Today In Western History: The Salt Creek Massacre

May 18, 1871

Kiowa war chief Satanta leads an attack on a wagon train at Salt Creek, Texas, killing seven of the party.

Also known as White Bear, he was the last last, of the Kiowa War Chiefs and was well known for both his prowess as a warrior, and his soaring oratorical powers
Also known as White Bear, he was the last last, of the Kiowa War Chiefs and well known for both his prowess as a warrior, and soaring oratorical powers.

In October 1867, federal officials had held a summit with Kiowa and Comanche leaders in Barber County, Kansas, resulting in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. For a number of reasons, the treaty was a failure, as were most of the treaties between the whites and the Native Americans.  As usual, many Indian bands did not recognize it as valid. Similarly, the federal government was lax about enforcing the treaty once it was signed, allowing white outlaws to prey upon reservation Indians.

The primary reason most of the treaties failed is that neither side fully understood the other’s form of governmental structure, and both expected the other to operate as they did. In the Native American culture, the chief was an elected position, but no one was obligated to do what he said if they disagreed.  He did not represent the entire tribe.  For the white culture, they expected the chief to represent the whole tribe or the entire collection of tribes.  The Native Americans didn’t understand the concept of ownership of the land, so they couldn’t understand the settlers cutting it up to farm.  This mutual misunderstanding could only lead to disaster for both sides, but mostly for the Native Americans, as the different tribes seldom fought together, the major exceptions being a little dustup in June of 1876 out in western Montana.

The late 1860s was a time of danger and conflict for everyone, Texan or Indian, as the frontier remained unsafe and unpredictable.  The forts were undermanned, making it very difficult to police the serious violations being committed by both sides on the other.   For both groups, the situation appeared no different to any significant degree from the way things were long before the war.   Unfortunately, for the Indians,  things were changing and not in a good way for the Indians.  General William T. Sherman, commander of the U.S. Army, and the commander

US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia
US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia

of U.S. troops in Texas, General Philip H. Sheridan, who were both hardened veterans of some of the worst fighting of the Civil War. Sherman and Sheridan had learned

US General Philip Sheridan, originator of the line, "Thew only good Indian is a dead Indian."
US General Philip Sheridan, originator of the line, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

not only to wage war on the battlefield but to break the enemy’s will to resist. To this end, they began a policy of encouraging the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd.

In January, 1869, General Sheridan held a conference with 50 Indian chiefs at Fort Cobb in the so-called Indian Territory (later part of Oklahoma). At that time, Sheridan, who had gained recognition as a Union officer in the Civil War, was in charge of the Dept. of the Missouri. One of his duties was to oversee the Indian Territory, making sure the Indians remained on their reservations and did not har-ass the white settlers. When Comanche chief Toch-a-way was introduced to Sheridan at the conference, the Indian said, “Me Toch-a-way, me good Indian.” Sheridan reportedly smirked and replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” Later on, the remark became “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”  This attitude, along with Sherman’s concept of total war, did not bode well for the Indians.

In early May, 1871, a party of more than one hundred Kiowas, Comanches, and others left Fort Sill and crossed into Texas. Led by Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, they took up positions on the Salt Creek Prairie. A group of heavily armed white soldiers was allowed to pass unmolested; unknown to the Indians, the military escort was for General Sherman, who was conducting an inspection tour of Texas. The next group of whites to pass was a wagon train belonging to a freighting company. The Indians swept down upon the wagons and attacked. They killed the wagon master and seven teamsters and looted the wagons, then returned immediately to the reservation.

When General Sherman heard the news from a teamster who escaped the slaughter, he ordered ruthless reprisals and reversed an earlier prohibition soldiers from  Indians on to the reservations. Sherman quickly traveled to Fort Sill, where he personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree and ordered them transported back to Texas to be tried for murder. Satank was killed during an escape attempt, but Satanta and Big Tree were put on trial. By early July both had been sentenced to hang.

As a result, hundreds of Indians began leaving the reservation to join their relatives on the Staked Plains. In an effort to avoid mass reprisals and carnage, Governor Edmund J. Davis commuted the sentences to life in prison. The Indians were eventually paroled, but it would be Satanta’s fate to commit suicide in 1878 while serving another prison term at Huntsville prison. The character of Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry’s classic novel Lonesome Dove was partially based on his life. Big Tree was more fortunate. When the Indian Wars came to a close, he counseled his people to accept peace. Big Tree converted to the Baptist faith and lived to age eighty.

