Although overshadowed by Lt. Col. George Custer up at the Washita, Major Andrew Evans came through with his own Plains victory in 1868.
The December wind stabbed through the folds of his caped overcoat like a driven nail, and Major Andrew W. Evans of the 3rd Cavalry confronted a cheerless Christmas morning. With profane greetings, the regiment’s sergeants routed the troops from their blankets, for soon it would be time to break camp on the 37th day on campaign. They were camped in the frigid high Plains nearly 300 miles from their home station at Fort Bascom, New Mexico Territory. This winter campaign of 1868 was directed against the Kiowas and Comanches, whose predatory bands ranged the Plains of Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), northern Texas and eastern New Mexico. But besides the cold, there was one big problem—the hostile natives could not be found. The veteran major gave no sign of it, but he was as tired, cold and frustrated as any of his soldiers.
Evans’ trail-worn command had searched down the North Fork of the Red River for the past two days without any luck. Summer prairie fire had left the Plains without decent forage for the horses, and the icy river water, laden with gypsum and salt, left a foul aftertaste in the mouths of men and mounts alike. Evans, 39, knew that he must find and engage his quarry soon or else his command would have to make the long march back to Fort Bascom.
The winter campaign had been conceived soon after Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan arrived at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in March 1868 to assume command of the Department of the Missouri. Sheridan was intent on teaching the region’s hostile tribes to respect the power of the United States. His plan called for a northern column, the 7th Cavalry, to strike southward from its camp near Fort Dodge, Kan., while the 3rd Cavalry and supporting units marched eastward from Fort Bascom to sweep across the Texas Panhandle before entering the mountain-dotted plains of western Indian Territory. The two columns were to destroy any villages that lay in their paths.
Evans had no way of knowing that on November 28, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s “Dandy 7th” had struck Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle’s camp on the Washita River and inflicted a bitter defeat. By that time, Evans’ column had been on the march for 10 days and had weathered a blizzard. The core of his command consisted of six companies of his own 3rd Cavalry, two companies of the 37th Infantry and a battery of mountain howitzers. With accompanying civilian teamsters and scouts, Evans had more than 500 men.
Unlike the 7th, which dated back only to 1866, the 3rd was a veteran unit, originally formed in 1846 as the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen. After distinguished service in the Mexican War and against the Apaches, the unit was redesignated the 3rd Cavalry in 1861, and campaigned in New Mexico Territory and the Southeast. In 1866 the 3rd was posted again on the New Mexico frontier.
The two companies of the 37th Infantry who joined the yellowlegs on this winter foray belonged to a regiment that had spent its first spring and summer as part of Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s futile campaign against Kiowas, Comanches and Southern Cheyennes. Thereafter, the regiment was dispersed in squad-sized contingents to secure Western stage stations, and many of the infantrymen were blooded in a score of skirmishes.
Major Evans’ men were not only experienced but also well armed. The cavalry troopers carried the Spencer carbine, a .50-caliber, seven-shot breechloader, and each man also had a .44-caliber Colt or Remington cap-and-ball revolver. The infantrymen were fortunate to have Model 1863 Sharps rifles, which had won glory in the hands of Union sharpshooters during the Civil War. While the Sharps still utilized paper cartridges and percussion caps instead of the new metallic centerfire cartridges used in the Springfields, it was an accurate and reliable breechloader. As for the mountain howitzers, they could employ either explosive shell or buckshot loads of canister pellets.
The superior firepower would do no good if the command could not locate hostile warriors and force them to give battle. That discouraging thought was on the major’s mind as Christmas Day dawned. Indians had been seen at a distance on the preceding day’s march, but the column had crossed no recent trails. After the men grabbed a quick Christmas breakfast, Evans headed them northeastward, hoping to find an unsuspecting village. No such luck. As another bitter, wind-chafed day neared its end, Evans decided to look for a good campsite under the shelter of the bluffs fronting the north bank of the North Fork of the Red River.
Near the mouth of Devil’s Canyon in the Wichita range, Evans got some promising news at last—a scouting party reported having seen Indians shadowing them. Evans immediately ordered Captain Elisha W. Tarlton’s Company I, 3rd Cavalry, to pursue the warriors. Tarlton’s men rode their tired mounts over to the north bank and southeastward between the hills fronting the river.
To the east about 11⁄2 miles, campfire smoke drifted above the 60 lodges of Chief Horseback’s band of Nokoni Comanches. Horseback, a nominally friendly chieftain, was away at Fort Cobb, which meant Arrow Point, a war leader, was in charge. When the tribesmen saw the body of bluecoats approaching, Arrow Point rode out with his warriors to turn them back.
About a mile west of the village, the Comanches charged Tarlton. Arrow Point rode in the front rank, brandishing a lance tipped with a Spanish sword blade that had been forged in the time of Coronado.
