Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History (63 page)

5
. W. A. Thompson, “Scouting with Mackenzie,”
Journal of the United States Cavalry Association
10 (1897): 431.

6
. Clinton Smith,
The Boy Captives,
p. 134.

7
. David La Vere,
Contrary Neighbors,
p. 194; Scott Zesch,
The Captured,
p. 159.

8
. Mackenzie’s Official Report, October 12, 1872, “1872, Sept. 29, Attack on Comanche Village,” To The Assistant Adjutant General, Department of Texas.

9
. Ibid.

10
. Herman Lehmann,
Nine Years Among the Indians,
pp. 185–86; Lehmann also notes that Batsena had been using a Spencer carbine, which suggests that the Comanches were finally beginning to trade for some of these weapons. By 1874 they would have many more of them.

11
. R. G. Carter,
The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 84.

12
. Mackenzie’s Official Report, October 12, 1872.

13
. Carter,
Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 84.

14
. Smith,
The Boy Captives,
p. 13.7

15
. Carter,
On the Border with Mackenzie,
pp. 419ff.

Eighteen
THE HIDE MEN AND THE MESSIAH

1
. Thomas W. Kavanagh,
The Comanches,
pp. 474ff.

2
. Rupert N. Richardson, “The Comanche Indians and the Fight at Adobe Walls,”
Panhandle Plains Historical Review
(Canyon, Texas) 4 (1931): 25.

3
. Quanah’s feathered headdress is on display at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.

4
. Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel,
The Comanches,
p. 150.

5
. T. Lindsay Baker and Billy R. Harrison,
Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the Trading Post,
p. 3.

6
. Colonel William F. Cody,
The Adventures of Buffalo Bill Cody,
p. viii.

7
. Baker and Harrison, p 29; T. R. Fehrenbach,
The Comanches,
p. 523.

8
. Baker and Harrison, p. 4

9
. James L. Haley,
The Buffalo War,
p. 22.

10
. Ibid., p. 26.

11
. Ibid., p. 8.

12
. Francis Parkman,
The California and Oregon Trails,
p. 251.

13
. Baker and Harrison, p. 25.

14
. Ibid., p. 41.

15
. Fehrenbach,
The Comanches,
p. 523.

16
. W. S. Nye,
Carbine and Lance,
p. 188.

17
. Thomas Battey,
Life and Adventures of a Quaker Among the Indians,
p. 239; and Baker and Harrison, p. 39.

18
. Haley,
The Buffalo War,
p. 51.

19
. Ernest Wallace,
Ranald Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
p. 119.

20
. Kavanagh,
The Comanches,
p. 445; Haley,
The Buffalo War,
note on p. 232.

21
. Letter: Agent J. M. Haworth to Enoch Hoag, May 5, 1874.

22
. Battey, p. 302.

23
. This was Coggia’s Comet.

24
. Zoe Tilghman,
Quanah Parker, Eagle of the Comanches,
pp. 82–84.

25
. Battey, p. 303.

26
. Baker and Harrison, p. 44.

27
. Quanah interview with Captain Hugh Lennox Scott, 1897, Fort Sill Archives.

28
. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 320.

29
. Haley,
The Buffalo War,
p. 57.

30
. Letter: Agent J. M. Haworth to Enoch Hoag, June 8, 1874.

31
. Quanah interview with Scott.

32
. W. S. Nye Collection, “Iseeo Account,” pp. 58–60, Fort Sill Archives.

33
. Quanah interview with Scott.

34
. Olive King Dixon,
Life of Billy Dixon,
p. 167.

35
. “Quanah Parker in Adobe Walls Battle,”
Borger News Herald,
date unknown, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum Archives.

36
. Haley,
The Buffalo War,
p. 73.

37
. Baker and Harrison, pp. 75ff.

38
. Dixon,
Life of Billy Dixon,
p. 186.

39
. Baker and Harrison, p. 66.

40
. Ibid., pp. 64–66; Dixon,
Life of Billy Dixon,
pp. 162ff.

41
. Dixon,
Life of Billy Dixon,
p. 181.

42
. Robert G. Carter,
The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 98.

43
. Quanah interview with Scott.

44
. Rupert N. Richardson,
The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement,
p. 194.

45
. Ernest Wallace,
Texas in Turmoil,
pp. 256–57.

Nineteen
THE RED RIVER WAR

1
. Thomas Kavanagh,
The Comanches,
pp. 472–74. These are rough estimates. The precise number of Comanches is not known, mainly because it was impossible to tell, on a historical basis, which Indians were on or off the reservation by measuring the number of rations drawn. The best estimate for ration-drawing Indians was 2,643, made in March 1874 by Agent Haworth. Clearly many of those were Comanches who later went back into the wild. Kavanagh analyzes the various estimates of Indian populations from censuses taken in November 1869, December 1870, and March 1874. We know that roughly 650 Comanches were in Quanah’s, Black Beard’s, and Shaking Hand’s bands; that is not counting the Comanches who surrendered in unknown numbers after Palo Duro Canyon.

