Red River War
This essay is a companion to the instrumental record by the same name. Listen as you read, read as you listen. All will make more sense this way.
Red River War is a spiritual successor to my previous work, Canyon, Illuminant. The instrumental music in this work explores significant historical events in the same canyon system and high plains of the Llano Estacado where the last album was set. The setting here has jumped considerably in years, from the pre-sapien drama of megafauna living on the Southern Plains, which we previously explored, to the last major military conflict between the United States Army and several Plains Tribes took place in the mid 1870s. This roughly year-long series of battles has come to be known as the Red River War.
The war was a series of military engagements fought between the United States Army and warriors of the Kiowa, Comanche, Southern Cheyenne, and southern Arapaho tribes beginning in the summer of 1874 and lasted through the spring of 1875. Fighting erupted at the confluence of the United States federal government’s continual defaults on legal obligations to those tribes, dictated by the Treaty of Medicine Lodge of 1867. After the dissatisfied factions of the tribes on newly formed reservations departed back to their traditional hunting grounds and ranges on the Llano Estacado, they found themselves in the face of starvation amidst severe drought and lack of game. The US army had conveniently turned a blind eye to buffalo hunters' decimation of the bison population of the southern Plains, again in clear violation of ratified treaty.
As is common when resource scarcity drives desperation amidst colonial power with serious ambition, violence erupts. The Red River War was a microcosm of the horrors that manifest destiny brought to the North American continent as it clashed with tribal life.
From the start, I was intimidated by composing music about a topic with so much gravity. But I felt it was really important to create a piece of art that explores such an important war which so few know about. It felt important to tell the story that founded the place where I was raised.
As I began unpacking this concept as an artistic subject matter, I had to dig into what feels like an obviously incomplete and deeply racist historical record. There are many attempts to paint the picture of what happened in 1874, but they are heavily informed primarily by the records that the US Military kept in the form of correspondence, as well as memoirs later written by soldiers, scouts, and such. The overwhelming sentiments, even in contemporary scholastic and pop histories, explicitly views the tribal contingencies in this war as “unsophisticated,” “barbaric,” and “savages” who would inevitably fall at the might of “the dominant culture.” The archaeological record of these events, which provides battle insights using scientific rigor, has shown differing accounts. This work has only recently been undertaken and suggests there is much more to uncover. But as far as Indigenous perspectives or intensive dives into the ecological destruction that accompanied this war, the record is scant and the analysis wanting. The more I read, the more questionable many of the commonly accepted histories became to me. There are now even questions of whether the long-held eye witnesses of the engagements in this war were even present at the battles.
The overwhelming feeling I came back to again and again in my research was that of a history written by descendants of the victors, told in sweeping racist frameworks and glory-filled English. Those sentiments that gave the ideological sustenance to the US Army in this brutal campaign were the exact same that have been carried down by historians.
Objectively, it is a story about white supremacy, about ecological terrorism, and about genocide.
I had no idea how to accurately tell the history. I am not an historian. The more I examined my lack of credentials or bonafides, the more I realized that this composition was not meant to be an historical record anyway. So I decided to look at other elements of the time and place. Subjectively, this war was an immense story of ambition, pain, and the human struggle for survival. There were incredible personalities on display. There were unbelievable ecological changes rooted in the circumstances on the high plains in the late 1870s. There were terrifying battles in this war. There were moments in which the human condition bore its teeth for history to examine. All of it occurred in the ocean of Plains and Canyon wilderness that I call home. This album is a musical treatment of the story of the Red River War; the places, animals, battles, destruction, sentiments, and significant characters that crossed the Texas Panhandle in 1874.
This work is meant to evoke images, some of which are downright horrifying. Often when we were composing and recording, it felt as though we were scoring a film that does not yet exist. And yet amidst the surface level violence to be expected, I endeavored to also explore the human vulnerability and fear that follow.
Each song is its own chapter in this epoch. Instead of trying to explain the subject of each chapter in this historical struggle for survival, I’ll let the correspondence and records from the era, as well as a few historians, guide your way.
(01) Winter 1873
“Between July 1 and September 1, 1873, the Cators killed nearly 7,000 buffalo and had in their employ seven skinners. When the Panic of 1873 caused the price of hides to drop momentarily, the Cators took up “wolfing” and killed over 600 gray wolves and coyotes for bounty.”
— H. Allen Anderson in his bibliography of just one buffalo hunting family, the Cators in Palo Duro
“[The bison hunters have] done more in the last 2 years to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular army had done in the past 30 years. They are destroying the Indian’s commissary. Send them powder and lead if you will, but for the sake of lasting peace let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy, who follow the hunters as a second forerunner of an advanced civilization.”
