"Kit" Carson

 

The embittered Indians who had been driven out of Texas had their first chance for revenge with the outbreak of the Civil War. The federal government abandoned the frontier posts and the Confederacy could not spare the soldiers to man them. Frontier defenses collapsed. Comanches and Kiowas took over the high plains and pushed back the frontier, wiping out settlements in several counties. Late in 1864 large numbers of Comanches and Kiowas were in winter camp near the adobe ruins of Bent’s Old Fort in the Texas Panhandle. They were attacked by 300 regular cavalrymen and 100 Utes and Apaches led by Kit Carson. The Indians suffered many casualties and lost most of their food, lodging, and ammunition. They counterattacked fiercely, but were driven off. According to one of his officers, “Carson said if it had not been for his howitzers, few white men would have been left to tell the tale.” Recovering from this serious beating the Indians continued their raids and the frontier erupted periodically for the next ten years. When the Indians were finally defeated in 1874-75, it was by use of Carson’s tactics – invasion of their Staked Plains sanctuary with superior arms to destroy their morale, their horses, and their supplies. (Field 1975)