The First Battle of Adobe Walls
Date: November 25, 1864
Location: Adobe Walls, Confederate Texas
In the years prior to the American Civil War, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache began attacking American colonizers and wagon trains on their land after enduring years of the killing and enslavement of their people, theft of their livestock and game, and settlers illegally encroaching on their land. This conflict originally consisted of small ambushes, quick raids, and other elements of guerilla warfare, but grew in size, scale, and regularity following the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 12, 1861.
The war itself came to the New Mexico Territory on July 25, 1861, when Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor won a first victory in a series of victories over the Union Army for a campaign that led to the creation of the Arizona Territory (CSA), a Confederate domain consisting of the southern halves of the modern states of Arizona and New Mexico. With both the Union and Confederate armies preoccupied with battling for control of the New Mexico Territory and the Arizona Territory, the tribes launched offensives against forts and settlements throughout the region, with much success.
Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley & Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor
Since the Confederate victories of 1861, 1862 had seen Baylor's army repeatedly thrown back from western Arizona by the massive Union force arriving from California, the California Column. 1862 had also seen Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley attempt to invade the remainder of the New Mexico Territory, only to have his army decisively defeated at Glorieta Pass by Union forces from New Mexico and Colorado. Its capital fallen, territory recaptured, and armies on the run, the Confederate domain known as the Arizona Territory ceased to exist, once again becoming a part of the New Mexico Territory and the Union.
In the wake of these victories, Military Governor James Henry Carleton, the General of the California Column that defeated the Confederates in Arizona, and now governor of New Mexico, began ordering the construction of forts in the territories along major trading routes and towns, as well as increasing the military presence bordering tribal lands. Carleton sought to viciously punish the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, and with the Confederate insurgency neutralized, he now had the resources and manpower to exact his revenge. Following the brutal subjugation of the Navajo, Carleton ordered Colonel Kit Carson to continue his scorched earth campaign against the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, his soldiers skirmishing with war parties, burning their dwellings and crops, executing those who resisted, and rounding up the survivors to forcibly send to reservations.
Military Governor James Henry Carleton & Colonel Kit Carson
On November 10, 1864, Carson and a force of New Mexico volunteers numbering over 400 cavalry, infantry, artillery, and scouts departed from Fort Bascom, located in the New Mexico Territory about 10 miles north of Tucumcari Mountain, to try and find the winter campgrounds of the Kiowa and Comanche, which were thought to be located somewhere in the central Panhandle region of Confederate Texas, about 160 miles away. Carson had actually been employed by a trading post located in that area, Bent's Old Fort, over twenty years earlier and decided to make their destination the crumbling adobe remains of that trading post, now long out of business and whose ruins were now known as Adobe Walls, before commencing his search of the winter campgrounds.
The ruins of Fort Bascom c. 1920
After an arduous march through snowstorms and the icy winds of the high plains, Carson's force reached Mule Springs in the Panhandle on the afternoon of November 24th, about 30 miles west of Adobe Walls. Not long after, Carson received word from his Ute and Jicarilla scouts that they had found the trails for the Kiowa winter campgrounds. That night, he ordered 75 infantrymen to remain at their encampment at Mule Springs to guard the supply wagons, while he, the cavalry, the scouts, and the artillery marched during the night towards the Kiowa.
In the early hours of November 25th, Carson found the large Kiowa settlement his scouts reported and ordered an attack. The Kiowa were taken completely by surprise as the cavalrymen rode into their camp, guns blazing, with swords and torches in hand. The Chief of the Kiowa, Dohäsan, and the survivors fled to the nearby hills, and as the cavalry torched their dwellings off in the distance, the Kiowa rode for the villages of their allies, the Comanches and Apaches, to let them know what had occurred. Carson withdrew from the smoldering remains of the Kiowa settlement for Adobe Walls, and upon their arrival at approximately 10:00 AM, ordered his 330 soldiers to begin fortifying the ruins, anticipating a retaliatory attack.
Not long after, an estimated 1,400 Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache warriors assaulted Adobe Walls, several times coming close to breaking their lines, but their attacks stalled after suffering heavy losses from well-placed artillery fire. Endless waves of Kiowa and Comanche assaults continued, and by the afternoon, it’s estimated that their numbers had swelled to 3,000. Vicious fighting raged all day through the evening, and with Carson and his men surrounded, trapped, low on ammunition, and with their besiegers showing no signs of relenting, the situation was becoming more desperate by the minute.
Realizing that continuing to fight at Adobe Walls would likely end in a massacre, late that evening Carson ordered a fighting retreat back to the remains of the Kiowa settlement. The warriors began torching the tall plains grass surrounding Adobe Walls to prevent Carson from escaping, but Carson lit backfires in the path of the flames, creating an open burned area to prevent the spreading of the fire and through which he and his men could escape. After narrowly avoiding capture or getting killed, Carson led his men back to the Kiowa settlement and marched through the night back to Mule Springs, reaching their encampment and supply train on the morning of November 26th. That day, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache had tracked Carson back to Mule Springs, and after both sides spent the day sizing each other up from afar, followed by a few sporadic skirmishes, Carson ordered his force to withdraw back to the New Mexico Territory.
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