Heroes of the Santa Fe Trail

by Randy D. Smith

  As an advance guard of three men dismounted at a water hole to drink, Kiowa raiders swept over the crests of the dunes. The men remounted and frantically attempted to rejoin the caravan, nearly a half-mile away. Mule-mounted Sam Lamme was overtaken while the other two escaped. As the caravan members watched helplessly, Lamme was filled with arrows, stripped and beheaded by the taunting Kiowa.

  As the Indians swept forward to overwhelm the disorganized wagons, Charles Bent rode forward alone to check the attack. His brother, William, riding hard to his assistance, soon joined him. The Kiowa charge broke away and precious moments were saved for the caravan to form a defense. A small cannon was unlashed and set up in time to send a shot before the Bents were overwhelmed. The cannon was enough to cause the Kiowa to retreat temporarily, allowing the brothers to return and assemble defensive forces. After digging rifle pits and barricading wagons, Bent sent nine men to break out and go for Riley’s aid. The force of riders was large enough to pass unmolested.

  Around 6:30 that evening Lt. Cooke saw a group of horsemen riding furiously toward camp. Despite the fact that the caravan was on Mexican soil and an official protest might end his career, Riley ordered his men to arms. Two advance companies, a small six-pound cannon and ammunition wagon advanced under Riley as quickly as possible. Cooke had accidentally spilled boiling coffee on his foot two days earlier and had to ride a horse. He was ordered to see to the difficult river crossing of support wagons. The rest of the force advanced on foot under Captain William Wickliffe. Progress was slow in the soft dunes and the infantry quickly neared exhaustion. Riley reached the caravan about eleven that night with Wickliffe arriving two hours later. Cooke and his force became confused in the night and myriad of hills. It was nearly daybreak before he found the caravan in the bottom of a natural bowl surrounded by high dunes. Riley’s force was assembled nearby. Evidently he had decided to keep his forces separate, probably because of the undisciplined nature of the caravan members.

  What the caravan riders described as hundreds of Kiowa attackers was more realistically estimated to be a force of around fifty. This is certainly a more credible figure. William and Charles Bent would have been superhuman to be able to disrupt a much larger force the afternoon before. The officers were not happy when learning the true circumstances. They had forced men to march in wet boots and uniforms through the night to near exhaustion without rations or support. By morning they had been without food for nearly twenty-four hours.

  Once it was certain that the Kiowa had no stomach for engagement with a much superior force, Riley ordered an ox knocked in the head and divided among the messes. Lamme’s body was retrieved and given a proper burial. Riley ordered a light company to fan out and sweep the crests of the hills as the remainder of wagons and troops advanced for eight more miles to open landscape. By the thirteenth, the party reached the vast open flat land of the Jornada. At this point Riley decided that he had gone far enough into Mexican Territory. The men and oxen were suffering greatly in the fiery sun and burning wind. They halted along the bank of a small pool of water near a dry creek. The heat was so intense that the surface was littered with the floating bodies of small fish. After resting for the day, Riley prepared his force to return to the river. Several caravan members made a plea for the troops to provide escort into Santa Fe, but that was impossible. Several traders wanted to return with the troops but the Bents and influential caravan leader William Waldo were determined to keep as many rifles with the group as possible. After threats and much convincing talk all but one hired man, who slipped from camp during the night, remained with the caravan. When he was discovered later by Riley, he was pronounced a craven coward and ordered from camp.

  Riley’s force settled in on the north bank of the Arkansas. Shallow bank wells lined with empty ration barrels were dug so the men did not have to subsist on muddy river water. The natural sand filter of the bank created substantially better quality drinking. To maintain discipline the camp settled into a regular pattern of drills and military exercises.

