Kenneth L. Moore
Whadda ya know about… TEXAS
Billy’s Long Shot…
by Kenneth Moore
He was born William “Billy†Dixon in Ohio County, Virginia which is now West Virginia, on September 25, 1850. His father was of European descent and his mother, a Native American. Young Billy Dixon was orphaned at the tender young age of 12 the circumstances not being known to this author. Billy was then sent to live with his uncle in Missouri. After a year of the 13 y/o Billy Dixon with a hankering to see the west hiked up his pants and set out on his own hook. He left without so much as a goodbye for fear his uncle might try to stop him.
He began first at a woodcutter’s camp along the Missouri River, but by fourteen he became a bullwhacker and a muleskinner for a government contractor out of Leavenworth, Kansas. For those who may not know what a bullwhacker was, as the name implied it was a man (or even a woman) who would whack the oxen to keep them going. Young Billy grew up fast, and he grew up wily.
He became a skilled marksman and scouted for people who came from the east to sightsee and experience the west. The railroads brought these “Eastern Excursionist†as they were called and Billy Dixon was hired to show them around. By the time Billy was nineteen, he had become a part of a hunting and trapping venture on the Saline River, just northwest of Fort Hays, in Kansas. In that capacity, he scouted Texas as far south as the Salt Fork of the Red River. By the time Billy was 24 y/o in 1874, he was traveling with Buffalo hunters throughout the Texas Panhandle. He became familiar with the area of Adobe Walls to which he would indelibly be connected with for all time.
Adobe Walls is located about 20 miles south 0f the Texas-Oklahoma border about midway between the western and eastern boundaries of the Texas Panhandle. William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain, the founders of this now famous ghost town, founding a trading post there in the Texas Plains in 1843. The intent was to establish a peaceful trade with the Comanche and Kiowa Indians.
It was at Adobe Walls that the trading firm of Bent, St. Vrain & Company built a log structure on what is now known as Bent Creek in Hutchison County. In 1845, the log structure was eventually replaced with an 80 square foot structure with walls 2 feet thick and 9 feet tall made of adobe by Mexican adobe makers they brought with them to make the adobe brick. It had a single entrance and soon became known as Fort Adobe for a brief period. However, due to continued Indian deprivations, it was closed in 1848. Soon after finding part of his livestock slaughtered by the local Indians, William Bent blew up the fort in 1849 and departed the Texas Panhandle leaving Texas behind and what was left of Adobe Walls.
In 1874 a new complex of adobe was erected just north of the crumbling facade of Adobe Walls. In Billy Dixon’s own words he described this new complex as "All the buildings at Adobe Walls faced to the east, the main ones standing in a row. On the south was the store of Rath & Wright, with a great pile of buffalo hides at the rear. Then came Hanrahan's saloon, and fifty yards or so north of the latter was the store of Leonard & Myers, the building forming the northeast corner of the big picket stockade. In the southwest corner of the stockade was a mess house and the store as well. The blacksmith's shop was located just north of Hanrahan's saloon."
Adobe Walls was the sight of two battles classically called “The First Battle of Adobe Walls†and “The Second Battle of Adobe Walls.†The first battle saw Col. Kit Carson's fight the largest Indian battle of the Civil War, Kit Carson, and 300 troops against over 1,000 Comanche and Kiowa. It is a matter for yet another story but bears mentioning just to keep the two encounters separate in the minds of the reader. It was the Second Battle of Adobe Walls that occurred nearly a decade later in 1874 that is the primary focus of this tale and our celebrated frontiersman, Billy Dixon.
It seems that a treaty had been made with the Comanche and Kiowa to keep trouble down. The treaty, known as The Treaty of Medicine Lodge made it illegal for white men to hunt in Comanche territory. However, the demand for buffalo hides was high, and the animals were growing scarce. Making even more tempting for Billy Dixon and his group of 28 men and one woman to venture forth where he ought not to have, into the Comancheria.
Adobe Walls was nothing more than a few crude buildings, one of which being Hanrahan’s Saloon, but that was good enough for those buffalo hunters who were far from requiring a 5-star rating for their sleeping accommodations.
