Dove Creek was one of the most controversial battles the long history of Indian warfare in Texas. Questionable planning sent CPT Fossett's well-armed, rested regulars after the undefended pony herd, while the tired militia had to tackle the north end of the Indian village head-on. Just after daybreak the regulars gunned down an elderly Indian horse herder who indicated that he wanted to parley, thus forfeiting both the moral high ground and the element of surprise on that flank. For their part, the militia also threw surprise to the winds by their disorderly advance over three miles of frozen ground. They finally dismounted on the north bank of the creek in preparation - wading.
The Kickapoo warriors had already sent away their noncombatant dependents and retreated to the cover of a ravine that bordered the village on the east and south. Stands of briars topped this gully, resulting in a ready-made trench complete with "barbed wire" parapet. Other briars effectively canalized the Texans' movement as they struggled toward the center of the village, hooting wildly. The Kickapoos' first, surprise volley killed four officers and 16 troopers, wounding about the same number.
The shaken whites soon attempted to withdraw, dragging their wounded with them but leaving their dead scattered across the circle of wickiups. About 100 Kickapoos promptly rose from the gully and counterattacked with pistols and tomahawks; the withdrawal turned into a stampede. The white attack had lasted no more than 10 minutes. The Texans' militia and regular contingents parted ways, each of them forced directly back along the line of its original advance. CPT Totton rallied his panicky militia 400 yards north of the Indian village, then decided he could only make an effective stand some three miles farther away (behind their original start line), at the confluence of Spring and Dove Creeks. The militia quickly withdrew toward that place. Meanwhile, CPT Fossett had withdrawn his regulars to a low, oak-spattered ridge on the western bank of Dove Creek, facing the southern end of the Kickapoo camp, and began throwing up a hasty breastwork.
The vengeful Indians boiled out of their village to hit the pony herd, easily recovering their mounts from the inadequate Tonkawa guard. More mobile now, the contingent of Kickapoos rushed off to chase down Totten's militiamen. [These mounted Indians killed several more of Totton's men a mile or so into their retreat. Totton then threw his command into the cover of some live oaks and repelled the Indians' rush. When his Kickapoo pursuers finally withdrew, the rattled Totton set out for Spring Creek once more.]
The Indian main body, however, relied on sniper fire to keep the regulars' heads down while warriors crept forward under cover on both flanks of the enemy. The resulting crossfire was galling, but light enough to allow Fossett's men to hold on into the early afternoon. At 2 P.M., the Kickapoos pulled out of their concealed positions on the regulars' left and center and threw everything they had at Fossett's right, in a textbook-style foot advance. Fossett responded by massing all of his own remaining men to meet them. Several Kickapoos were shot down; the advance stopped cold. Realizing that they could not overrun these particular whites without heavy losses, the Kickapoos filed back to their camp.
Near sunset, Fossett's contingent withdrew northward to join Totton in the latter's Spring Creek position; scattered Kickapoo sniping saw them off. Together, the two commands waited 48 hours in a cold rain until the pack train joined them, then pulled out for good. Twenty-two whites had been killed and 24 wounded in the action at Dove Creek-about two-thirds of them members of Totton's militia. Reports from Mexico later indicated that 11 Kickapoo braves had been killed and seven wounded.
Accusations of incompetence and cowardice inundated the expedition's leaders upon their return home. In February 1865 a commission headed by a senior officer of the Texas state troops, BG John D. McAdoo, convened a court of inquiry into the conduct of the battle's white participants. [For one thing, Fossett had ignored a steady increase in the number of wickiups his men had found in successive Kickapoo campsites-from 102 in early December to some 150 near the North Concho-which indicated that the Indians were being reinforced.]
The Kickapoos, for their part, had proven themselves to be an uncommonly dangerous Indian foe. Contact with the Federal army had brought them both modern weaponry and a mastery of effective, no-nonsense dismounted tactics appropriate to its employment.
McAdoo ultimately concluded that the Kickapoos had been friendly and that they were, as advertised, simply trekking to Mexico to escape the Civil War. Indeed, the Indians' trail had led away from the Texas settlement line, not toward it. For these reasons, he ruled that the expedition should have tried to talk with the Kickapoos before deciding to attack them. Fearing that the Indians might yet return from Mexico to avenge their losses, McAdoo concluded that, "...The fate of this frontier may in great measure depend on [the conclusion of] an amicable treaty with them." As it happened, the collapse of Confederate authority prevented such a treaty.
Dove Creek taught the Kickapoos to hate Texans with a passion, whether or not they wore gray uniforms. From their sanctuary in Mexico, the Kickapoos raided the Texas border ruthlessly from 1865 until 17 May 1873, when COL Ranald -Kenzie-acting on secret orders from Phil Sheridan-smashed the Indians' camp at Rey Molina with six companies of cavalry. Although most of the Kickapoo warriors were away raiding in Texas at that time, the capture of their families, the loss of most of their possessions, and the new animus of the Mexican Government toward them brought organized Kickapoo resistance to an end.
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© Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum
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