  Mail was sent with troopers whose enlistments were up even though Riley had advised caution concerning the safety of small bands trying to cross open plains alone. Four men left for the settlements. The following evening three of the discharged men returned, considerably shaken, to report that after walking eighteen miles they were confronted by a band of hostiles. At first it appeared as though they would be allowed to pass peaceably, but during a parlay a trooper named Gordon was suddenly murdered. The remaining three ran for over a mile while the Indians stripped Gordon and carried off his valuables. A hunting party from Riley’s camp was located and the men joined them for protection. It took several efforts to locate and retrieve Gordon’s body but none were successful until after wolves had mutilated it.

  Kiowa attempted a raid on the cattle pins a few hundred yards upriver from the camp on the third of August. A quick marshaling of forces held the hostiles at bay with no serious causalities. The Indians circled the force but were reluctant to leave without counting coup, or to press home an attack against volley fire. The small six-pound cannon loaded with grape eventually broke the standoff.

  Riley’s force was in an increasingly difficult situation. Running short of rations and unwilling to slaughter all the oxen, hunting and foraging parties had to be sent out. Constant Indian harassment of these parties were unfailing dangers. Gordon and Private Samuel Arrison were killed in separate engagements.

  On August 10, Corporal Arter from Leavenworth stumbled into camp emaciated and exhausted. He and a Private Nation had been sent to deliver mail and dispatches. Seven days out of Council Grove they were attacked by Indians and Nation had been wounded. The pair ventured forward on foot having lost horses, mail and supplies. They had been forced to live off the land, mainly eating snakes and the remains of an ox that had been abandoned by the force. Nation had been left twenty miles back on the trail and Arter continued alone to the camp. Riley sent a detachment of forty men to successfully locate Nation and bring him in.

  On the eleventh of August, a small force under the command of Captain Joseph Pentland was ordered to retrieve a buffalo shot by hunters. Riley warned Pentland of potential Indian harassment and ordered him to engage the enemy, keeping his forces together until Riley could come to his aid, if attacked. When Pentland’s detail located the buffalo, the guide, Bugler Matthew King, requested permission to go out alone and try to take another buffalo that he had seen nearby. Contrary to orders, Pentland gave him permission. As the detail began butchering the buffalo, King shouted an alarm that Indians were attacking him. A Private George Butt immediately broke ranks running for the river. Pentland turned and followed at a dead run. Discipline dissolved and the men scattered frantically for the bank, abandoning an ox cart and the meat.

  King never made it to the river. He was overwhelmed by a force of approximately twenty and fought desperately to save his life. He was found shot twelve times with arrows; his rifle was broken from being used as a club and a bloody butcher knife was at his side. The flight of Pentland and his men attracted the attention of Captain Wickliffe who brought up a force to support. He found Pentland’s detachment perched on a sand bar in the river and beat off the Indian attack. The cart and King’s body were recovered without further incident.

  Pentland turned in his report and a furious Riley preferred charges against him. Pentland was later found guilty of cowardice, misconduct in the face of the enemy, making a false report, and disobedience of orders. He was discharged from the service.

  A three-day rain finally broke the stalemate. Constant rain over a period of two weeks and a lack of game caused more problems. Camp had to be relocated but at least Indian harassment slackened. On the twenty-eighth, Private Nation died from his wounds.

  The month of September passed quietly. Sufficient quantities of buffalo were located to sustain the men comfortably. A four-sided lager was arranged to protect the livestock and prevent disorganization during any attack. By the tenth of O
ctober the traders were overdue. The nights were becoming cold and clothing was not adequate for the men. Riley gave his men their marching orders and departed on the eleventh.

  The force had not gone three miles when riders were seen approaching. They were messengers from the caravan twenty miles south of the river. There were nearly three hundred people driving two thousand head of livestock. Two hundred Mexican regulars and Indian allies escorted them. Indians had constantly harassed them after crossing the Cimarron on the far side of the Jornada. After leaving Riley that summer they had been under constant threat of attack for more than forty days until located by a Mexican escort. The governor of Santa Fe agreed to provide support until Riley’s force could be found at the border.

