Volume 12 , Issue 42

Battle of Camp Supply (11 June 1870)

The Oklahoma Historical Society states about the Battle of Camp Supply, 11 June 1870, about 3:30 p.m., a force of approximately 200 warriors emerged from the timber and brush along the Beaver River and charged down the ridge slope near Wolf Creek. The ploy was to draw the troops out of the post for a fight.

The article goes on to state, "During the ten days of the Kiowa Medicine Lodge ceremonies, delegations of Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa met in council to discuss war. Most Cheyenne decided not to follow the warpath with the Kiowa and Comanche. Cheyenne chief, Little Robe, secretly warned Camp Supply commander, Lieutenant Colonel Anderson Nelson, to expect trouble. It came within days."

"Barely eighteen months had passed since the establishment of Camp Supply in the valley created by the confluence of Beaver River and Wolf Creek. The supply depot for General Philip Sheridan's winter campaign of 1868-1869 had grown to a garrison of five companies of the Tenth U.S. Cavalry and three of the Third Infantry. In the late spring of 1870, there were two camps about six hundred yards distance separating the commands of the two regiments.

"The older of the two camps was as a rambling arrangement of log buildings and tents that had sprung up around the fortified stockade built in November 1868. To the southwest was the more orderly compound of log buildings. Black troopers of the Tenth had built picket style log structures around a cavalry-sized quadrangle parade ground. On the west side were the stables for the cavalry horses.

"The garrison consisted of white officers and black troopers of five troops of the Tenth, A, F, H, I, and K. Three companies of the Third, B, E, and F, were carried on the Monthly Returns of the post. Company E was actually on detached duty at the new Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency at Darlington." To read more follow this LINK.

The native bands of Southern Plains tribes (Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache) had supposedly settled on their reservations to the south in western Indian Territory. It was the winter of 1870, the hostile factions among the warriors were determined to discredit any peace factions within the tribes. They drove the army out of the region. June 11, 1870, was the climax of their efforts to bring war to the region.

It was as early as January when 300 warriors of the openly hostile Kiowa and Comanche held up a Texas cattle herd bound for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency at Camp Supply. The Kiowa Peace Chief Kickingbird saved the drovers, but the cattle were stampeded and several hundred killed.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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