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#15244826 09/21/20
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I grow weary of politics these days and I know there are a bunch of history buffs that cruise this forum. Tell me what you've learned about this lonely outpost named Adobe Walls.

I just finished "The Life and Times of Billy Dixon" Good read if you like that genre as I do.

28 buffalo hunters vs 700 Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne pissed because they're killing off the buffalo. It was a life or death battle.
According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
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Comanche Chief’s reaction to Dixon’s shot:

“Fuqk this! I’m outta here!” 🤠

I always wanted to visit the site. Driven close many times over the years. One of these days.


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Thanks for posting this, I love this time in our history.

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Billy Dixon had shot Isa-tai himself. When the Comanches saw what happened they lost their taste for Adobe Walls. Two weeks after Billy Dixon took his lucky shot U.S. army surveyors measured the distance at an unbelievable 1,538 yards—seven eights of a mile.

http://johnbiggsoklahomawriter.com/billy-dixons-lucky-shot/



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Billy Dixon was also was in a famous battle out there known as the Buffalo Wallow. Earned a Medal of Honor.


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Adobe Walls was made of just that, adobe. It has weathered away so that nothing can be seen on Google Earth. Too bad. I too like studying 19th century American history. I have also driven near the area several times but never stopped to investigate. From the looks of the photo in the OP, I haven't missed much.


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Any one here ever visited the site ?


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I have read that Dixon was not shooting his own rifle. It was a new one that had been shipped in for somebody. He later said that the shot was just a lucky one.

The site was originally built in 1843 by Bent St. Vrain and Company as a trading post but the Indians were hostile most of the time it was in operation. Bent blew it up and left Texas in 1849.

Kit Carson led US troops there and fought a battle with Indians in 1864. The second battle was the one Dixon was at in 1874.

There are lots of articles and a few books about the fight in 1874 and various accounts give the range of the shot at from 1000 yards to 1538 yards. Dixon said he shot from a rock outcropping that was used frequently in shooting contests.

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Originally Posted by Morewood
....According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
...



To recognise that it was his horse at 1200 yards is pretty amazing. (sorry, couldn't resist)


Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by Raspy
Whatever you said...everyone knows you are a lying jerk.

That's a bold assertion. Point out where you think I lied.

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Um.... some degree of twaddle in pop Texas history.

The FIRST battle of Adobe Walls was in the winter of 1862 (??) when Kit Carson went against the Kiowa and Comanche camps in the area with US Cavalry. Coulda been another Little Big Horn disaster but Carson knew his business and extricated his men before they could be wiped out by far superior numbers.

The real significance of this fight was that the Indian camps were surrounded by large herds of cattle. The Kiowa and Comanches got into cattle rustling and herding in a big way beginning about 1860 in response to the decline of the Buffalo herds subsequent to a catastrophic drought in the 1850’s and the continued spread of feral cattle, which carried diseases lethal to Buffalo.

Ten years later, by the Red River War, most Comanches were ranching in Oklahoma, to the tune of trading 30,000 head of cattle to the US Army in New Mexico in 1873, one year before that skirmish at Adobe Walls.

By the summer of 1874 those Comanches still out were the radical fringe, including many young men looking to gain war honors in ways that herding cattle didn’t provide.

Out of desperation this forlorn minority of Comanche and Kiowa Traditionalists actually held a Northern Plains style Sun Dance, a thing foreign to their cultures.

Pumped up with spiritual derring-do, and Isa-Tai’s bullet proof promise, they debated what to do next. Quanah Parker wanted to go nail the coffin on their dreaded, feared and almost extinct enemies the Tonkawas, who even then were still chowing down on Comanches while leading Ranald MacKenzie down on them.

Parker was overruled, and it was decided to go sweep the Plains of Whites instead. Stop #1 was Adobe Walls, but there weren’t anything like 700 Indian warriors in that whole Traditionalist faction.

We all know how the second battle of Adobe Walls turned out, a skirmish really. What is generally not mentioned is that Indian casualties were also light and the many survivors went on to wreak havoc across the Plains that summer.

MacKenzie, guided by the Tonks, captured the women and children of those still out, bringing an end to hostilities. It was a gentle and highly respected German horticulturalist, JJ “ Doc” Sturm who had been in contact with the Comanche since the Brazos Reserve days twenty years earlier, who was sent out by MacKenzie to lead the wary and distrustful hostiles in. A White guy they trusted implicitly.

Quanah was able to slip so quickly and easily into ranching because most Comanches had already been doing that for years. Isa-Tai became a rival politician in tribal elections.

...and that’s how the story ends we’re told, a few grey Federales say, we coulda had them any day, we only let them slip away, out of kindness I suppose....


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Big, heavy chunks of lead from extreme range at subsonic speed- - - - -sounds like a perfect ANTIFA load to me!


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Originally Posted by jwp475

Billy Dixon had shot Isa-tai himself. When the Comanches saw what happened they lost their taste for Adobe Walls. Two weeks after Billy Dixon took his lucky shot U.S. army surveyors measured the distance at an unbelievable 1,538 yards—seven eights of a mile.

http://johnbiggsoklahomawriter.com/billy-dixons-lucky-shot/




Crap. I couldnt even see a human that far.


