Fort Concho: Its Why and Wherefore

by James N. Gregory

G. Catlin
Comanches Capturing Wild Horses
From “The North American Indians,” Vol. II, by George Catlin, London, 1841. The place: the Red River; the time: 1834.

Years before the purchase of 1803, he was trading his stolen stock, and possibly his slaves, to the French traders from the Spanish-French border near old Natchitoches (pronounced Nacotish) on the lower Red River. Or in later times, upon return from a successful raid, he roared out of Mexico and across the Rio Grande into Texas south of the Chisos Mountains. If short of war paint, he replenished his favorite red color from the outcroppings of cinnebar near Terlingua Creek, then headed through the badlands and out upon the range country by way of Persimmon Gap. From the Gap, he went to Comanche Springs (present Fort Stockton), crossed the Pecos River at Horsehead Crossing, then rode north to the Sand Dunes to water a famishing flock, after which he headed east to the Sulphur and the Big Spring. Then he turned northward around the Cap Rock that marks the eastern extremity of the terrible Llano Estacado, to proceed on north till he actually scrambled out upon that plateau. Then he proceeded towards Santa Fe to meet somewhere, possibly at Casas Amarillas, in that then desolate region, the Comancheros, or middle men between himself and the Mexican settlers of the upper Rio Grande Valley near Santa Fe.[1] He traded his trophies to the Comancheros for guns, ammunition or other less practical adjuncts that might suit his fancy of the moment. His Mexican Moon was then over and he returned to his portable village which he had left in some watered canyon that cut down eastward from the Llano Estacado.

The route as followed by these Indians was a well marked trail, and during the time of our westward migrations, it was well known and appears on the maps of the times. Another route into Mexico broke off the Western Trail at the Big Spring and ran down the valley of the North Concho River, across the Edwards Plateau, then through the passes of the Balcones Escarpment to cross the Rio Grande into Mexico near the present city of Eagle Pass. Mr. Evetts Haley refers to these trails as the Great Comanche War Trail, and gives a wonderful description of the activity on them in his recent book, Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier. An old map from the Army files in the National Archives calls the western branch the Grand Comanche War Trail. But call the trails what you may, they were still a stiff pain in the neck to anyone crossing them, and for the wagon trains and cattle herds going west, crossing was inevitable.

The greater raids into Mexico appear to have occurred rather regularly in September when the weather was most favorable, and the chief objectives could be struck during the light of a full moon. Thus, to the unhappy but fully expectant Mexicans, the September full moon was known as the Comanche Moon. At this time Mars, the red God of War, hangs low and molten in the late summer night’s sky and reflects a light that is as red as the sand and clay soils of the Indian Territory.

Another favorite trick of these versatile middle men was to raid the settlements down the Rio Grande Valley south from Santa Fe and drive off the stock to a rendezvous with the Comancheros, who in turn traded them to unknowing Mexican settlers at other points on the river. During such raids it was deemed ethical but unprofitable to kill the settlers, since without them there would be no stock to drive off in a later raid. Besides, these Mexican settlers did not seriously molest the buffalo.

Such business sagacity however, did not apply in later times to the Republic of Texas, where each succeeding year saw new settlers break ground and homestead farther up the river valleys, whose streams had their origins in the motherland plains of the Comanche and Kiowa.

After its establishment in 1836, the infant republic found itself fighting a hot war on two fronts. The settlers near the Rio Grande, from Del Rio to the mouth of that river near Brownsville, suffered from raids out of Mexico by both Mexicans and Indians, while the northern prongs of the new settlements were exposed to the Comanches and Kiowas. It was a bitter struggle, fought generally in small isolated settlements where the determined Anglo-Saxon fought for his new home against an equally determined Indian fighting to preserve his ancient homeland and range. A Saxon’s scalp decorating a Comanche’s war shield might be avenged by an Indian’s entire skin decorating a rude barn door.

Matters were better controlled after the annexation of Texas by the United States and after the close of the Mexican War. But it took manpower and supplies to do it, something the new republic had been slow in acquiring. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided, among other things, that the United States would make every effort to keep the Indians from raiding into Mexico; so in about 1849, the United States Army, mostly cavalry and mounted infantrymen (Dragoons), moved into Texas. They proceeded to establish a string of forts and camps from previously established Brown near the mouth of the Rio Grande to Duncan near Eagle Pass. For the upper Rio Grande in Texas, they set up what was later to be Fort Bliss (El Paso). As a northern line of defense for the settlers, they established, starting with Fort Duncan, the forts of Lincoln (D’Hanis), Martin Scott (Fredericksburg), Croghan (Burnet), Gates (Gatesville), Graham (Hillsboro) and Worth (Fort Worth). Only a few of the forts were ever protected by stockades. The war was one of movement. The places were supposed to be strategically located and manned by several companies of cavalry and some infantry; places from where punitive expeditions could set out, establish supply bases, then try to run down the Indian raiders.

The standing army of the United States during the 1850’s was numbered at about fifteen thousand men and the personnel of the Texas forts accounted for about from one-fifth to one-third of that number. Many of the officers and men were veterans of the Mexican War, the forts usually being named in honor of American soldiers who lost their lives in that war. Many Civil War leaders, both Confederate and Union, received much field training from 1849 to the outbreak of that war in 1861, building and manning the forts, chasing, but seldom catching, the Indians, guarding the wagon trains and mail bags and exploring the wilderness for better trails and water holes.

There is a record, one of many left by the famous Captain Jack Hays of the Texas Rangers. It tells how he was hired by certain merchants of San Antonio who were anxious to trade with the merchants of Chihuahua, Mexico. His assignment was to find in 1848, a route from San Antonio to privately owned Fort Leaton where the Conchos River of Mexico meets the Rio Grande, and from which point to Chihuahua the going would be reasonably good. Hays and his mounted company of frontiersmen managed to make it to Leaton and back to San Antonio, but they found the going so rough that the journey took them three and one-half months. (Present Southern Pacific Railway west to Alpine). There were too many deep canyons along the tributaries of the Rio Grande.