The year 1877 was a drought year in West Texas. In the middle of 
that arid summer, a troop of some forty buffalo soldiers (African 
American cavalry led by white officers) struck out into the Llano 
Estacado from Double Lakes, south of modern Lubbock, pursuing 
a band of Kwahada Comanches who had been raiding homesteads 
and hunting parties. A group of twenty-two buffalo hunters 
accompanied the soldiers as guides and allies.
  
    Several days later three black soldiers rode into Fort Concho at 
modern San Angelo and reported that the men and officers of 
Troop A were missing and presumed dead from thirst. The "Staked 
Plains Horror," as the Galveston Daily News called it, quickly 
captured national attention. Although most of the soldiers 
eventually straggled back into camp, four had died, and others 
eventually faced court-martial for desertion. The buffalo hunters 
had ridden off on their own to find water, and the surviving 
soldiers had lived by drinking the blood of their dead horses and 
their own urine. A routine army scout had turned into disaster of 
the worst kind.

    Although the failed expedition was widely reported at the time, 
the sparse treatments since then have relied exclusively on the 
white officers’ accounts. Paul H. Carlson has mined the 
courts-martial records for testimony of the enlisted men, memories 
of a white boy who rode with the Indians, and other sources to 
provide a nuanced view of the interaction of soldiers, hunters, 
settlers, and Indians on the Staked Plains before the final settling of 
the Comanches on their reservation in Indian Territory.

_________________________________________________________

PAUL H. CARLSON is a professor of history at Texas Tech 
University in Lubbock, Texas, and a fellow of the Texas State 
Historical Association. He has written many articles and several 
books on West Texas history, including one on cavalry soldier 
William R. Shafter and one on the Plains Indians, both published 
by Texas A&M University Press.



What people are saying about this book

“Although this harrowing tale has been related in previously 
published articles and book chapters, no one has offered more 
thorough and balanced coverage than has Paul Carlson. . . . 
Persons interested in the Southern Plains, Native American 
history, frontier military life, and race relations within American
institutions will be pleased with all that this book has to offer.”
—Journal of Military History

". . . a grueling day-by-day, almost hour-by-hour account of the 
ordeal from the viewpoints of its various participants . . . puts the 
event into perspective in regard to time, place and conditions 
which set the stage for disaster."—Elmer Kelton

". . . vividly described by Carlson, who writes authoritatively and 
with clarity. A highly engaging mini-epic that is also a significant 
contribution to Southern Plains history."—Marc Simmons