Battle of Washita River was a Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts engagement fought in Oklahoma, 1868.
On November 27, 1868, troops of the 7th U.S. Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer struck Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne encampment along the Washita River, a site now preserved as the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site near Cheyenne, Oklahoma. This clash is remembered as the Battle of the Washita River, sometimes called simply the Battle of the Washita or, more grimly, the Washita Massacre.
Positioned along the river as part of a sprawling winter gathering of several Native American tribal bands numbering in the thousands, the Cheyenne group Custer targeted sat at the outer edge of this larger settlement. His men descended upon the village after army scouts, following the tracks left by an Indian raiding party that had struck white settlements, located it. Yet Black Kettle and his followers had committed no such raid; they had maintained peace and continued to pursue it. During the assault, Custer's men cut down not only warriors but women and children as well, though a number of Cheyenne were spared death only to be seized as captives, held to serve as hostages and shields against retaliation. To this day, how many Cheyenne actually died in the fighting remains a point of contention, a dispute that has persisted since the earliest accounts emerged.
On November 27, 1868, troops of the 7th U.S. Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer struck Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne encampment along the Washita River, a site now preserved as the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site near Cheyenne, Oklahoma. This clash is remembered as the Battle of the Washita River, sometimes called simply the Battle of the Washita or, more grimly, the Washita Massacre.
Positioned along the river as part of a sprawling winter gathering of several Native American tribal bands numbering in the thousands, the Cheyenne group Custer targeted sat at the outer edge of this larger settlement. His men descended upon the village after army scouts, following the tracks left by an Indian raiding party that had struck white settlements, located it. Yet Black Kettle and his followers had committed no such raid; they had maintained peace and continued to pursue it. During the assault, Custer's men cut down not only warriors but women and children as well, though a number of Cheyenne were spared death only to be seized as captives, held to serve as hostages and shields against retaliation. To this day, how many Cheyenne actually died in the fighting remains a point of contention, a dispute that has persisted since the earliest accounts emerged.
By the opening days of November 1868, Black Kettle had brought his people to settle alongside other Southern Cheyenne and various allied bands along the Washita River, a waterway the tribes themselves called Lodgepole River because of the pines growing nearby. His village stood furthest west among a string of winter settlements belonging to Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache groups, stretching some ten to fifteen miles along the water.
A gap of several miles separated Black Kettle's people from the rest of the encampments. His settlement held roughly fifty Cheyenne lodges, joined by one or two Arapaho lodges and a pair belonging to visiting Lakota, bringing the population to approximately 250 souls. Little Rock resided there with his family, the sole council chief who had stayed at Black Kettle's side since the slaughter at Sand Creek back in 1864. Also present were the households of Big Man, Wolf Looking Back, Clown, Cranky Man, Scabby Man, Half Leg, Bear Tongue, and Roll Down.
Further along the river, past Black Kettle's camp, the Washita curved back on itself, forming a wide bend to the north. Near the top of this bend sat the Arapaho settlement of Little Raven, Big Mouth, Yellow Bear, and Spotted Wolf, numbering about 180 lodges altogether. Where the bend curved back around lay a substantial Southern Cheyenne camp led by Medicine Arrows. One large village combined the followers of Little Robe, Sand Hill, Stone Calf, Old Little Wolf (also called Big Jake), and Black White Man, with a smaller Cheyenne settlement nearby belonging to Old Whirlwind's people. Together these two Cheyenne camps held around 129 lodges, positioned along the bend southeast of the Arapaho under Little Raven and west of a modest Kiowa camp under Kicking Bird.
Meanwhile Kiowa chiefs Satanta, Lone Wolf, and Black Eagle had relocated their villages near Fort Cobb, and further downstream sat additional Comanche and Kiowa-Apache camps. Taken together, the winter gathering along the upper Washita numbered close to 6,000 Native Americans.
Around the middle of November, a delegation consisting of Black Kettle and Little Robe from the Cheyenne, alongside Big Mouth and Spotted Wolf representing the Arapaho, traveled to Fort Cobb to see the post trader William "Dutch Bill" Griffenstein. His wife, known as Cheyenne Jennie and originally from Black Kettle's own camp, had passed away around October 10. Griffenstein had already dispatched messengers to notify her family of the death, and it seems he may also have encouraged Black Kettle to seek out Colonel William B. Hazen, a brevet major general, to discuss terms of peace. The meeting between the four chiefs and Hazen took place on November 20, with Captain Henry Alvord of the Tenth Cavalry recording what was said.
Black Kettle opened the conversation by telling Hazen that his Cheyenne people, while camped south of the Arkansas, had resisted returning north out of fear of conflict there, despite repeated urging that crossing back would bring them rewards. As Hardoff points out, under the Medicine Lodge Treaty the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation was bounded on the north by the Arkansas River itself. That April, the Army had distributed food owed to the Cheyenne and Arapaho at both Fort Larned and Fort Dodge, locations situated north of the river. Then on August 9, 1868, treaty annuities including weapons and ammunition were handed out at Fort Larned rather than at a location south of the Arkansas as might have been expected.
