THE SECOND BATTLE OF ADOBE WALLS
JUNE 27TH, 1874
THE SECOND BATTLE OF ADOBE WALLS IS ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC FRONTIER BATTLES OF THE PANHANDLE OF TEXAS.
Volumes have been written about these buffalo hunters, twenty eight men and one woman, withstanding a siege by seven hundred Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche Plains warriors led by Chief Quanah Parker and a medicine man named Isa-Tai, who were retaliating against the trespassing buffalo hunters.
Skilled archeologist have excavated, mapped and cataloged the site, recovering a treasure of information about the time and place. hundred of artifacts help tell the story. Expert researchers have combed through historical records and documents. Many of the participants wrote their own eye witness accounts. Many charlatans claimed fame and daring also. Through out the last one hundred and fifty years, what has emerged is an accurate well written narrative of one of the fiercest Indian battles of the Texas Panhandle. June 27th, 1874 marked the beginning of the Red River War, and changed the landscape of America forever.
In October, 1867, Billy Dixon was seventeen years old. He was working as a muleskinner for an outfit contracted out to haul freight between Forts for the U. S. Government. He thought himself extremely lucky to be picked to drive a freight wagon from Fort Harker, Kansas to the valley of the Medicine Lodge River, a place sacred to the Kiowa on the southern Kansas boarder. There was assembled nearly five thousand Plains Tribes, to again treat with the U.S. Government. As a result of the three Treaties that were signed there, the U.S. Government agreed to allow the Plains tribes hunting rights to all of the area south of the Arkansas River, where Buffalo were plentiful.
By Spring of 1874, there were no more Buffalo north of the Arkansas River. Hide hunters had decimated the herds. The hunters, deciding to band together for safety, resolved to move south where the Buffalo were. During the spring they helped freight goods and building materials to a site near an old adobe ruin, in what is now Hutchinson County, Texas. Along with the other Buffalo Hunters, hide skinners, and Dodge City merchants, he had helped to establish the first permanent trading camp south of the Arkansas River, deep into the Plains tribes buffalo hunting grounds. Billy was now twenty-five years old, and a full time Buffalo hunter. The hide trading camp of Adobe Walls was open for business.
Buffalo were plentiful. So were Indians.
sunrise at adobe walls
photo by della moyer photography
Several of the hunters were awake in the pre dawn hours of June 27th, repairing a broken ridgepole in Hanrahans Saloon. The loud crack of the ridgepole had awakened the hunters and they were finishing shoring up the sod roof as dawn approached. Billy Ogg had been sent to bring in the horses. Two brothers, Ike and Shorty Sheidler, had stayed in their covered wagon, parked beside the stockade. Dixon, deciding to depart camp early for the days hunt, was outfitting his wagon for the day, which was parked beside the blacksmith shop. He had just rolled up his bedroll and thrown it into the wagon when he looked east to see his horses; the memory of what he saw at sunrise that summer morning never faded:
“There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight. In after years I was glad that I had seen it. Hundreds of warriors, the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern Plains tribes, mounted upon their finest horses, armed with guns and lances, and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide, were coming like the wind. Over all was splashed the rich colors of red, vermillion and ochre, on the bodies of the men, on the bodies of the running horses. Scalps dangled from bridles, gorgeous war-bonnets fluttered their plumes, bright feathers dangled from the tails and manes of the horses, and the bronzed, half-naked bodies of the riders glittered with ornaments of silver and brass. Behind this head-long charging host stretched the Plains, on whose horizon the rising sun was lifting its morning fires. The warriors seemed to emerge from this glowing background.”
“I must confess, however, that the landscape possessed little interest for me when I saw that the Indians were coming to attack us, and that they would be at hand in a few moments. War-whooping had a very appreciable effect upon the roots of a man’s hair.”
At this time the trading post consisted of the Meyers and Leonard store and stockade, O’Keefes blacksmith shop, Hanrahan’s Saloon, and the Rath and Wright store and corral.
Fearful of being caught out in the open, the men who were awake and outside of a building made a fearsome dash to the nearest one. This split the men into three parties: At Hanrahan’s Saloon were James Hanrehan, “Bat” Masterson, Mike Welch, James McKinley, “Bermuda” Carlisle, and William Dixon. At Meyers and Leonard Store were Fred Leonard, James Campbell. Edward Trevor, frank Brown, Harry Armitage, “Ditch Henry”, Billy Tyler, Old Man Keeler, Mike McCabe, Henry Lease, and “Frenchy”. At Rath & Wrights Store were James Logan,George Eddy, Thomas O’Keefe, William Olds and his wife, Sam Smith, and Andy Johnson. Many of the men who were still sleeping jumped up in their night clothes to barricade doors and spent the day firing rifles while barefoot, still wearing their sleeping clothes.