With arrows and bullets peppering his small force, Tarlton sent a rider for help. First Captain Dean Monahan’s company came to his support, followed shortly thereafter by Captain William Hawley’s command. Now it was the yellowlegs’ turn to take the offensive. The Comanches grudgingly gave ground, buying time for their families to break camp and flee eastward. Once the warriors had reached open ground bordering the village, they turned and stood fast against the soldiers. A Spencer slug struck Arrow Point in the mouth, and his warriors had to carry him away. His lance was left behind, and Tarlton claimed it as a war trophy.
Some of the infantrymen brought a section of howitzers forward at this point and fired two rounds of spherical case shot into the cluster of hide lodges. One round had a defective fuse and failed to detonate. The other burst on target, spraying lead pellets and shrapnel throughout the village. The Indians bolted from the area, with some of their horses carrying three or four of them. Those who were left afoot began scrambling up the nearby slopes of the mountain that rose abruptly at the campsite’s northern edge.
Captain Tarlton charged into the rapidly emptying village and had his men dismount within a grove of bare-limbed trees among the battered lodges. Leaving a detail of horse holders behind, the other troopers moved forward to the northeast and took cover behind granite outcroppings that stretched from the river’s bank on their right to the steep flanks of the mountain on their left. They exchanged fire with warriors who rode back and forth in front of the rocks to shield their families’ flight. Much powder was burned, but neither side took any losses from this exchange.
Tarlton kept his men sniping at the braves from behind their granite breastworks until he noticed that another body of Indians was fording the river to his rear and threatening to cut his squadron off from the rest of Evans’ force. Alerted by the artillery fire, these newcomers were mostly Kiowas from Chief Woman’s Heart’s village, which lay in the shadow of nearby Sheep Mountain.
Evans providentially arrived with the rest of the column in time to throw two cavalry companies into position along the riverbank to shield Tarlton’s flank. The major also sent Captain James H. Gageby’s company of the 37th Infantry to the left flank, where its Sharps held the gap between Tarlton’s left flank and the lower slopes of the mountain. The warriors had meantime divided themselves; one portion rode northwestward along the tributary creek that rose at Soldier Spring north of the village site, while the others whipped their mounts southwestward along the riverbank. Several volleys from the Sharps and Spencers cracked out, but the warriors fell back out of range. Those riding the river’s margin sought cover among the sand dunes lining the south bank, while the others sheltered among the trees standing south of the spring or found refuge in the lee of a huge rock sited 600 yards southeast of the gushing flow.
Evans realized that the tribesmen’s mounts were fresher than his trail-jaded horses, and he prudently ordered Captain Tarlton to withdraw to the village. The cavalrymen began pulling back to the lodges in good order, but one man had not heard the command to retire and fell behind his comrades as they moved westward. He was running after them when the Kiowa Mama-day-te gave chase, firing his revolver. A bullet did not hit the trooper, but another warrior, K’op-ah-hodel-te (Kills the Enemy Near Mountain), struck him with a lance before being driven back by rifle fire.
Gageby’s infantrymen held their position on the left flank, but increasingly heavy fire from the high ground overlooking his men had them pinned down. Gageby sent word of the deteriorating situation to Evans, who responded by dispatching Tarlton forward with three companies in an effort to outflank the Indians and force their withdrawal. As the cavalrymen neared the sharp rock that jutted out of the ridge rising immediately south of Soldier Spring Creek, warriors took flight westward toward the woods that bordered the mountains.
By sunset, all Tarlton’s horsemen and Gageby’s infantry were safely back in the grove among the conical hide lodges. Establishing a defensive perimeter for the night, they kindled cooking fires. The Comanches and Kiowas were properly respectful of the soldiers’ firepower and watched helplessly as Evans’ men methodically burned the lodges, 100 bushels of corn and several tons of dried buffalo meat (the Comanches’ main winter food supply). The bluecoats dumped most of the meat in the small pond located at the head of the village. To this day the Comanches refer to the landmark as “Dried-Beef Pond.”
After destroying the village, Major Evans did not pursue the Indians. Dogged by hunger, some of them later surrendered at Fort Cobb, Indian Territory, while others trekked westward to join their Quohadi cousins on the eastern edge of the Staked Plains. The soldiers marched on to the Washita River, where a supply column from Fort Cobb delivered rations for the journey back to Fort Bascom, which they reached on January 18, 1869, after two months in the field.
The victory at Soldier Spring was a relatively small affair, and casualties on both sides were modest. It was overshadowed in official reports and newspaper accounts of the campaign by Custer’s November 28 coup against Black Kettle’s village on the Washita. Today the ground that Evans disputed with the Kiowas and Comanches is part of private ranch land located on the southern border of Oklahoma’s lovely Quartz Mountain State Park, north of Altus. The memory of Major Evans’ victory on that frigid Christmas Day has faded into obscurity.
Wayne R. Austerman is command historian at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Suggested for further reading: The Comanche Wars, by Tom Bailey; and Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill, by Wilbur S. Nye.
Originally published in the December 2006 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
