SADDLEBAG FEATURE
DEADLY PURSUIT How a blood feud between marauding Comanche and a group of buffalo hunters led to one of the darkest chapters in the history of the famed Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Cavalry MICHAEL MCLEAN
D
EATH STRETCHED IN EVERY direction in this flat, forsaken portion of the region known as the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains. The vast area of approximately 32,000 square miles takes in a good part of west Texas and far eastern New Mexico. In a letter to the King of Spain in October 1541, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, leading more than 1,000 soldiers and Indian aides in search of the fabled golden riches of Quivira, described the expanse he had been exploring as vast plains, “…with no more landmarks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea... there was not a stone, nor bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by.” The prelude to what would become known as the “Nolan Expedition” or “The Staked Plains Horror,” as the Galveston Daily News was to call it, was part of the “Buffalo Hunter’s War.” The history of this “war” began in December of 1876 when a group of approximately 170 Comanche warriors, women, and children headed for the Llano Estacado from their Indian Territory reservation.
Warriors from this band of Comanche under the leadership of their war chief, Black Horse, attacked a group of buffalo hunters in February 1877. That action resulted in the death of one of the hunters, Marshall Sewall, wounding of several more, and the theft of their stock. During the following months, this band of warriors continued to conduct raids on the hunters and steal stock. In retaliation, an armed force of buffalo hunters attacked Black Horse’s camp on March 18, 1877. During the battle of Yellow House Draw, near present day Lubbock, Texas, Black Horse fled. He was later reported to have been killed at the battle of Lake Quemado, near the present town of Morton, west of Silver Lake, on May 4, by Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry under the command of Captain Philip L. Lee. However, the Comanche killed was Red Young Man, a fearless and reportedly reckless warrior—not Black Horse. Two different groups, or expeditions, undertook pursuit of the marauding Comanche. The first, a cadre of twenty-eight buffalo hunters, was made
