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June 27, 2023
Today in Texas History
By Bandera Spirits of Texas
The Bandera Prophet
On this day in 1874, a party of about 700 Plains Indians, mostly Cheyenne, Comanches and Kiowas, attacked a buffalo hunters' camp about a mile from the ruins known as Adobe Walls (the scene of a previous encounter between Indians and U.S. troops), in what is now Hutchinson County. The battle and the siege that followed became known as the Second Battle of Adobe Walls.
The defenders, 28 men and one woman, gathered in three buildings and repelled the initial charge with a loss of only two men. The Indians continued the siege for four or five days, but, when hunters came to the assistance of the camp, gave up the fight.
During the siege, in one of the most famous feats of marksmanship of the Indian wars, William (Billy) Dixon is reported to have shot an Indian off his horse from a distance of seventh-eighths of a mile. The larger significance of this fight is that it led to the Red River War of 1874-75, which resulted in the final relocation of the Southern Plains Indians to reservations in Indian Territory.
The defenders, 28 men and one woman, gathered in three buildings and repelled the initial charge with a loss of only two men. The Indians continued the siege for four or five days, but, when hunters came to the assistance of the camp, gave up the fight.
During the siege, in one of the most famous feats of marksmanship of the Indian wars, William (Billy) Dixon is reported to have shot an Indian off his horse from a distance of seventh-eighths of a mile. The larger significance of this fight is that it led to the Red River War of 1874-75, which resulted in the final relocation of the Southern Plains Indians to reservations in Indian Territory.