiowa Apache chief Iron Shirt, who refused to leave his tipi, died in the flames.
Carson rested his command on November 26, the warriors visible on a hilltop two miles distant. Some of his officers wanted to renew the fight, but Carson, consulting only with his Ute and Jicarilla scouts, ordered the march back to New Mexico. It was the wise choice. He had lost six dead and 25 wounded; Comanche and Kiowa losses were estimated at 50 to 60 killed, though exact figures are unverifiable given the long-range nature of the fighting. The U.S. Army declared the engagement a victory. The Kiowa painted their own account on buffalo skin: this was "muddy travel winter, the time when the Kiowas repelled Kit Carson." The Texas historical marker erected in 1964 splits the difference, stating that "though Carson made a brilliant defense, the Indians won." It was the last time the Comanche and Kiowa forced American troops to retreat from a battlefield.
Located at 35.89N, 101.16W in Hutchinson County, Texas, on the northern side of the Canadian River, 17 miles northeast of present-day Stinnett. The Canadian River valley cuts through the flat Texas Panhandle terrain and is visible from altitude as a distinct drainage. Nearest airports: Hutchinson County Airport (KBGD) in Borger approximately 15 nm southeast; Amarillo International Airport (KAMA) approximately 50 nm southwest. Best viewed at 3,000-5,000 feet AGL. The Canadian River breaks are the most prominent terrain feature in otherwise flat grassland.