Well before it was the home of the Field Artillery and long, long before there was any talk of a missile school, (the only missile launched around Sill in its early days came from a bow), Fort Sill Sill played a central role in the long-forgotten Red River War. This “war” from 1874 to 1875 virtually brought to an end the struggles between the United States Army and the Indian tribes of the southern plains. Only the isolated attacks of the Apaches would demand the intervention of the soldiers from that time forward in the Southwest, although the northern plains of the Dakotas and Montama would see much bloodshed before that area too fell quiet.

The trigger for the Red River War was not a dispute with the white man but the desire for revenge among the tribes themselves, the Comanche against the Tonkawa. The Comanche, led by a charismatic warrior named Quanah, the son of an influential chief and a captive white mother, enlisted the aid of the Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes in the confrontation with the Tonkawa. In addition to conducting raids into Comanche territory, the Tonkawa also served as scouts for the US Cavalry, which was thinly posted throughout north Texas and the area which later became Oklahoma. One of the advantages that the Comanche felt they possessed was the “magic” of a tribal holy man, who assured the warriors that the bullets of their adversaries would fall harmlessly to the ground. (A similar claim would motivate the northern Sioux “ghost dancers” nearly fifteen years later, with the same predictable result.)

However, the Indian agent at Fort Sill became aware of the proposed campaign and the army commander controlling the Tonkawa scouts pulled them into the security of the nearest compound. Their plan foiled, the Comanche picked another objective, the white hunters who were wantonly and recklessly slaughtering the buffalo herds, stripping the hides and leaving the carcasses to rot throughout the tribal hunting grounds. A group of several hundred Indians moved against a small collection of mud and pole huts which slightly more than two dozen hunters used as a base. The name of the base was Adobe Walls.

The Battle of Adobe Walls, the opening battle of the Red River War, was characterized by conspicuous bravery on the part of Quanah and the Indian confederation against the lethal and powerful hunting rifles of the surrounded hunters, protected as they were by the dried mud structures. The Indians also found to their dismay that the “magic” did not work, and after four hours of failing to overcome the hunters’ resistance, they withdrew, more angry at the now-disgraced medicine man than at the failure of the attack.

In spite of the failure, the various tribes remained on the warpath as they had a number of grievances in addition to the reduction in the buffalo’s numbers — inadequate reservation rations, white horse thieves who went unpunished, and the confinement of several of their key chiefs, such as Kicking Bird and Santanta (whose cells can be seen today at the Fort Sill guardhouse.) The soldiers had their complaints as well, particularly the ban on military action within the reservation boundaries, where even “hot” pursuit” could not be completed. (Sounds like the VN no-fire zones) The problemswere intensified by the mediocrity of the Fort Sill CO.

An attempt to enroll the Indians at Fort Sill turned into a fiasco, as not only the peaceable tribes showed up, but so did those known to be hostile, who had no intention of surrendering their weapons. The result was that following a two-day battle, all tribes concerned scattered to the four winds, compounding the army’s difficulty.

General Philip Sheridan of Civil War fame sent out two of his former Army of the Potomac officers, Nelson Miles and Ranald McKenzie, with about 750 troopers each to try to round up the warring tribes. Fort Sill continued to play a central role in the campaign, which lasted more than a year but which featured very little action. The Indians were worn down by the need to stay constantly on the move and the resulting lack of provisions. Several chiefs, including Santanta, turned themselves in only to be packed off in irons to Fort Sill. And in the early fall of 1874, a Kiowa-Comanche coalition was badly hurt at the “Battle “of Palo Duro Canyon, which caused only four casualties but which cost the Indians their entire horse herd and all of their winter stores. By the following spring, all of the principal chiefs, including Quanah, had turned themselves in. Quanah took his mother’s maiden name, and as Quanah Parker, became a prosperous and successful reservation Indian. He was one of the lucky ones — many of the other ringleaders, most selected arbitrarily, were sent shackled to prisons in Florida or to Carlisle, PA, for instruction in the science of farming. The Red River War, which began with the crack of a rifle, ended with the swish of a scythe.

Information extracted from MHQ — the Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 2007, Volume 20, Number 1