Dixon arrived at Hanrahan’s Saloon, finding the door already locked and barred, bullets spattering the dirt around him. Just as it was opened for him, Billy Ogg raced through it, too, collapsing on the floor, too winded to even stand. The Indians quickly surrounded the building and shot out all the window panes. For the first half hour, the Indians were daring enough to strike the doors with the butts of their rifles. Later one of the warriors present reported he saw Quanah Parker ride his horse onto the porch of one of the buildings and throw his lance through a partially open door. This was hot, close quarters combat, and the Buffalo hunters had to rely on their pistols to hold the warriors at bay, firing from any opening in the buildings. Finally, the Buffalo hunters got themselves together enough to begin to use their heavy caliber rifles to good effect. Time and time again, the Indians would make a charge at the buildings, and time and again the hunters inflicted casualties. Billy Dixon and Bat Masterson found themselves shooting out of the same window for a good portion of the fight. Billy said “Bat should be remembered for the Valor that marked his conduct. He was a good shot, and not afraid.” Bat returned the compliment, later saying:
“Billy Dixon, who occupied half the window with me during much of the thickest of the fight, was a remarkable man, always cool, a dead shot no matter what the distance, never saying a word, always alert.”
The Indians had come into the attack with what they thought were two great advantages. The medicine man Isa-Tai had told the warriors in a vision he had been told by the Great Spirit that the hunters bullets would not penetrate their shields and that their medicine was strong. He said they “would find the hunters asleep, and be able to knock them in the head with a stick”. The other advantage the Indians had was a semblance of military order, as they had riding with them a black bugler who could blow the different calls as well as “the bugler on the parade ground at Ft. Dodge”. The Indians were organizing and attacking according to the bugle calls. The warriors were too far committed into battle when they found out that Isa-Tai’s medicine wasn’t as strong as a buffalo rifle bullet, and they were fighting against several old cavalry soldiers who knew the bugle calls as well.
MEDICINE MAN ISA-TAI
By mid morning, the defenders had settled into their positions, using their heavy caliber rifles to great effect, and were making it hard for the warriors to get within range with the Winchester lever action rifles they carried. The longer range of the buffalo guns forced the Indians to fall back and rethink their attack strategy, further away from the building fronts. Hanrahan and Dixon made the decision to make a furious dash to Rath’s store for more ammunition, as Rath’s had an inventory of thousands of rounds of cartridges stocked for the buffalo hunters. Checking for ambushes, the pair ran for their lives, Billy reporting “bullets rained around them like hail stones”. Hanrahan, stuffing the ammunition into a cloth sack, decided to make the run back to his own building. He and Dixon realized there were only six men in this building, and not a one of them was a buffalo hunter. After much discussion, the occupants of Rath’s convinced Billy to stay. Dixon mentioned all the men there thought it was their first duty to help guard and protect Mrs. Olds, who was terrified.
SHARPS 50 CALIBER BUFFALO RIFLE
Billy had finally got his hands on a “Big 50” Sharps Rifle, his preferred rifle and the caliber he preferred. He had recently lost his big Sharps and a wagon full of supplies, crossing the Canadian River at flood stage. An enormously powerful heavy caliber long range rifle, now in Rath’s store, he decided to make good use of it. He found a firing position at the west door of Mr. and Mrs. Old’s restaurant in Rath’s store. The door had been barricaded with sacks of flor and grain, and had a transom window above it. Dixon decided to take advantage of this protected firing point. After crawling to the top of the grain sacks, Billy carefully peered through the transom, spotting a Warrior crawling in close in the tall grass. His perch was precarious, and kneeling on one knee, firing, the big rifle’s recoil sent him flying! Billy described what happened next:
“As I went down I struck and dislodged a washtub and a bushel or two of cooking utensils which made a terrific crash as they struck the floor around me. I fell heavily myself, and the tumbling down of my big ’50’ did not lessen the uproar. The commotion startled everybody. The boys rushed forward believing that I had bee shot, even killed!”
About four in the afternoon, James “Bermuda” Carlisle ventured out to pick up a trinket, and since he wasn’t shot at, the others began to cautiously going out of the buildings. Though they didn’t relax, they soon began to evaluate their situation. They learned of the death of Billy Tyler, killed early in the battle at Leonard & Meyers. Ike and Shorty Sheidler had been killed early on in their wagon, scalped and their scalps flaunted to the other hunters. Indians also killed the Sheidler brothers big dog, who put up such a fight they cut a large patch of fur from it, also. Thirteen Indians lay dead too close to the buildings for the Warriors to approach to claim their bodies. All of the hunters horses were seized or dead. The hunters counted fifty six dead horses, many of those Indian ponies, and twenty eight head of oxen that were owned by the Sheidlers.
By the time Billy Tyler and the Sheidlers were buried, darkness was settling over Adobe Walls and the defenders returned to the buildings. It wasn’t safe to sleep outside. Inside the buildings contents from bullet riddled cans was attracting scores of flies, and broken glass was everywhere. It was a fitful miserable night, Dixon saying “i doubt if any of us slept that night.”
The next day, the enormous task of burying everything that was dead was undertaken. Only a small band of Indians appeared east of the buildings, staying well out of rifle range. the hunters worried that the warriors were waiting for reinforcements. The set to work fortifying their buildings. Loopholes were cut through the sod walls, and lookout points were added to the roofs of the two stores.
