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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
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CAMP NICHOLS
Oklahoma
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Location: Cimarron County, on an unimproved road,
about 3 miles northwest of Wheeless.
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During the critical summer of 1865 troops from this
temporary camp, in Comanche and Kiowa country at the very western tip of
the Oklahoma Panhandle, escorted wagon trains across the dangerous and
desolate Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail. Since the previous year
the Kiowas and Comanches had sporadically raided the cutoff. Fearing a
full-scale Plains war, Gen. James H. Carleton, commanding the Department
of New Mexico, ordered Col. "Kit" Carson to establish a camp about
halfway between Fort Union, N. Mex., and the Cimarron Crossing of the
Arkansas and provide escorts for wagon trains.
Carson and three companies of New Mexico and
California Volunteers founded the camp in June on a low ridge.
Breastworks of stone and earth enclosed the camp, about 200 feet square.
Other defenses consisted of mountain howitzers at the corners. Inside
and outside the fortifications were tents, stone dugouts with dirt roofs
supported by logs, and other stone buildings. The post was continually
on the alert, and every night mounted pickets supplemented the
sentries.
Carson never had a chance to accomplish his second
assignment of attempting negotiations with the Kiowas and Comanches.
After only 2 weeks he was called to Santa Fe to testify before a joint
Congressional committee investigating Indian affairs, and he never
returned. But his second-in-command carried on with the escort program.
Trains from New Mexico assembled at the camp and were escorted by 50-man
detachments to the Arkansas River. This system was a major improvement
over the one used the previous summer, when small bands of troops,
dispatched along the cutoff, served as roving escorts. Under the new
system, troops had orders to stay with corralled trains under attack
rather than to pursue war parties. In the event of a major Indian
assault, the fortified camp was to be a rallying point for troops and
wagon trains. But by September the southern Plains tribes had decreased
their raids, and the Army inactivated Camp Nichols.
The lonely ruins of the camp, remains of the only
manmade structures ever built on the Cimarron Cutoff during its active
years, are situated on a high point of land between two ravines cut by
the two forks of South Carrizozo Creek. The broken and wild setting, on
private ranchland, is almost completely free of modern intrusions. Few
sites evoke for the modern visitor such a feeling of trail territory,
such a feeling of walking in the past. Low stone walls, 2 to 3 feet
high, outline the breastworks and foundations and walls of the officers'
quarters, commissary, and hospital. In the center of the enclosure is a
flagstone area about 20 feet wide by 100 feet long, where the tie rack
for the horseherd was located. One-quarter mile west of the ruins, along
the left fork of South Carrizozo Creek, is Cedar Spring, whose poo1s
stretch along the creek for 200 to 300 yards. These furnished water to
the camp and passing wagon trains. The route of the Santa Fe Trail
passes about half a mile south of the camp. Trail remains in the area,
unusually good in both directions for miles, are among the most
impressive along the entire trail.
NHL Designation: 05/23/63
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/soldier-brave/siteb21.htm
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
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