Black Kettle went on to request permission to bring his people south toward Fort Cobb. He explained that the Cheyenne never made war on this side of the Arkansas and left Texas alone, but that north of the river conflict was nearly constant. He described how young Cheyenne men had recently been fired upon there, sparking fighting he could not fully contain despite his efforts to keep his warriors calm. Still, he insisted his people desired peace and that relocating closer to Fort Cobb would let him watch over them more effectively. His camp, he noted, sat on the Washita some forty miles east of the Antelope Hills
Command of the Department of the Missouri rested with General Philip Sheridan, who settled on striking the Cheyenne during the harshest months rather than waiting for spring. Cold and snow made such a campaign grueling, yet that very hardship promised the kind of finality summer operations could not, for winter alone left the Plains tribes unable to move freely. Sheridan's reasoning was simple: strip away an enemy's shelter, provisions, and horses, and the fighting men would find their families exposed to both soldiers and the freezing landscape alike. Under such pressure, surrender would become the only option left to them. His strategy called for a three-pronged advance converging on Indian encampments just east of the Texas Panhandle. One force would march from Fort Lyon in Colorado, another from Fort Bascom in New Mexico, while a third would push out from a newly built supply base known as Camp Supply. From there, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer led 800 troopers of the 7th Cavalry toward the scattered camps along the Washita River. Amid a driving snowstorm, the column departed on November 23, 1868, moving southward into Cheyenne territory.
The morning of November 26, 1868, saw Custer's Osage scouts pick up the tracks of an Indian war party. For the entire day the troops pressed forward along this path without pausing, finally stopping when darkness fell, only to resume once enough moonlight appeared to see by. The trail brought them to Black Kettle's village, and there Custer split his command into four sections, positioning each so that all could strike at once when dawn broke. As daylight came and the columns began their assault, Double Wolf woke and discharged his weapon to warn the camp, becoming one of the earliest casualties of the charge. Signaling the attack, the cavalry band struck up "Garryowen." Cheyenne fighters scrambled from their lodges, seeking shelter among trees and within the deep gullies nearby. Custer gained command of the village fairly quickly, though stamping out every pocket of resistance demanded more time.
Longtime foes of the Cheyenne, the Osage counted themselves among the enemies of most tribes on the Plains. It was these Osage scouts who guided Custer to the encampment, catching the noise and scent of woodsmoke from the camp well before any soldier noticed. They held back from joining the opening assault, worried that troops might confuse them for Cheyenne and open fire on them by mistake. Rather than charge in, they stayed positioned behind the 7th Cavalry's color-bearer on the river's north side until the village had fallen. Once it had, the Osage moved into the camp themselves, taking scalps and assisting soldiers in capturing Cheyenne women and children who tried to escape.
Black Kettle and his wife Medicine Woman died from gunshots to the back while attempting to flee atop a pony. Once the village lay in his hands, Custer found himself in a difficult spot. With the battle winding down, he spotted sizable groups of mounted warriors massing on hills in the distance and discovered that Black Kettle's camp was merely one among numerous Indian settlements strung along the river, holding thousands of people in total. Worried about a counterattack, he stationed part of his men defensively while directing the rest to gather up horses and belongings from the Indians. Anything unwanted or too cumbersome to transport was destroyed, including roughly 675 ponies and horses put to death. Two hundred horses were kept alive to carry captives.
As evening approached, concern that Indians from the surrounding camps might locate and strike his supply train led Custer to march his men toward those other settlements. The Indians nearby pulled back in response, and Custer then reversed course, heading back to rejoin his supply train.
When Custer first informed General Sheridan of the engagement on November 28, 1868, he claimed that "actual and careful examination after the battle" had turned up 103 dead warriors, a number Sheridan then passed along the next day to Bvt. Maj. Gen. W.A. Nichols in his own account of the Washita fight. In truth, nobody had actually tallied the bodies. This figure came instead from what Custer's officers told him the day following the attack, while the column made its way back to Camp Supply. Cheyenne accounts and other Indian estimates of casualties at Washita, along with figures from Custer's own civilian scouts, put the number considerably lower.
A modern reckoning from the U.S. Army Center of Military History puts 7th Cavalry losses at 21 officers and men dead and 13 wounded during the Washita engagement, with Indian losses estimated around 50 killed and a comparable number wounded. Twenty of the fallen soldiers belonged to a small detachment under Major Joel Elliott, who himself perished. Elliott had broken away from the three companies under his command, seemingly without securing Custer's permission. Shouting "Here's for a brevet or a coffin!", he led his small band after a group of retreating Cheyenne. This contingent then collided with a combined force of Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho fighters racing down from upstream villages to reinforce Black Kettle's camp. In a single charge, the warriors overran Elliott's small unit.
Custer's decision to pull back without confirming what had become of Elliott and his missing men left a lasting stain on his standing among fellow officers. Bitterness simmered within the 7th Cavalry and never fully dissipated. Frederick Benteen, who commanded H Company and counted Elliott as a friend, held onto resentment toward Custer for "abandoning" him and his troopers, a grudge he never let go of. Eight years afterward,
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