Second Battle of Adobe Walls The Second Battle of Adobe Walls was fought on June 27 , 1874 , between Comanche forces and a group of twenty - eight U . S . bison hunters defending the settlement of Adobe Walls , Texas , in what is now Hutchinson County , Texas . " Adobe Walls was scarcely more than a lone island in the vast sea of the Plains , a solitary refuge uncharted and practically unknown . " Background . Adobe Walls settlement . Adobe Walls was the name of a trading post in the Texas Panhandle , just north of the Canadian River . In 1845 , an Adobe fort was built there to house the post , but it was blown up by the traders three years later after repeated Indian attacks . In 1864 , the ruins were the site of one of the largest battles ever to take place on the Great Plains . Colonel Christopher " Kit " Carson led 335 soldiers from New Mexico and 72 Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts against a force of more than one thousand Comanche , Kiowa , and Plains Apache . The Indian army forced Carson to retreat , though he was acclaimed as a hero for successfully striking a blow against the Indians and for leading his men out of the trap with minimal casualties . This is known as the First Battle of Adobe Walls . After the " enormous slaughter " of the buffalo in the north during 1872 and 1873 , the hunters moved south and west " into the good buffalo country , somewhere on the Canadian . . . in hostile Indian country " . In June 1874 ( ten years after the first battle ) , a group of enterprising businessmen had set up two stores near the ruins of the old trading post in an effort to rekindle the town of Adobe Walls . The complex quickly grew to include a store and corral ( Leonard & Meyers ) , a sod saloon owned by James Hanrahan , a blacksmith shop ( Tom O ' Keefe ) , and sod store used to purchase buffalo hides ( Rath & Wright , operated by Langton ) all of which served the population of 200 - 300 buffalo hunters in the area . By late June , " two hunters had been killed by Indians twenty - five miles down river , on Chicken Creek " and two more hunters killed in a camp on " a tributary of the Salt Fork of Red River " north of present - day Clarendon . " The story of the Indian depredations had spread to all the hunting camps , and a large crowd had gathered in from the surrounding country " at the " Walls " . Native American alliance . The remaining free - ranging Southern Plains bands ( Comanche , Cheyenne , Kiowa , and Arapaho ) perceived the post and the buffalo hunting as a major threat to their existence . That spring , the Indians held a sun dance . Comanche medicine man Isa - tai promised victory and immunity from bullets to warriors who took the fight to the enemy . There are many different figures given for the number of Indians who took part in the attack , with good estimates of as few as 230 - 300 , and other claims of as many as 1500 . The lower figure is considered by many to be the most likely , but the number will never be known . Battle and siege . On June 5 , 1874 , Hanrahan and his party of hunters departed Dodge City for Adobe Walls and on the 7th , at Sharp ' s Creek , seventy - five miles southwest of Dodge , the party encountered a band of Cheyenne Indians who ran off all of their cattle stock . The party then joined a wagon train which was en route to the Walls and accompanied them , arriving just hours before the major battle took place . Some 28 men were then present at Adobe Walls , including James Hanrahan ( the saloon owner ) , a 20 - year old Bat Masterson , William " Billy " Dixon ( whose famous long - distance rifle shot effectively ended the siege ) , and one woman , the wife of cook William Olds . At two in the morning on June 27 , 1874 , the ridgepole holding up the sod roof of the saloon made a loud cracking sound , although two men nearby thought it sounded like " the report of a rifle " . According to some sources , Hanrahan awoke the camp by firing a gun , then telling the others the sound had come from the ridgepole . The reason for his action was that he knew about the attack in advance , but did not tell anyone , afraid that men would leave the camp , hurting Hanrahan ' s business . Everyone in the saloon and several other men from the town immediately set to repair the damage . Thus most of the inhabitants were already wide awake and up and about when , at dawn , a combined force of Comanche , Cheyenne , and Kiowa warriors swept across the plains , intent on erasing the populace of Adobe Walls . In Dixon ' s words : There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight . In after years I was glad that I had seen it . Hundreds of warriors , the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern Plains tribes , mounted upon their finest horses , armed with guns and lances , and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide , were coming like the wind . Over all was splashed the rich colors of red , vermillion and ochre , on the bodies of the men , on the bodies of the running horses . Scalps dangled from bridles , gorgeous war - bonnets fluttered their plumes , bright feathers dangled from the tails and manes of the horses , and the bronzed , halfnaked bodies of the riders glittered with ornaments of silver and brass . Behind this headlong charging host stretched the Plains , on whose horizon the rising sun was lifting its morning fires . The warriors seemed to emerge from this glowing background . The Indian force was estimated to be in excess of 700 strong . and led by Isa - tai and by Comanche Chief Quanah Parker , son of a captured white woman , Cynthia Ann Parker . Their initial attack almost carried the day ; the Indians were in close enough to pound on the doors and windows of the buildings with their rifle butts . The fight was in such close quarters the hunters ' long range rifles were useless . They were fighting with pistols and Henry and Winchester lever - action rifles in . 