Hunters camped all across the prairie could hear the battle that first day. Many loaded up and fled for Dodge City. Some came to help. Brick Bonds unhitched his wagon and hid during the day, showing up at the trading post after dark the first night. A day later, George Bellfield brought his outfit in with the report that no hostiles were seen, but later that day the Cator brothers arrived with their large outfit, reporting a long range rifle battle with a band of warriors. The hunters agreed to pay Henry Lease the sum of one hundred twenty five dollars to ride to Dodge City for help. George Bellfield supplied him the horse. Lease took a buffalo rifle, two ammunition belts and a brace of pistols. As lease rode of into the night Billy Dixon admitted “I doubt if there was a man who believed that Lease would get through alive”.
THE MOST FAMOUS SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WEST
The famous bluff at Adobe Walls
To be sure, these buffalo hunters were expert marksmen. Many of the hunters had made impressive shots during the battle. Tim-Bo and Yellow Fish who were teenage braves at the Battle of Adobe Walls, revisited the battle site in 1939. Through an interpreter, they recalled an amazing shots made by buffalo hunters during the battle that killed a brave they were riding with. “Buffalo hunters had awful long range” said a Comanche warrior named Co-hay-yah “sometimes we wouldn’t be thinking of it, and they would kill our horses…no wonder they could kill the buffalo!”
It was Billy Dixon’s long shot, almost three fourths of a mile, that made legendary history, cementing him as a legend in the sagas of the wild west. Amazing as accounts are of the rifle shot, Billy himself always thought it was a “scratch” or lucky shot. In his book The Life of Billy Dixon of Adobe Walls published by his wife Olive shortly after his death, he devote hardly more than a paragraph to it:
“On the third day a party of about fifteen Indians appeared on the side to the bluff, east of Adobe Walls Creek, and some of the boys suggested that I try my big “50” on them. The distance was not far from three-fourths of a mile. A number of exaggerated accounts have been written about this incident. I took careful aim and pulled the trigger. We saw an Indian fall from his horse. The others dashed out of sight behind a clump of timber. A few moments later two Indians ran quickly on foot to where the dead Indian lay, seized his body and scurried to cover. They had risked their lives, as we had frequently observed, to rescue a comrade who might be not only wounded but dead. I was admittedly a good marksman yet this was what might be called a “scratch” shot.
The above from Life of Billy Dixon of Adobe Walls -1914
While Billy was modest about his feat, it none the less impressed the men who were watching, and who help tell this tale that grew into the Adobe Walls Battle Legacy-this story is never told without commentary about this rifle shot. for days after, men poured into the Trading Post site, and all were regaled with versions of this story. Certainly it must have grown with the telling of it while seasoned Hunters and Plainsmen were standing at the bar in Hanrahans Saloon, bending elbows and swapping tales of Frontier life.
Soon after Lease departed for Dodge City Buffalo hunters and Skinners were “coming in like blackbirds from all directions. By the fifth day enough hunters had arrived to make us feel comparatively safe, and by the sixth day more than one hundred men had reached Adobe Walls.
On the fifth day, a horrible accident occurred when William Olds accidentally shot himself. The details of that terrible incident are HERE. The accident brought discomfort and a certain amount of animosity to the men, and tempers flared. These nerve frazzled men now had to face serious truths: they were for all purposes stranded without their own horses or draft animals, thousands of hides had been unstacked and scattered around the premises to prevent providing cover again to warring intruders, whom they felt sure would return, and the hide buyers weren’t buying those hides which put the hunters out of business.
Soon preparations were being made to procure draft animals, supplies form the stores were loaded for return to Dodge City. The stores were closed along with the Saloon and the Blacksmith shop. Some men were employed to stay at the stores to guard good that were left, others stayed on their own.
On Monday, July 13th, Billy Dixon was part of a large caravan that pulled out of Adobe Walls headed back to Dodge City. On Tuesday as they traveled they found the body of Charley Sharp, Henry Lease’s partner. Henry had left Charley in camp and rode to buy supplies at Adobe Walls, and then rode to Dodge City for help for the hunters. The men burred Charley near his camp. By Friday the Caravan arrived in Dodge City. Billy reported some of the men in the Caravan “bought tickets for their home in the east. They had enough of Indians to last them several years and were not afraid to stand up and say so.”
When Billy and his fellow frontiersmen reached dodge City, he remembered that he and the other veterans of the battle:
“were soon entering into the fun at dodge with the greatest enthusiasm, forgetful of the perils and hardships that so lately beset us…Things at Dodge were run for the fullest enjoyment of the present-“
Understandably, the Saloons and sites of the old west towns like Dodge City could ease the nerves, dispositions and minds of these worn and tired hunters . Just like in the old western movie serials, the next chapter of The Life of Billy Dixon was about to start.
Only twenty days later, on August 6th, 1874, Billy Dixon signed on with Colonel Nelson Miles as a civilian scout, guide and dispatch carrier. five weeks later, he found himself in a dried out Buffalo Wallow, fighting for his life once more.
Billy Dixon was never a full time buffalo hunter again.
