316 CALENDAR HISTORY OF THE KIOWA [eth.ann.17 



The engagement is described in detail by Lieutenant George H. Pet- 

 tis, who had charge of the two howitzers during the fight. The expe- 

 dition, which consisted of three hundred aud 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 

 inftmtry. Starting from Fort Bascom, New Mexico, they proceeded 

 down the Canadian, the intention being to disable the Indians by tak- 

 ing them by surprise in their winter camp, as Custer did on the Wasliita 

 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, 1804. After some 

 resistance the Kiowa retreated a few miles down the river, where there 

 were other camps of the allied Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche. Keen- 

 forced 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 iilain 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 liorses 

 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 nttack, 

 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 dismouuteit and hid in 

 the tall grass in our front, aud made it hot for most of us by their excellent niarks- 

 man.ship, while quite the larger part of them, mounted and covered with their war 

 dresses, charged continually across our front, from right tii left and rice rirsa, about 

 200 yards from our line of skirmishers, yelling like demons, aud tiring from under the 

 necks of their horses at intervals. About I'OO yards in rear of their line, all through 

 the fighting at the Adobe W.all8, 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 aud 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). 



