"One of the biggest Indian battles ever fought on the plains...George H. Pettis who served with Kit...has left us a detailed record of what he saw." -The Eugene Guard, Dec. 22, 1928
"George H. Pettis...served...in the First New Mexico infantry under Colonel Kit Carson...did gallant and meritorious service." -Santa Fe New Mexican, Oct. 7, 1904
"Captain Pettis, who achieved fame with Kit Carson...died recently...he was in the engagement at the Adobe walls, Texas with the Comanche and Kiowa Indians." -Tazewell Republican, Feb. 11, 1909
"Captain George H. Pettis... died lately...at the age of 75 years....his service...included fighting with the Comanches...Kit Carson...mentioned Pettis for gallantry." -San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 14, 1909
Were there really two Battles at Adobe Walls, Texas, and what role if any did famous "mountain man" Kit Carson have in the first, less publicized, of these battles?
The summer of 1864 will long be remembered by plains people as a season when the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Arapahoe, the Cheyenne, and the Plain Apache held high carnival on our western plains making numerous attacks on white settlements.
In the month of October, 1864, General James H. Carleton, then commanding the Department of New Mexico, believing that the Comanches and Kiowas might be found, on the south side of the Canadian river, in winter quarters, issued a general order, directing an expedition against these Indians. The command included Colonel Christopher Carson commander of the First New Mexico Cavalry.
On November 10, 1864, Carson started from Fort Bascom with 260 cavalry, 75 infantry and 72 Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts that he had recruited from Lucien Maxwell's ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico.
Approximately two hours after daybreak on November 25, Carson's cavalry found and attacked a Kiowa village of 176 lodges. The Chief, Dohäsan, and his people fled, passing the alarm to allied Comanche villages nearby; Guipago led the warriors. Marching forward to Adobe Walls, four miles from the Kiowa village, Carson dug in there.
In 1878 eyewitness and participant in the Adobe Walls battle Captain George H. Pettis (born 1834) published a 20 page narrative of the battle titled "Kit Carson's Fight With the Comanche and Kiowa Indians."
About the author:
George H. Pettis was born in 1834 and died in February 1909. He moved from Rhode Island to California in 1855 and during the Civil War served as a Captain under Kit Carson in the First Mexico Volunteers during the first Battle of Adobe Walls, one of the largest Native American battles on the Plains. After the Civil War Pettis moved back to Providence, Rhode Island where he held numerous offices.
