Second Battle of Adobe Walls - Battle and Siege

Battle and Siege

On the 5th of June, 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 or 29 persons 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 broke with a loud crack. 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.

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.

The hunters suffered four fatalities: two brothers asleep in a wagon failed to survive the initial onslaught, Billy Tyler was shot through the lungs as he paused in the doorway of a building to take a shot, and Mrs. Bill Olds accidentally shot her husband in the head as she handed a reloaded rifle up to him (the bullet entering under his chin and exiting out the top of his head). 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.

The Indians rode out of range and camped in the distance while deciding how to handle the situation, effectively laying siege to Adobe Walls. The second day after the initial attack, fifteen Indian warriors rode out on a bluff nearly a mile away to survey the situation. Some reports indicate they were taunting the Adobe Walls defenders but, at the distance involved, it seems unlikely. 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'd borrowed from Hanrahan, and cleanly dropped a warrior from atop his horse. This shot apparently so discouraged the Indians they decamped and gave up the fight.

After a four-day siege, reinforcements arrived and increased the garrison to about 100 men. The Indians retired soon afterward. 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.