— General Philip Sheridan addressing the Texas Legislature
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano by M. Walker
(02) Billy Dixon’s Gasp Upon Seeing The Coming War Party
“There was never a more splendidly barbaric sight and after years I was glad that I had seen it. Hundreds of warriors, the flower of the fighting men of the southwestern plain tribes, mounted upon their finest horses, armed with guns and lances, and carrying heavy shields of thick buffalo hide, were coming like the wind. Over all were splashed the rich colors of red, vermillion, and ochre, on the bodies of the men, on the bodies of the horses. Scalps dangled from bridles. Gorgeous war bonnets fluttered their plumes. Bright feathers dangled from the tails and manes of the horses. And the bronzed, half naked bodies of the riders glittered with ornaments of silver and brass. Behind this headlong charging host stretched the plains, on whose horizon the rising sun was lifting its morning fires. The warriors seemed to emerge from this glowing background.”
— Billy Dixon remarking on the Kiowa and Comanche war party descending on Adobe Walls in 1874
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, and jawbone percussion by M. Walker
(03) Second Battle of Adobe Walls
“The Kiowa and Comanche charges subsided in the afternoon after Chief Quanah Parker had been wounded. The Native Americans were stunned by the nature of the warrior’s injury after he had been struck in his upper back. The Chief had only his fellow warriors at his back and, once each of them had been eliminated as the possible culprit, they had concluded that the white man had developed a new type of weapon that was able to send a bullet on a trajectory that allowed it to reverse its own course. They thought the bullet had switched direction mid flight.”
— The Red River War of 1874-1875, Charles River Editors
“Encouraged by other defenders, William “Billy” Dixon aimed at the group of warriors and fired. At a range of nearly 1600 yards, Dixon hit one of the warriors, knocking him off of his horse. The assembled Native American warriors marked the incident as a bad omen and the impressive rifle shot greatly diminished the warrior’s morale. Dixon attributed the shot to pure luck, but the damage was done.”
— The Red River War of 1874-1875, Charles River Editors
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, and drums by M. Walker
(04) They Renamed Him, Isa-tai’
“Originally named Kwihnai Tosabitʉ (White Eagle), after their loss at Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874, for which he was blamed, he was renamed by the people and came to be known as Isatai’i (Coyote Vagina).”
— Thomas Kavanaugh
“Isa-tai’i tried to absolve himself of the blame for the disastrous defeat by claiming that his magic had been weakened before the battle when one of the Cheyennes violated a sacred taboo by killing a skunk. The Cheyennes took this poorly, especially the Dog Soldiers, and responded by beating him severely. Isatai’i was discredited, publicly humiliated and was renamed.”
— Gaines Kinkaid
Musical Notes:
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, vocalizations, jawbone and shaker percussion by M. Walker
(05) Thousand Wolf Congress
“We had every reason to believe that the hostiles, eluding the column sent there, might seek and follow our trail, with a large body; if so, our little handful of men would, it was feared, have made a feeble resistance if attacked. At night the wolves came out of the “bottoms” and numerous coulees, arroyas, and ravines, in countless numbers and besieged this camp. The sick and wounded became very nervous, for in their boldness the ravenous animals advanced to within a few feet of our tents in their eagerness for the meat which we had hung all about us in large quantities for immediate use, besides the carcasses scattered here and there had attracted their scent, and in the glare of the campfire their long, white teeth could be distinctly seen, as they tumbled, fought, and howled over their canine feast… No such number of wolves had ever been seen or heard by us in that country.”
— Lt. Robert G. Carter
“Early one morning… I was riding along the edge of the Plains a short distance from the cap rock when I saw a long string of objects coming out of the canyon and heading in a northwesterly course across the Plains. Anxious to see what it was I hurried along and soon got close enough to see to my astonishment that they were gray wolves. It was, of course, impossible to ascertain the number with any degree of accuracy, but there must have been several thousand of them… I rode up to within a few yards and began shooting into them with my pistol, but thus created no consternation in their ranks, nor did they do as hungry wolves are supposed to always do - stop and devour such as were killed or crippled.”
— Don H. Biggers
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(06) Sheridan Crawls Water Braided Canyons
“If a village is attacked and women and children killed, the responsibility is not with the soldiers but with the people whose crimes necessitated the attack.”
— General Philip Sheridan
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
— General Philip Sheridan
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings by The Singing Grass Chamber Orchestra
Piano, electric guitar, vocalizations, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(07) Letters Back Home
“You ask me to tell you how I felt when surrounded and almost certain death staring me in the face. This I can never do with my pen. I felt like the [?] to be sure at least, and the worst of all it has left me so unstrung I have not gotten over it yet. The least little thing startles me and I dislike to sleep in a tent alone although I may be in camp and surrounded by hundreds of soldiers. I hope to get all right soon for it is a terrible feeling and I shall have to go to the rear if I don’t get better soon for I should be afraid if I get in again that I will run away or disgrace myself in some way, but I guess not [I] will try and do my whole duty.
”
— Lieutenant Frank Baldwin writing home to his wife, Alice
“The August heat was torturous. The season was one of intense heat. The whole portion being parched, blistered, and burned up with universal drought.”