2
. When all the tribes in the southern plains surrendered, the number of adult males was little more than seven hundred; this is my estimate based on that and on the ratio of fighting men to total population in the surrendered tribes; see Rupert N. Richardson,
The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement,
p. 200.

3
. Letter: C. C. Augur to Mackenzie, August 28, 1874, in F. E. Green, ed., “Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas, 1873–79,”
Museum Journal,
West Texas Museum Association (Lubbock, Texas), 10 (1966): 80ff.

4
. Ernest Wallace,
Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
p. 124.

5
. Nelson Miles to AAG, Dept. of Missouri, September 1, 1874; Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence, p. 87.

6
. James L. Haley,
The Buffalo War,
p. 193.

7
. J. T. Marshall,
The Miles Expedition of 1874–5,
p. 39.

8
. Wallace,
Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
pp. 125–26.

9
. Ibid., p. 131.

10
. Augur to Mackenzie, August 28, 1874; Mackenzie Official Correspondence, p. 81.

11
. Robert G. Carter,
On the Border with Mackenzie,
p. 484.

12
. “Mackenzie’s Expedition through the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon as described by a special correspondent of the New York Herald,” October 16, 1874,
Museum Journal
10 (1966): 114.

13
. Carter,
On the Border with Mackenzie,
p. 485.

14
. Wallace,
Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
p. 136.

15
. Carter,
On the Border with Mackenzie,
p. 488.

16
. John Charlton’s account in Captain Robert G. Carter,
The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 39.

17
. Charlton in Carter,
The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 107, and Wallace,
Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
p. 140.

18
. Charlton in Carter,
The Old Sergeant’s Story,
p. 108.

19
. Ibid.

20
. Ibid., p. 109.

21
. Wallace,
Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier,
p. 139.

22
. “Journal of Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Messenger to the Quahada Comanches,”
Red River Valley Historical Review
3, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 227.

23
. Ibid., p. 229.

24
. Jo Ella Powell Exley,
Frontier Blood,
p. 255, citing untitled Dickson manuscript.

25
. “Journal of Mackenzie’s Messenger,” p. 237.

26
. Ibid., p. 237.

27
. Wayne Parker,
Quanah Parker, Last Chief of the Kwahadi Obeys the Great Spirit,
manuscript.

28
. Ibid., p. 239.

29
. W. S. Nye,
Carbine and Lance,
p. 229.

30
. William T. Hagan,
Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief,
p. 15.

31
. Ibid.

Twenty
FORWARD, IN DEFEAT

1
. Charles M. Robinson III,
Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie,
pp. 186–88.

2
. William T. Hagan,
Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief,
pp. 20–21, Mackenzie to Pope, letter, September 5, 1875.

3
. Bill Neeley,
The Last Comanche Chief : The Life and Times of Quanah Parker,
p. 144.

4
. Letter: Ranald S. Mackenzie to Isaac Parker, September 5, 1877 (Fort Sill Letter Book).

5
. Charles Goodnight, “Pioneer Outlines Sketch of Quanah Parker’s Life,”
Amarillo Sunday News and Globe,
August 6, 1928.

6
. Accounts of both actions are in letters from J. M. Haworth to William Nicholson, August 26, 1877, Kiowa Agency Microform, National Archives; and Colonel J. W. Davidson to Asst. Adjutant General, October 29, 1878, House Executive Document, 45th Congress, Third Session, p. 555.

7
. John R. Cook,
The Border and the Buffalo,
pp. 249ff.

8
. Neeley, p. 153.

9
. Herman Lehmann,
Nine Years Among the Indians,
pp. 186–87.

10
. Scott Zesch,
The Captured,
pp. 220–21, citing Haworth and Mackenzie correspondence.

11
. Lehmann, pp. 187–88.

12
. Ibid., p. 232.

13
. Hagan,
Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief,
p. 26.

14
. Wellington Brink, “Quanah and the Leopard Coat Man,”
Farm and Ranch,
April 17, 1926.

15
. Harley True Burton, “History of the JA Ranch,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
31, no. 2 (October 1927).

16
. Brink.

17
. Burton.

18
. Walter Prescott Webb,
The Great Plains,
p. 212.

19
. Lillian Gunter, “Sketch of the Life of Julian Gunter,” manuscript made for Panhandle Plains Historical Association, 1923, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum archives.

20
. G. W. Roberson to J. Evetts Haley, June 30, 1926, manuscript in Panhandle Plains Historical Museum archives.

21
. Haley,
Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman,
p. 30.

22
. Hagan,
Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief,
p. 31.

23
. Council Meeting of May 23, 1884, Kiowas, 17:46, Oklahoma Historical Society.

24
. H. P. Jones to Philemon Hunt, interview, June 21, 1883, Kiowa Agency files, Oklahoma Historical Society; George Fox to Philemon Hunt, October 13, 1884, Kiowa Agency files.