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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
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
villageoccupied 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
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/soldier-brave/sitea21.htm
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
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