— General Miles describing the summer of 1874 on the Llano Estacado
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Piano, electric guitar, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(08) Bedded Down (John Brown’s Body)
“Old John Brown’s body lies-a mouldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But though he lost his life in struggling for the slave,
His truth is marching on”
— Lyrics from John Brown’s Body, a popular abolitionist tune sung by the US Army during the Civil War
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Field recordings, vocalizations, and fiddle by M. Walker
(09) Quanah Dreams Of His Father, Peta Nocona
“Many years later, Quanah raised doubts about the identity of the chief killed at the Pease River, perhaps because of a Comanche belief that ill repute disturbs the peace of the dead. But the preponderance of evidence supports the contention that Peta Nocona was the chief killed at the Pease. [Sul] Ross’s Mexican interpreter, for instance, who said Nocona had taken him as a slave when he was a child, identified the chief. Cynthia Ann Parker wept over the dead man and called him Nocona.”
— Robert H. Williams
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(10) Bad Hand’s Three Columns
“[Mackenzie] had made a highly significant contribution to the exploration and opening of the Great American West. He had found two routes across the treacherous plains. The discovery of the roads and the good water would make it possible to keep the hostile Indians constantly on the run until they would surrender, or all be surprised and captured or killed.”
— Wallace writing about Mackenzie’s discovery of important and established trails, previously unknown to white soldiers, across the Llano Estacado
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, drums, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(11) Buffalo Wallow
“Ours was the courage of despair, we knew what would befall us if we should be captured alive. We had seen too many naked and mangled bodies of white men who had been spread eagled and tortured with steal and fire to forget what our own fate would be. So we were determined to fight to the end.”
— Billy Dixon
Musical Notes:
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, drums, mellotron, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(12) Lodges Burn In Palo Duro
“The moon was full. It was a weird sight—this long, dark column of mounted men moving almost silently over the thick, short buffalo grass, which deadened all sounds, not a word being spoken, expecting every minute to come upon the enemy.”
— On The Border With Mackenzie
“The warriors held their ground for a time, fighting desperately to cover the exit of their [families] and pack animals, but under the persistent fire of the troops, they soon began falling back.”
— Saergent John Charleton
“The greatest loss for the tribes was not in life, but rather in possessions. Most of the more than 1400 ponies McKenzie captured were killed in order to prevent them from being retaken… All of the winter food supplies were destroyed, as were the clothing and blankets. The tribes camped in Palo Duro had to enter the winter months without ample food or clothing.”
— The Red River War of 1874-1875, Charles River Editors
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings and flutes composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, synthesizers, and percussion by M. Walker
(13) Comancheria Waning
“If the Texans had kept out of my country, there might have been peace.”
— Yamparika Chief Ten Bears
Musical Notes:
Acoustic guitar and synthesizer by J. Combs
Tape machine by M. Walker
(14) Guipago Rides (Alone Among The Wolves)
“In the course of this battle, Mamadayte killed ranger David Bailey. The young warrior turned over Bailey’s body to Lone Wolf who, after cutting off the ranger’s head, declared his son avenged. As a reward for Mamadayte’s actions, Lone Wolf adopted him and gave him the name Guopahko, Lone Wolf the Younger.”
— H. Allen Anderson
““He was buried on the north slope of Mount Scott, the highest point in the Wichita Mountains, in the northern part of what is now Comanche County, Oklahoma. His grave is near the site of his old campground.””
— H. Allen Anderson
““Kooey pah’ gaw
Daw onh daw-geath
Day tay dow tigh dow
Koy keah kom’ bah
Naw daw tigh dow
Tay dow tigh dow hey
Chief Lonewolf gave us this one song,
It’s with all of us,
That song is with all the Kiowas,
It’s for all of us.
Cúifà:gàu
dáu á̠u: dáu:gà
dè jé: dáu táidò:
Cáuiqácô̠bàu
nàu dáu táidò:
jé: dáu táidò: he””
— Lonewolf Song, 1st Gourd Dance Song
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers and electric guitar by J. Combs
Strings composed by M. Walker
Piano, electric guitar, bass, drums, and synthesizers by M. Walker
(15) Sokeweki
“It is telling that the hero of Comanche legend is named Sokeweki, Land Searcher, for throughout Comanche culture there is evidence of an abiding interest in the landscape, navigation, topography, and spatial relations. Assuming, as folklorists would, that the legendary character Sokeweki is modeled on some real person of ago, we can wonder how that man and his compatriots saw the land now call Texas as they traversed it, what they called the various land features, and how they remembered it and imbued it with symbolic significance.”
— Daniel J. Gelo
Musical Notes:
Synthesizers by J. Combs
Strings composed by M. Walker
Piano by M. Walker
Credits:
All songs composed and recorded by M. Walker and J. Combs.
All songs mixed by M. Walker at Alley Oaks Studio in Austin, TX .
String arrangements composed by M. Walker, recorded in strange places across the state of Texas.
Proudly released by Antigravity Records.
Special thanks to Dan Flores for his continued support and inspiration, to our families, to the tribes, to the land, and to all our friends who have encouraged us to keep making our art.