The Salt Creek Massacre, also known as the Warren Wagon Train Raid, would have far-reaching consequences for Texas Indians. Because of the raid, General Sherman developed a policy of all-out offensive against the Plains Indians. The next few years would be bloody indeed.

 

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Today In Western History: William Clarke Quantrill Is Mortally Wounded

May 10, 1865

William Clarke Quantrill is given the wound that will eventually (June 6) kill him in a barn by soldiers in Bloomfield, Kentucky.

William Clarke Quantrill, Confederate guerrilla, responsible for the Lawrence, Kansas massacre
William Clarke Quantrill, Confederate guerrilla, responsible for the Lawrence, Kansas massacre

Although it may be hard to believe, given how history remembers him, Quantrill was actually well-educated and even followed in his father’s footsteps, as he become a schoolteacher at the age of six-teen.  In 1854, his abusive father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with a huge financial debt. Quantrill’s mother had to turn her home into a boarding house in order to survive. Quantrill helped support the family by working as a schoolteacher but left home a year later and headed to Mendota, Illinois, where he took a job in the lumberyards, unloading timber from rail cars. One night while working the late shift, he killed a man.  He was arrested, but as he claimed self-defense and there were no eyewitnesses and the victim was a stranger in town, William was set free.  Despite being cleared, or at least not found guilty, police strongly urged him to leave Mendota. Quantrill continued his career as a teacher, moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana in February 1856.  Even though the district was impressed with Quantrill’s teaching abilities, the wages remained meager and he journeyed back home to Canal Dover that fall, with no more money in his pockets than when he had left.

 In 1861, William joined a group of brigands who roamed Missouri and Kansas, kidnapping runaway slaves in exchange for reward money.  There he met Joel B. Mayes, a Confederate sympathizer and war chief of the Cherokee Nations, in Texas and he joined the Cherokee Nations.  This association re-inforced his pro-slavery views, and his group became Confederate ‘bushwhackers’, feared for their guerrilla tactics, which used effective Native American field skills.

Missouri rebel, and outlaw, the one and only Jesse Woodson James
Missouri rebel, and outlaw, the one and only Jesse Woodson James

They included Jesse James and his brother, Frank. It was Mayes who taught Quantrill guerrilla warfare tactics. He would learn the ambush fighting tactics used by the Native Americans as well as sneak attacks and camouflage.

Frank James, outlaw, and older brother to Jesse
Frank James, outlaw, and older brother to Jesse

Quantrill, in the company of Mayes and the Cherokee Nations, had originally joined up with General Sterling Price and fought at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in August and September 1861, but he deserted General Price’s army and went to Blue Springs, Missouri to 

Confederate General Sterling Price
Confederate General Sterling Price

form his own “Army” of loyal men who believed in him and the Confederate cause. By Christmas of 1861, he had ten men who would follow him full-time into his pro-Confederate guerrilla organization.  These men were: William Haller, George Todd, Joseph Gilcrist, Perry Hoy, John Little, James Little, Joseph Baughan, William H. Gregg, James A. Hendricks, and John W. Koger. Later in 1862, John Jarrett, John Brown (not the abolitionist), Cole Younger, as well as William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson and the James brothers joined Quantrill’s army.

Coleman Younger, after the disastrous Northfield, Minnesota raid.
Coleman Younger, after the epically  disastrous Northfield, Minnesota raid.

The most significant event in Quantrill’s guerrilla career took place on August 21, 1863. Lawrence  was the home of James H. Lane, a senator infamous in Missouri for his staunch anti-slavery views and also a leader of the Jayhawkers (actually, just outlaws masquerading as Union soldiers).  For years,  Lawrence had been seen as the heart of anti-slavery forces in Kansas and as a base of operation for incursions into Missouri by Jayhawkers and pro-Union forces. Just a few weeks prior to the raid, Union General Thomas Ewing, Jr. (who is a foster brother

General Thomas Ewing Jr,, foster brother to General William Tecumseh Sherman
General Thomas Ewing Jr,, foster brother to General William Tecumseh Sherman

 to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman)  had ordered the detention of any civilians giving aid to Quantrill’s Raiders. Several female relatives of the guerrillas had been imprisoned in a makeshift jail in Kansas City, Missouri. On August 14, the building collapsed, killing four young women and seriously injuring others. Among the casualties was Josephine Anderson, sister of one of Quantrill’s key guerrilla allies, “Bloody Bill” Anderson. Another of Anderson’s sisters, Mary, was permanently crippled in the collapse. Quantrill’s men believed the collapse was deliberate, and the event fanned them into a fury.

