Fort Richardson

 

 

 

From: Oxsan
Date: 13 Feb 2003
Time: 02:33:42

Today was an absolutely beautiful day in the upper sixties, and Richard Moss came by to take me up to Archer City to visit the Larry McMurtry Book Stores.

Our first stop on the way was at Fort Richardson at Jacksboro. Between 1848 and 1898 the Department of the Army built 44 major forts in West Texas and over 100 temporary camps in an effort to control depredations by the Comanche, Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache tribes of Indians. The northernmost of these Forts was Fort Richardson or as it was originally called Fort Lost Creek. Lost Creek is a small stream that the Army dammed to provide a reservoir of water for the soldiers. About five or six of the Forts buildings are of rock construction and still stand or have been preserved. These buildings include the fort hospital, a powder magazine, a bakery, an officers quarters and one barracks building. The site has been made a Texas State Park and it is a quite pretty place.

Fort Richardson was key in the troubles involving the three Kiowa Chiefs Satank, Santana and Big Tree. These three chiefs led a party of approximately 100 Kiowa from the reservation of Fort Sill to attack a wagon train loaded with shelled corn for the winter food supply of the horses of the Sixth Cavalry at Fort Richardson. Their attack resulted in the deaths of six teamsters and all of the small military escort. The attack occurred on 17 May 1871. Visiting Fort Richardson at the time was one William Tecumseh Sherman. The US military was hamstrung by an edict from President Grant called the Quaker Restraint which forbade military parties in pursuit of Indian war parties from crossing the Red River and thus entering the Indian Reservation headquartered at Fort Sill Oklahoma.

Sherman completely ignored the Quaker Restraint and pursued the Indians all the way to Fort Sill where the Indian Agent told him that Santana had bragged that he conducted the raid and had named Satank and Big Tree as his collaborators. The three chiefs were arrested, tied hand and foot, and put into a wagon for the ride back to Jacksboro to stand trial for murder. Satank attempted escape and was shot and killed on the way back to Fort Richardson. The two remaining chiefs were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment and delivered to Huntsville to serve that sentence. The governor of the state at that time commuted the sentence of both men to probation. Santana was however killed by a fall from a second story building. Big Tree lived out his probation and never caused any more problems with the settlers. As a result of arguments advanced by General Sherman President Grant revoked the “Quaker Restraint “policy and Indian raids were discontinued almost immediately.

Archer City will be covered in another post.