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Thanks, Birdy. Sometime please give us the story of Jim Bowie and his marriage to the chiefs daughter and his stealing of their gold, or was it silver, and his flight to the Blockhouse on Calf Creek.

Also, did the indians chase him to the Alamo where we know he died.

Also, how about sometimes giving us the lowdown on the Battle of Calf Creek?


Last edited by jaguartx; 09/21/20.

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Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by Morewood
....According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
...



To recognise that it was his horse at 1200 yards is pretty amazing. (sorry, couldn't resist)


It weren’t Isa-Tai but some unlucky Comanche what got hit. The Comanches might still recall who he’s was but if so, they ain’t telling.

Dixon was able to make that shot, which he with characteristic modesty called a scratch (ie. lucky) shot because he and some others had been lobbing shots at the rocks on that distant bluff for bragging rights in the days previous, hence he had the exact range.

It may have been a lucky shot, but not all that much luck was needed givenBilly Dixon’s skill with a rifle.


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Had a Billy Dixon shoot four years ago. Three full size mounted rider silhouettes at 1500 yards. I got three hits with eight shots in a strong cross wind. .45-70, black powder, iron sights. Didn't need no stinkin' sniper rifle. My one moment of shooting glory, kinda sorta.

Paul


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If you're asking about the walls themselves, they came from a trading post dating to 1843 supposedly. Kit Carson fought a bunch of Kiowas, Comanches and Lipan Apaches there in 1864. Then the battle you're talking about occurred in 1874. The walls had been taken over by the Dodge City hide-merchant, Charlie Rath, who was operating a supply store there. A couple of outbuildings and a corral were there and there were a bunch of raw hides stacked around it. The buildings were sod. A main support log in the general store cracked in the middle of the night and a bunch of the hunters got up and replaced it. They were up when the contingent of Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes and Arapahos attacked. Otherwise they'd probably have been slaughtered.

Billy Dixon had lost his gun crossing a flooded creek before the fight began. I believe it was in one of his hide wagons which floated off. It was either a 44-90 or 44-77 Sharps, IIRC. The 50-90 Sharps he made the shot with was indeed a borrowed gun.

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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by Morewood
....According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
...



To recognise that it was his horse at 1200 yards is pretty amazing. (sorry, couldn't resist)


It weren’t Isa-Tai but some unlucky Comanche what got hit. The Comanches might still recall who he’s was but if so, they ain’t telling.

Dixon was able to make that shot, which he with characteristic modesty called a scratch (ie. lucky) shot because he and some others had been lobbing shots at the rocks on that distant bluff for bragging rights in the days previous, hence he had the exact range.

It may have been a lucky shot, but not all that much luck was needed givenBilly Dixon’s skill with a rifle.
The warrior's name is known, but I don't recall it.

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Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by Morewood
....According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
...



To recognise that it was his horse at 1200 yards is pretty amazing. (sorry, couldn't resist)


It weren’t Isa-Tai but some unlucky Comanche what got hit. The Comanches might still recall who he’s was but if so, they ain’t telling.

Dixon was able to make that shot, which he with characteristic modesty called a scratch (ie. lucky) shot because he and some others had been lobbing shots at the rocks on that distant bluff for bragging rights in the days previous, hence he had the exact range.

It may have been a lucky shot, but not all that much luck was needed givenBilly Dixon’s skill with a rifle.


That’s what I remember reading years ago Mike. It was NOT Isa-Tai that got shot, but some other unlucky Comanche. And that Quannah and Isa-Tai later became bitter rivals on the Reservation.

Lots of Bullschitt posted out there on the internet by so called “authors”.


"Allways speak the truth and you will never have to remember what you said before..." Sam Houston
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Originally Posted by Hastings
Billy Dixon was also was in a famous battle out there known as the Buffalo Wallow. Earned a Medal of Honor.
At the time he was the only civilian to have ever earned the MOH.

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Originally Posted by chlinstructor
Originally Posted by Birdwatcher
Originally Posted by mauserand9mm
Originally Posted by Morewood
....According to witnesses Billy Dixon shot an Indian off his horse at 1200 yards with a .50 Sharps.
...



To recognise that it was his horse at 1200 yards is pretty amazing. (sorry, couldn't resist)


It weren’t Isa-Tai but some unlucky Comanche what got hit. The Comanches might still recall who he’s was but if so, they ain’t telling.

Dixon was able to make that shot, which he with characteristic modesty called a scratch (ie. lucky) shot because he and some others had been lobbing shots at the rocks on that distant bluff for bragging rights in the days previous, hence he had the exact range.

It may have been a lucky shot, but not all that much luck was needed givenBilly Dixon’s skill with a rifle.


That’s what I remember reading years ago Mike. It was NOT Isa-Tai that got shot, but some other unlucky Comanche. And that Quannah and Isa-Tai later became bitter rivals on the Reservation.

Lots of Bullschitt posted out there on the internet by so called “authors”.
Yep, y'all are correct. It was not Isa Tai but some other hapless fellow that got shot. He survived. I'm not sure the spent ball penetrated the skin...IIRC.

Dunno about years later in Oklahoma, but at the time I think Isa Tai was pretty well discredited. Injun accounts talk about his fellows beating him and quirting him when his magic proved pretty lame. lol

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