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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	WASHITA BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE Oklahoma
Location: Roger Mills County, embracing a 6-square-mile area extending west and northwest from Cheyenne. Washita Battlefield NHS

The battle fought at this site on November 27, 1868, was the major engagement in General Sheridan's winter campaign of 1868-69 against the southern Plains tribes. Involving a lamentable loss of Indian life, it also incited controversy between humanitarians and frontiersmen.

On November 18 Sheridan's main column, from Fort Dodge, Kans., founded Camp Supply, Okla., near the junction of Wolf Creek and the North Canadian River. On his arrival there, General Sheridan replaced Lt. Col. Alfred Sully, the commander of the column, with Lt. Col. George A. Custer. On November 23, eager for action, Custer's 7th Cavalry and a few Osage scouts set out southward despite a raging blizzard. On the morning of the 26th in the area of the South Canadian River scouts discovered a fresh Indian trail. Pursuing it all day, during the night the column came upon an Indian camp along the Washita River. Custer, viewing the outlines of the village from a crest of a ridge, could not determine its size. He decided nevertheless to make a surprise attack at dawn, and divided his 800-man command into four groups. Under the cover of darkness, they moved into position around the camp.

At daylight, to the sound of their band playing the regimental song, the troops swooped down on the sleeping village—occupied by the peacefully inclined Black Kettle, who had witnessed a similar scene at Sand Creek, Colo., 4 years earlier. His startled Cheyennes, not all of whom were innocent of depredations, poured forth from their lodges only to meet the fire of cavalry carbines. When the firing ceased, Black Kettle and more than 100 of his people were dead and many more were wounded. The rest fled, except for 53 women and children whom the troops captured. They also burned the village and destroyed the pony herd.

As the day wore on, large numbers of Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, Kiowa-Apaches, and Comanches began to assemble on the adjacent hills. Custer learned that Indian villages lined the Washita for 10 miles. When night fell, though Maj. Joel H. Elliott and a 16-man detachment were unaccounted for, Custer made a feint and hastily withdrew with his captives to Camp Supply. It was learned later that the Elliott detachment had been annihilated. Other Army casualties were comparatively light, four dead and 14 wounded.

The Battle of the Washita, coupled with another Army victory on Christmas Day by the Fort Bascom, N. Mex., column at Soldier Spring, Okla., demoralized the Indians. Many fled to the Staked Plains or other less remote areas, but Sheridan's troops pursued them vigorously throughout the winter. By the spring of 1869 the bulk of them had been rounded up and placed on reservations.

The battlefield lies in the verdant Washita River Valley, sheltered by surrounding hills. Aside from some agricultural activity in the bottomland, the site retains a high degree of integrity. Except for a few farmhouses on its edge, the town of Cheyenne does not intrude. A little-used and inconspicuous railroad track runs along the periphery of the battlefield south of the river. A granite monument commemorating the site, erected by the State of Oklahoma, overlooks the valley. On November 12, 1996 the area as designated Washita Battlefield National Historic Site and is managed by the National Park Service.

NHL Designation: 01/12/65