Submitted by Clay Riley – The famous Dove Creek fight, January 8, 1865, on the creek of that name near where it flows into the Concho River west of San Angelo, was a tragic mistake. If the whites had listened to the stern warning of Brooks W. Lee of Brown County who was in the party, there would have been no fight, no bloodshed and no more trouble from the band of Kickapoo Indians who were involved in the battle. Declining to listen to Lee, however, the whites fought a losing battle, only to discover their mistake after the fighting was over.
Henry Ford wrote in his Calculator: “This fight was particularly notable from the fact that the attack of the whites was made on friendly Indians, and the shedding of blood on that occasion was evidently an unfortunate mistake and unnecessary.”
The Kickapoo Indians, then living in Indian Territory, decided to move to old Mexico in order to avoid participation in the War of the Confederacy, and started through Texas to the Rio Grande during the winter months. They were followed by men claiming to be Confederate soldiers, who stopped in Brown County and asked for fourteen volunteers, and the following were sent under the command of Lieut. Addison Morton: Brooks W. Lee, G. H. Adams, John P. Brown, James G. Connell, R. M. Hanna, Isaac Bradshaw, Sam Hanna, P. R. Clark, T. D. Harriss, W. W. Chandler, E. D. Carmack, J. Bolinger and Henry Jones.
Late in the evening of January 7, it was learned that the Indians were encamped on Dove Creek, in a dense thicket. Major Totten, commanding the whites, determined to attack early next morning.
During the night, however, Brooks W. Lee and a man named James Mulkey from San Saba County, both of whom were well versed in Indian affairs, scouted the Indian camp thoroughly and became convinced that the Indians were friendly, and not Comanches as had been reported. These two scouts strongly advised not to fight, but an effort to make peaceable contact with the Indians. There were about 400 Indians in the camp.
Ignoring this advice, the whites made a desperate but unorganized attack early in the morning of January 8, but the Indians held stubbornly to their camp in the thicket. The battle raged all day and late in the evening the whites withdrew with 20 men dead and as many wounded; five of them fatally.
The Indians had lost 14 men and had eight wounded. When the fight started a detachment of men under command of Lieut. Morton had captured the Indian’s herd of horses, guarded by an old man and two small boys. It was then recalled that Indians were not to be captured alive, and the old Indian was immediately shot. The white soldiers were about to shoot the two little boy when Brooks W. Lee protested so vigorously that the murder was not committed. He told the soldiers he would not permit the murder of the two boys, and the latter, understanding that he was their champion, clung to him until he had an opportunity to arrange for their escape. Under his direction, they made a dash for liberty and reached their camp safely.
The white forces camped that night about two miles from the battlefield, and during the night and all next day there was a steady snow. The weather was very cold, and the wounded suffered terribly. During the next day the dead were gathered up and buried.
The Indians left soon afterward, abandoning their tents and other equipment, and since their horses had been captured they trudged onward toward the Rio Grande afoot. None of the Brown County men in the fight was injured,· but the horses of T. D. Harriss and A. E. Adams were wounded, and Isaac Bradshaw’s horse was shot from under him. Two Comanche County men, Don Cox (*1) and a Mr. Parker, were killed. Don Cox was the father of Mitchell M. (Bud) Cox, a widely known Brown County citizen.
(*1) The widow of Don (McDonald) Cox later married S.P. McInnis and formed one of the larger ranches in Brown County.
From: The Promised Land by James C. White, November 1935 Brownwood Bulletin, Henry Ford’s Cotton Calculator. Photo from: SMU Digital Archives.
This and many other stories are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway. Volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society are there to assist you in your family history research.
Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years. Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at: pvgsbwd@gmail.com.