William "Bloody Bill" Anderson, the worst guerilla of the war
William “Bloody Bill” Anderson, the worst Confederate guerrilla of the war

Early on the morning of August 21, 1863, William rode down on Lawrence, Kansas  at the head of a combined force of as many as 450 guerrillas. Senator Lane, who was a prime target of the raid, had managed to escape through a cornfield in his nightshirt, but the guerrillas, on Quantrill’s orders, killed 183 men and boys “old enough to carry a rifle”.  Quantrill, known to be armed with several French pinfire revolvers, his weapon of choice, carried out several of the killings personally, dragging many from their homes to execute them before their families. The ages of those killed ranged from as young as 14 all the way up to 90.  When Quantrill’s men rode out at 9 a.m., most of Lawrence’s buildings were burning, including all but two businesses.

On August 25, 1863, General Ewing authorized General Order No. 11 (not to be confused with General Ulysses S. Grant’s order of the same name) in retaliation for the raid.  The Order called for  the depopulation of three and a half Missouri counties along the Kansas border (with the exception of a few designated towns), forcing tens of thousands of civilians to abandon their homes. Union troops marched through behind them, burning buildings, torching planted fields and shooting down livestock to deprive the guerrillas of food, fodder, and support. The area was so thoroughly devastated that it became known thereafter as the “Burnt District”. Quantrill and his men rode south to Texas, where they passed the winter with the Confederate forces.

Almost two years later, on May 10, Quantrill and his band were caught in a Union ambush at Wakefield Farm. Unable to escape on account of a skittish horse, he was shot in the back and paralyzed from the chest down. He was brought by wagon to Louisville, Kentucky and taken to the military prison hospital, located on the north side of Broadway at 10th Street. He died from his wounds on June 6, 1865, at the age of 27.

 

 

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Today in 1864, General James B. McPherson assumes command of the Union Army of the Tennessee

US General James B. McPherson, the highest ranking Union General killed in combat on July 22, 1864.
US General James B. McPherson, the highest ranking Union General killed in combat on July 22, 1864.

after William T. Sherman is promoted to the rank of commander of the Division of the Mississippi, and becomes the overall leader in the West.

McPherson was born in Ohio in 1828 and graduated first in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1853. He joined the Army’s engineering corps as a second lieutenant, and spent the pre-war years in New York City and Alcatraz Island in California. When the Civil War began, McPherson was transferred to the East and promoted to captain. Yearning for combat, he was disappointed when he was assigned to command the forts of Boston Harbor. McPherson contacted General Henry Halleck,

General Henry W. ("Old Brains") Halleck
General Henry W. (“Old Brains”) Halleck

commander of the Department of the Missouri and a former acquaintance in California, who summon-ed him to St. Louis. In Missouri, McPherson helped set up recruiting stations and inspected defenses.

McPherson was transferred to General Ulysses S. Grant’s command on February 1, 1862, just as Grant

Lt. General Ulysses Grant
Lt. General Ulysses Grant

was launching an expedition against forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. McPherson’s work in analyzing the defenses of Fort Donelson earned him the respect of Grant, and McPherson’s star rose rapidly after the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee in April 1862. McPherson fought with distinction, and was promoted to colonel. Two weeks later, he became a brigadier general. After his actions at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, in October 1862, McPherson was again promoted, this time to major general. In December, he capped a successful year by taking command of the XVII Corps in Grant’s Army of the Tennessee.

McPherson served as a corps commander throughout 1863, quite ably leading his men at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Grant’s promotion to general-in-chief of all Union forces created a chain reaction of promotions. Grant left for Washington, D.C., and Sherman assumed com-mand in the West, while McPherson inherited the Army of the Tennessee. This force was not an independent command, as it was one of three armies under Sherman’s leadership during the Atlanta campaign of 1864. When the campaign reached Atlanta in July 1864 after three hard months of fighting, McPherson was charged with attacking Confederate forces on the northeast side of the city. At the Battle of Peachtree Creek on July 22, McPherson was directing operations when he and his staff emerged from a grove of trees directly in front of the Confederate line. They were ordered to surrender but McPherson turned his horse and attempted to escape. He was mortally wounded, becoming the highest-ranking Union general killed in the war.

 

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