  Riley ordered the battalion into camp and detailed Captain Wickliffe and Lieutenant Brooke to return to the caravan. After a few days of meetings the battalion left the Arkansas for good on October 23. On the eighth of November, Riley’s battalion marched into Cantonment Leavenworth. Riley’s official report created quite a stir in the legislative halls of Washington. Not only were oxen a dependable source of power, but also the need for military intervention on the trail was clearly established. A bill was passed to authorize President Andrew Jackson to raise mounted volunteers for the defense of the frontier. The bill called for an augmented battalion of six companies under the command of a major to be placed on the frontier to provide escorts and monitor Indian activities. Although there would be several later changes in organization and logistics of troops, the Santa Fe Trail had gained the protection of a permanent military force.

  Chapter 8

  Nathan Boone’s Expedition of the Prairies

  Nathan Boone

  Investigating the Chavez murder of 1843, Daniel Boone’s youngest son made a significant trek through the heart of Indian country as a Captain of Dragoons.

  Nathan Boone, the youngest son of American explorer Daniel Boone, was a competent explorer himself but never achieved the fame of his illustrious father. As one of the earliest officers of the First United States Dragoons, he led a little-known expedition into the heart of Indian country in 1843, demonstrating his heritage of frontier leadership and skill.

  Born in 1781, when Daniel was forty-seven, Nathan never knew his father as anything but an old man. However, the bond between them was great, and Nathan accompanied his father on many hunting and trapping trips, becoming wise to the ways of the wilderness.

  Nathan married Olive Van Bibber in 1799, just as the Boone family was resettling to Missouri. President James Madison commissioned him a captain of Missouri volunteers during the War of 1812, and after the war, Nathan watched over Daniel in his final years. Shortly after Daniel’s death in 1820, Nathan became a delegate to Missouri’s constitutional convention.

  On June 15, 1832, a congressional act authorized the President to raise a battalion of Mounted Rangers for one year’s service on the western frontier. The frontier was west of a line that ran roughly north and south along the western border of Missouri. Major Henry Dodge headed six companies of one hundred ten men each. Fifty-one year old Nathan Boone was commissioned as one of the first captains. Three companies under the commands of Boone, Jesse Bean and Lemuel Ford were assigned to Fort Gibson in the Indian Nations. These Mounted Rangers later became the First U.S. Dragoons.

  Why Boone joined the army at the age of fifty-one is unknown. He was a property holder and moderately well off by the day’s standards. Perhaps he intended to serve no more than the dragoons’ original one-year term of service, or perhaps, being a Boone, he yearned more for the adventure of a military life than that of a farmer or merchant. Also, an officer’s commission paid a good salary; perhaps, after Nathan had witnessed his father face near-poverty and debt after a series of failed land schemes, the security of a military commission attracted him. Social security did not exist in 19th century America and a man usually worked until he was no longer physically able. A military position certainly promised more potential than the backbreaking labor of a farmer.

  Boone was a competent officer who never advanced beyond the rank of captain for over a decade. He had held a captaincy during the War of 1812 and served with distinction.

  He served as the first commander of Fort Wayne when it was established on Spavinaw Creek in 1838 and saw service at all the major forts along the frontier during his first ten years of service. He was also an instrumental officer in the survey of the famous Fort Gibson military road, the main north-south highway along the frontier. Boone served for twenty years in the dragoons, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1852.

  Dragoons were not cavalry. At that time the United States had no cavalry units in service. Such forces were of little value in the dark forests that dominated east of the Mississippi. But mounted men were needed to patrol what, during the period, was considered to be “permanent Indian frontier.” Heavily armed dragoons patrolled the vast distances on horseback but generally engaged hostile forces on foot. Such tactics were more efficient for men using cumbersome flintlock arms such as the Hall carbine. Saber charges against Indians generally provided fruitless results.