As the story has been told, Billy and the other hunters had already seen Kiowa and Comanche warriors patrolling the area. They all knew it was just a matter of time before their trespassing would bring their might down upon them. Billy and saloon owner, Jim Harahan were awakened about 2 am when the large lodgepole that held up the saloon roof cracked and came crashing down. Wide awake, they decided to get an early start on the morning of June 27th, 1874. That’s when they spotted a large contingent of Indians gathering in the hills and thus deprive the warriors of any element of surprise in their attack.
The hunters were able to repel the Indian's first wave because of that cracked lodgepole that had awakened them.
Entrenched behind two feet thick adobe walls the small group of buffalo hunters were then able to withstand the initial onslaught of the large body of Comanche and Kiowa.
The Indians were being led by none other than Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, and some estimates put the number of warriors under his command as high as 1,500. Now it seems that Quanah had with him a medicine man by the name of Isa-tai or White Eagle who had a vision. In his vision, he saw the warriors being immune to the white man’s bullets and he promised them that protection. Unfortunately for Isa-tai, the first initial attack proved his vision to be flawed with the buffalo hunter’s behind the thick adobe providing ample proof that his medicine was not very good.
Never-the-less the Indians knew they had the numbers and while they may have used a little more caution in their second attack… they were not about to give up the fight. The hunters were excellent marksmen, and Billy Dixon was perhaps the best of all of them. After all, he had been hunting buffalo nearly all his life, and his aim was his livelihood. He was familiar enough with the terrain of the Texas Panhandle and knew how to estimate ranges and gauge his shot. A miss meant money, and young Billy hadn’t survived on his own for this long making a habit of missing.
So it was after the second repulsed attack that the hunters could see a small group of Indians gathered on top of a ridge. Billy’s fellow buffalo hunters started prodding him to take a shot at them. This author is fairly sure those fellas even thought that Billy could do anything more than throwing some lead in their direction. But Billy was never one to pass up a shot, and I expect there might have even been some money at stake as well.
By Billy’s own account all he had was a .45-90 Sharps, and at the estimated distance, he felt that wasn’t going to be enough, so he borrowed a .50-90 Sharps from one of the other hunter’s. The .50-90 Sharps was the classic buffalo hunter’s gun, powerful enough to bring down a 1400 pound bison.
With his fellow hunter’s urging Billy on with, “Go on. Take the shot.†He adjusted the sights and aimed at the cluster of warriors. And then he squeezed the trigger.
On a ridge 7/8ths of a mile away sat Quanah Parker along with a small group his warriors sat on their horses. The Medicine man, Isa-tai was there too. It is likely they all heard the Sharps ring out in the stillness of the Texas Panhandle… but one can only imagine the shock and surprise when one of their own went flying off his horse striking the ground shot dead. Especially when that Indian had been the one that promised immunity to the white man’s bullets. Billy Dixon’s long shot had connected with none other that Isa-tai himself.
It goes without saying, the battle was over and the unnerved Comanche and Kiowa made a hasty retreat from Adobe Walls that day. Only divine providence could have provided such a shot as the one that will forever be called "The Shot of the Century.†Two weeks later army surveyors measured the distance at 1,538 yards. To this day Billy Dixon is still honored with competitions in England and the US that attempt to match his skill. The Sharps company even made a commemorative “Billy Dixon†model to the exact specifications of the rifle he borrowed that is still available for purchase.
Billy Dixon went on to participate in the "Buffalo Wallow Fight" on September 10, 1874, during the Red River War. For his actions, he became one of only eight civilians ever to receive the U.S. Medal of Honor for Gallantry in Battle. The medal is presently on display at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.
In 1883, Billy Dixon returned to civilian life and built a home near Adobe Walls. He was not only postmaster there for 20 years but also served as the first sheriff of newly formed Hutchinson County, Texas.
In 1894 he married Olive King Dixon of Virginia, who for nearly three years was the only woman in Hutchinson County. Together, they had seven children. In 1902 the Dixons moved to Plemons, Texas so that the children could be given schooling and in 1906 they moved to Oklahoma.
In 1913, Billy Dixon died at his Cimarron County homestead and was buried in Texline. However, on his deathbed, he told Olive his complete life story, which she penned and later published. In 1929 his body was reinterred at Adobe Walls near where he stood when he first saw the Indians riding up the valley.
WHADDA YA KNOW ABOUT… TEXAS?
Topic: Billy Dixon (Read 123 times)