First Battle of Adobe Walls

(November 25, 1865) Largest Indian battle in Civil War. 15 miles east, at ruins of Bent's Old Fort, on the Canadian. 3,000 Comanches and Kiowas, allies of the South, met 372 Federals under Col. Kit Carson, famous scout and mountain man. Though Carson made a brilliant defense - called greatest fight of his career - the Indians won. Some of the same Indians lost in 1874 Battle of Adobe Walls, though they outnumbered 700 to 29 the buffalo hunters whose victory helped open the Panhandle to settlement. (1965)