I understand Kit Carson last winter destroyed an Indian village. He had about four hundred men with him, but the Indians attacked him as bravely as any men in the world, charging up to his lines, and he withdrew his command. They had a regular bugler, who sounded the calls as well as they are sounded for troops. Carson said if it had not been for his howitzers few would have been left to tell the tale. This I learned from an officer who was in the fight (Condition, 1).
The engagement is described in detail by Lieutenant George H. Pettis, who had charge of the two howitzers during the fight. The expedition, which consisted of three hundred and thirty-five volunteer soldiers and seventy-two Ute and Jicarilla Apache Indians, was under command of Colonel Christopher ("Kit") Carson, the noted scout and Indian fighter, then holding a commission in the First New Mexico infantry. Starting from Fort Bascom, New Mexico, they proceeded down the Canadian, the intention being to disable the Indians by taking them by surprise in their winter camp, as Custer did on the Washita four years later. The first village, a Kiowa camp consisting of one hundred and seventy-six tipis, was discovered on the Canadian at the entrance of a small stream since known as Kit Carson creek, in what is now Hutchinson county, Texas, a short distance above Adobe Walls. The attack was made at daybreak of November 25, 1864. After some resistance the Kiowa retreated a few miles down the river, where there were other camps of the allied Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche. Reenforced from these, they returned and made such a desperate attack upon the invaders that Carson was glad to retire after burning the upper village, although the other camps against which the expedition was directed were in plain sight below. The battle lasted all day, the Indians disputing every foot of his advance and following up his retreat so closely that only the howitzers saved the troops from utter destruction.
In the early part of the engagement the soldiers corralled their horses in an old abandoned adobe building which Pettis calls the Adobe Walls, but which was probably the ruins of the trading post built by Bent twenty years before (see winter [1843—44]). The Adobe Walls, where Quanah led his celebrated fight, were not built until 1873 or 1874 and were some distance down the river. Several white captives, women and children, were in the hands of the Indians at the time of the attack, but none of these was rescued. The Kiowa also saved all their horses, although most of their winter provision and several hundred dressed buffalo skins in the first village, together with the tipis, were destroyed by the troops.
Quite a number of the enemy acted as skirmishers, being dismounted and hid in the tall grass in our front, and made it hot for most of us by their excellent marksmanship, while quite the larger part of them, mounted and covered with their war dresses, charged continually across our front, from right to left and vice versa, about 200 yards from our line of skirmishers, yelling like demons, and firing from under the necks of their horses at intervals. About 200 yards in rear of their line, all through the fighting at the Adobe Walls, was stationed one of the enemy, who had a cavalry bugle, and during the entire day he would blow the opposite call that was used by the officer in our line of skirmishers; for instance, when our bugles sounded the "advance," he would blow "retreat," and when ours sounded the "retreat," he would follow with the "advance;" ours would signal "halt," he would follow suit. So he kept it up all the day, blowing as shrill and clearly as our very best buglers. Carson insisted that it was a white man, but I have never received any information to corroborate this opinion (Pettis).
It was most probably a Kiowa, possibly Set-t'aiñte himself, who was famous for a bugle, which instrument he blew as a signal on state occasions.
Deeming it unsafe to remain longer after destroying the first village, Carson formed the troops in marching order, with skirmishers in front and on the flanks and the howitzers bringing up the rear, and began the return march.
The enemy was not disposed to allow us to return without molestation, and in a very few minutes was attacking us on every side. By setting fire to the high, dry grass of the river bottom, they drove us to the foothills, and by riding in rear of the fire, as it came burning toward us, they would occasionally get within a few yards of the column; being enveloped in the smoke, they would deliver the fire of their rifles and get out of harm's way before they could be discovered by us.
Fig. 137—Summer 1865—Peninsula sun dance.
On the side of the troops, Pettis reports two soldiers killed and twenty-one wounded, several mortally, together with one Ute killed and four wounded. He puts the Indian loss at nearly one hundred killed and between one hundred and one hundred and fifty wounded. The official report, which he quotes, makes the number of tipis in the village destroyed about one hundred and fifty and the Indian loss in killed and wounded together only sixty. Among these were four crippled or decrepit old Indians, who were killed in the tipis by a couple of Ute squaws searching for plunder. A buggy and spring wagon belonging to Sierrito or "Little-mountain" (Dohásän) are also mentioned as having been destroyed.