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Buffalo Wallow Fight was one of the most unusual engagements in the
Red River War. On September 10, 1874, Col. Nelson A. Miles, whose
command was running short of rations, sent two scouts, Billy Dixon
and Amos Chapman, and four enlisted men, Sgt. Z. T. Woodhall and
privates Peter Rath, John Harrington, and George W. Smith, from his
camp on McClellan Creek with dispatches concerning the delay of
Capt. Wyllys Lyman's supply train, then under siege by Indians on
the upper Washita River (see lyman's wagon train). The
six-man contingent set out on the trail to Camp Supply in Indian
Territory. On the morning of September 12, as they approached the
divide between Gageby Creek and the Washita River in Hemphill
County, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by about 125
Comanche and Kiowa warriors, some of whom had come from the siege of
the wagon train. Since retreating Indians had burned off the prairie
grass only days before, there was no shelter close by; Dixon and his
companions thus decided to dismount and make a desperate stand. In a
few minutes George Smith, who took charge of the horses, fell with a
bullet through his lungs. The horses then stampeded, carrying with
them the men's haversacks, canteens, coats, and blankets. The
mounted Indians indulged in a cat-and-mouse game with their intended
victims by circling them and firing on a dead run. Soon Harrington
and Woodhall were hit, and Chapman's left knee was shattered by a
bullet. When the Indians desisted for a few minutes, Dixon, who had
a slight wound in the calf, spotted a buffalo wallow a few yards
away. He bade his companions take cover in this shallow depression,
which was about ten feet in diameter. By noon, all except Chapman
and Smith had reached it safely and with their hands and butcher
knives began throwing up the sandy loam around the perimeter of the
wallow for better protection. In the process, the men managed to
keep their adversaries at bay and away from Smith and Chapman.
As the
fight progressed, Dixon tried several times to reach Chapman but was
forced back repeatedly by a hail of bullets and arrows. Since the
crippled scout had lived as a "squaw man" among the
Indians for a time and was known to many of the warriors present,
they taunted him by shouting, "Amos, Amos, we got you now,
Amos!" Finally, early in the afternoon, Dixon made it to
Chapman and carried him back amid the gunfire to the safety of the
wallow.
As the day
wore on, the five men suffered terribly from hunger, thirst, and
wounds; but their expert marksmanship continued to hold back the
Indians, who could not even capture Smith's guns. Late in the
afternoon an approaching thunderstorm brought relief to the parched
men and served to break off the Indian attack, but the blue norther
that it heralded resulted in more suffering from a severe drop in
temperature. Taking advantage of the lull in the skirmish, Peter
Rath went to recover Smith's weapons and ammunition and was
astonished to find Smith still alive. Dixon and Rath carried the
unfortunate trooper back to their makeshift fortress, where he died
later that night.
At
nightfall the Indians disappeared. Dixon and Rath fashioned crude
beds for themselves and their wounded comrades out of tumbleweeds
they had gathered and crushed. Afterward Rath went to bring help but
was unable to locate the trail and returned in two hours. The
following morning, September 13, dawned clear with no Indians in
sight. Dixon then volunteered to go for help and found the trail
less than a mile away. Soon he saw a column of United States Cavalry
in the distance and fired his gun to attract their attention. As it
turned out, this contingent consisted of four companies of the
Eighth Cavalry from Fort Union, New Mexico, about 225 men in all,
under the command of Maj. William R. Price. Price's appearance had
caused the Indians to withdraw from the wallow and Lyman's wagons.
Price
accompanied Dixon back to the wallow but had no ambulance wagon and
was running short of supplies himself. What was more, Dixon's
companions mistook the approaching column for Indians and, before
the scout could stop them, shot the horse of one of the surgeon's
escorts. As a result, the piqued surgeon only briefly examined the
men, and Price refused them ammunition or reinforcements, although
some of his troops did give them hardtack and dried beef. Price then
moved on, promising to notify Colonel Miles and send aid
immediately. Not until nearly midnight, however, did aid arrive and
the beleaguered men receive food and medical attention. George
Smith's body was wrapped in an army blanket and buried in the
wallow, and the disabled survivors were taken to Camp Supply for
treatment. Amos Chapman's leg was subsequently amputated above the
knee, and Woodhall and Harrington recovered and continued their
military service. After "severely censuring" Price for his
failure to render further aid to the survivors, Colonel Miles
recommended that they be given the Medal of Honor for bravery under
adverse circumstances. The medals were awarded, including a
posthumous one to Smith; Dixon personally received his from Miles
while they were encamped on Carson Creek near Adobe Walls.
The Buffalo
Wallow Fight was widely publicized as a heroic engagement; Richard
Irving Dodge presented a somewhat inaccurate narrative of the
episode in his book Our Wild Indians (1882). While nearly all
accounts of the battle, including Dixon's, claimed that the six men
killed as many as two dozen warriors, Amos Chapman, who spent his
later years in Seiling, Oklahoma, once told George Bent that no
Indian actually fell to their guns. Some years later, the medals of
Chapman and Dixon were revoked by Congress since they had served the
army as civilian scouts. Dixon, however, refused to surrender what
he felt he had justly earned. His medal is now on display at the
Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon. In 1925, under
direction of J. J. Long and Olive King Dixon, a granite monument was
erected on the Buffalo Wallow site, twenty-two miles southeast of
Canadian. It bears the names of the six heroes "who cleared the
way for other men."
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