Washita Battlefield National Historical Site

Our last stop was at the Washita Battlefield National Historical Site at Cheyenne, Ok.  We drove from Santa Rosa, NM to Cheyenne and got there about 3:30 and spent a little time in the visitor center and watched the film.  Then the next morning we walked the trail of the battlefield and took along the trail guide.

The Battle of the Washita is a significant encounter of many between the U.S. Army and the Plains Indians.  It involved Col. George Custer and the 7th Cavalry against Chief Black Kettle and the Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoes that took place November 27, 1868, eight years before the battle of  Little Bighorn.  The details of it are gruesome and best left for the reader to research on his own.

One fact about it that I found interesting was about Magpie.  As a Cheyenne boy, he was being overrun at Washita by a soldier on horseback and managed to turn and shoot the soldier before he was killed.  He lived to fight the 7th Cavalry again at Little Bighorn and lived through that one, too.  There is a picture in the Washita visitor center of him and his wife and two daughters taken in 1890.  I wonder if there were any interviews with him as there were with some other Indians.  If anybody can find out about that I'd sure like to know.

We're home now.  We got here at 5:00 Wednesday, the 5th.   It was a great trip.  I'll have one more post to wrap up the whole adventure.