44 rimfire . After the initial attack was repulsed , the hunters were able to keep the Indians at bay with their high caliber , long range , Sharps rifles . Nine were located in Hanrahan ' s Saloon , including Bat Masterson and Billy Dixon , eleven in Myer ' s & Leonard ' s Store , and seven in Rath & Wright ' s Store . The hunters suffered four fatalities , three on the first day : the two Shadler brothers asleep in a wagon failed to survive the initial onslaught , and Billy Tyler who was shot through the lungs as he entered the doorway of a building while retreating from the stockade . On the fifth day , William Olds accidentally shot himself in the head while descending a ladder at Rath ' s store . A search following the initial battle turned up the bodies of 15 Indian warriors killed so close to the buildings that their bodies could not be retrieved by their fellows . " By noon the Indians had ceased charging , and had stationed themselves in groups in different places , maintaining a more or less steady fire all day on the buildings " , by 2 PM the Indians rode out of range at the foot of the hills , and by 4 PM the besieged started venturing out from the buildings to gather relics and bury the Shadlers . The Indians stayed in the distance while deciding how to handle the situation , effectively laying siege to Adobe Walls . During the second day , the besieged buried or dragged away the dead horses to " prevent the evil smell from reaching the buildings . " . George Bellfield ' s outfit made it to the Walls as did Jim and Bob Cator , while Henry Lease volunteered to ride to Dodge City , Kansas , while two hunters visited the surrounding camps to warn them " the Indians were on the war path " . On the third day after the initial attack , fifteen Indian warriors rode out on a bluff nearly a mile away to survey the situation . At the behest of one of the hunters , William " Billy " Dixon , already renowned as a crack shot , took aim with a " Big Fifty " Sharps ( it was either a . 50 - 70 or - 90 , probably the latter ) he had borrowed from Hanrahan , and cleanly dropped a warrior from atop his horse . " I was admittedly a good marksman , yet this was what might be called a ' scratch ' shot . " This shot apparently so discouraged the Indians they decamped and gave up the fight . More hunters came in on the third and subsequent days so that by the sixth day , the garrison amounted to about 100 men . Those in the camp might have experienced it like a siege , although sieges were not part of Comanche warfare or battle strategy . Nevertheless , Indians were close by during the days after the initial attack . Quanah was wounded , which might have taken the edge off the attack , as was always the case with Comanches when the war chief fell in battle . The Indians retired soon afterward . " The Indians probably came to the conclusion that if they remained long enough , charged often enough and got close enough , all of them would be killed , as they were unable to dislodge us from the buildings . " Casualty reports vary , and are not known with any great accuracy , although most agree that fewer than 30 total deaths would be a close number . Within a week of the fight , twenty - five men , including Hanharan , Masterson and Dixon , headed to Dodge , only to learn upon arrival that a relief party of forty men under Tom Nixon had already headed south to bring back " Mrs . Olds and the greater part of the men " . By August , a troop of cavalry under Lt . Frank D . Baldwin , with Masterson and Dixon as scouts , made it to Adobe Walls , where a dozen men were still holed up . " Some mischevious fellow had stuck an Indian ' s skull on each post of the corral gate . " The killing had not ended however , as one civilian was lanced by Indians while looking for wild plums along the Canadian River . The next day , the soldiers and remaining men left Adobe Wells , heading south to join General Nelson A . Miles ' main command on Cantonement Creek . The Indians later " burned the place to the ground . " Billy Dixon ' s lucky shot . Controversy prevails over the exact range of the shot ; although Baker and Harrison set it at about one thousand yards , a post - battle survey by a team of US Army surveyors , under the command of Nelson A . Miles , measured the distance of the shot : 1 , 538 yards , or nine - tenths of a mile . For the rest of his life , Billy Dixon never claimed the shot was anything other than a lucky one ; his memoirs do not devote even a full paragraph to " the shot " . Forensic archaeologists have discovered several Richards ' Colt conversions , some Smith & Wesson Americans , and at least one Colt . 45 ( then new on the frontier ) pistol , along with numerous rifles ( in calibers . 50 - 70 , . 50 - 90 , . 44 - 77 , . 44 Henry Flat , and at least one . 45 - 70 , also very new ) were in use at Adobe Walls . At the time , Sharps did not use designations like . 50 - 90 ( " Big Fifty " Sharps ) . Instead , Sharps designated cartridges by bore size and case length . Technically , the " Big Fifty " was known as the . 50 Sharps 2 - 1 / 2 Inch . Depending on the bullet used the case could be loaded as any of what was later designated . 50 - 90 , . 50 - 100 or . 50 - 110 . The . 50 - 90 loading used the heaviest bullet and gave the best performance at relatively short ranges out to about 100 yards . The two heavier loads used relatively lighter bullets and gave better performance at extended ranges . This makes it more likely that Billy Dixon ' s shot was made with a . 50 Sharps 2 - 1 / 2 Inch case loaded to . 50 - 110 specification . In Sharps ' nomenclature the . 50 - 70 was first known as the . 50 Sharps 1 - 3 / 4 Inch and later as the . 50 Sharps 2 Inch , and was sometimes referred to as the " Little Fifty . " Aftermath . Buffalo hunting ended in that region of the country " just as the Indians had planned " . The result of Adobe Walls was a crushing spiritual defeat for the Indians , though it was seen as a military victory . It also prompted the U . S . military to take its final actions to crush the Indians once and for all . Within the year , the long war between whites and Indians in Texas would reach its conclusion . In September , just three months after Adobe Walls , an army dispatch detail consisting of Billy Dixon , another scout ( Amos Chapman ) , and four troopers from the 6th Cavalry were surrounded and besieged by a large combined band of Kiowas and Comanches . During the Buffalo Wallow Fight , with accurate rifle fire , they held off the Indians for an entire day . An extremely cold rainstorm that night discouraged the Indians , and they broke off the fight ; every man in the detail was wounded and one trooper killed . For this action Billy Dixon , along with the other survivors of " The Buffalo Wallow Fight " , were awarded the Medal of Honor . Significance . This fight is historically significant because it led to the Red River War of 1874 – 75 , resulting in the final relocation of the Southern Plains Indians to reservations in what is now Oklahoma . A monument was erected in 1924 on the site of Adobe Walls by the Panhandle - Plains Historical Society . There is an exhibit of the 1874 battle in the Hutchinson County Historical Museum in Borger .