Wagon Train.
The Battle of Coon Creek, occurred between U.S. troops and Plains Indians in Edwards County, Kansas along the Santa Fe Trail in 1848.
In May 1848, the army train of about 70 soldiers left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to join the Santa Fe battalion in Chihuahua, Mexico. Traveling along the Santa Fe Trail, they were to escort a train of 60 wagons from Council Grove, Kansas, to Fort Mann, just west of Dodge City. West of Walnut Creek, they were joined by an artillery battalion of 60 men with two cannons.
On June 17, they camped for the night on Coon Creek, which emptied into the Arkansas River a few miles west of Lewis, Kansas. Early the next morning, an immense herd of buffalo stampeded toward the camp, followed by some 200 Comanche and Apache Indians.
The troops were armed with breech-loading carbines and cannons against the larger group of Indians, who had only bows and arrows. However, the bullets rattled harmlessly from their rawhide shields, who came on in a charge that looked as though the troops might be exterminated.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing an Indian woman “who seemed to be their queen, mounted on a horse, decorated with silver ornaments on a scarlet dress, rode about giving directions about the wounded.”
When the Indians were almost upon the camp, the soldiers turned their attention to firing upon the horses and, with their breech-loading guns, soon turned the tide of battle. Nearly all the horses in the front rank were killed at the first volley, and the remaining Indians sought safety in flight.
The Indians sustained heavy losses during the conflict, and when a courageous Apache teenager returned to recover the body of one of the fallen, U.S. soldiers held their fire. One legend said that the young man was Geronimo, a future Apache leader.
The campsite is thought to have been along the Arkansas River, approximately two miles northeast of present-day Kinsley, Kansas. A limestone post marker has been placed at this location.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated May 2025.
Also See:
Indian Wars, Battles & Massacres
Indian Wars of the Frontier West
See Sources.