  Most of the large tribes had been assigned lands along the Kansas and Oklahoma frontier to make way for white settlement of the forested lands to the east. There was significant traffic along the Santa Fe Trail that demanded protection, semi-hostile borders with Mexico and the Republic of Texas, and Indians that needed a certain amount of policing and regulation. Forts Leavenworth, Scott and Gibson were designed and built as durable facilities that were expected to serve as permanent guardians of the western frontier. On April 24, 1843, Boone received orders from Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to lead an expedition of exploration and investigation through the heart of Indian Territory from Fort Gibson to the Big Bend of the Arkansas. He was to provide military escort to hard-pressed caravans along the Santa Fe Trail and investigate Texas raiding activity. Among Boone’s officers were Abraham Johnston, who was later killed in the Mexican War, Surgeon Josiah Simpson who rendered meritorious service as a colonel for the Union in the Civil War, Abraham Buford who later served in the Mexican War and as a confederate general, and Richard H. Anderson who assumed command of the Confederate Fifth Division of the Army of Tennessee during the Civil War.

  Boone’s force of ninety men and two wagons departed from Fort Gibson on May 14 and advanced northwest along the Verdigris River. Boone’s journal of the campaign provided detailed descriptions of the lay of the land, the flora and fauna. His layman’s knowledge of botany, zoology and geography was demonstrated by thorough and competent journal entries.

  On May 20, he found the remains of an extensive Indian Encampment where the Osage Trail crossed the Arkansas River. He ordered the construction of a large bark canoe for crossing the river. As Boone worked his way northwest he saw steadily increasing numbers of antelope, elk and jackrabbits. He made an interesting journal entry concerning buffalo on May 27. He noted, “The destruction of these animals yearly and their falling off so rapidly makes it certain, almost, that in a few years they will be known as a rare species.” This entry is especially interesting in light of the fact that others made similar comments that year. In 1843, Josiah Gregg commented similarly in The Commerce of the Prairies, which, details life on the Santa Fe Trail. For whatever reasons, the sudden decline of buffalo must have been especially noticeable. Boone observed that the winter of 1842-43 was especially hard and partially credits that for large numbers of buffalo deaths.

  On May 27, a violent hailstorm where many of the stones were “as large as hen’s eggs” battered Boone’s column. The storm drove several horses from camp, but the men retrieved them the following day.

  Two days later they came upon their first Indians, a band of Wa-sha-shay Osage, southeast of present-day Anthony, Kansas, on Bluff Creek. The Indians ran at the sight of the soldiers and officers had to pursue and overtake them. The Osage took Boone’s force to their camp, where the Captain reported a recent Indian kill of twenty-five
buffalo.

  The following morning several military horses were missing from camp and Boone discovered several lariats had been cut. The Osage claimed that the horses as well as some ponies of their own had been taken by Pawnee, but Boone suspected the Indians were lying. He reasoned that the pickets were too near the Osage encampment for Pawnee to have chanced such a theft. When Boone suggested that it was believed the Osage were the horse thieves, the Indians offered to show his men the Pawnee trail. The dragoons found that the Osage were showing them a mock trail on the opposite side of the river from where the actual horses had passed.

  When the men found a butcher knife near where the lariats were cut, the chief claimed it to be an Osage knife until he learned where it was found. He changed his story and claimed that one of his traders had been sold the knife by the Pawnee. The story did not impress Boone, but he had little solid evidence to counter it.

  Boone wanted to see if some salt plains were nearby and ordered some dragoons to examine the area. In 1811, Osage Indian agent, George C. Sibley, had discovered a unique plot of land somewhere in the area that he termed a huge salt plain. A later expedition by Thomas James and John McKnight also reported such a place where they were able to chop off chunks of salt with tomahawks; however, the site was not officially positioned on maps. Salt deposits were important at that time for preserving food and for commercial use, and Boone hoped to find the mineral in a solid mass.