Randolph Barnes Marcy was born April 9th, 1812 in Greenwich, Massachusetts.  Twenty years later he graduated from the Military Academy at West Point.  Far from the top of his class, he was the cadet who accomplished most with his military career. 

While most officers spend a few months or years in the field, Marcy spent thirty years exploring the West.  He fought in the Black Hawk War and the Mexican War in 1846.  In 1849, he escorted a wagon train of emigrants west during the California gold rush and accompanied Albert S. Johnson to Utah during the Mormon War. This was evidently his passion and he felt at home in the saddle exploring the Indian country.

After that war was completed, Marcy was transferred to the southwest.  In 1849, he was assigned to lead a wagon train of gold seekers from Ft. Smith to California.  While on this assignment, he was exploring for suitable sites for future military posts.  On this trip, Black Beaver, the famed Delaware scout and interpreter accompanied him.

Upon his return to Ft. Smith in 1850, he was given the task of building a post on the Canadian River near the present town of Byers.  Before the post could be completed, he was informed the site chose was not far enough south and west as it was desired the post should be in the Comanche country. 

The next spring, Marcy and a troop explored the area around the Arbuckle Mountains for the establishment of a new post.  His orders were to situate the new location of the post near the Rock Crossing on the Washita and close to the juncture of Wildhorse Creek and the Washita River.  The exact choice of location for the post was left to the post surgeon Lt. Rodney Glisan who was asked to find a “healthful” location.  The reason for this was that there had been much malaria at Camp Arbuckle the previous fall and winter and it was desired that the post should be far from any river.

Upon establishment of the new post called Camp Cedar, Marcy was immediately ordered to proceed into Texas and find locations suitable for locating posts in the Comanche country there.  It was the government’s intention to bring the Comanche raiding into Mexico and upon the Texas settlers under control.

Upon the completion of this task, Marcy was ordered to explore the Red River and determine the main branch of the river.

On this expedition, his future son-in-law George B. McClellan who served as supply officer accompanied Marcy.

It was during these expeditions that Marcy began his study of the Comanche culture.  Marcy even went as far as to create a Comanche-English dictionary of common words and phrases.

Marcy had much contact with the Comanche in the 1840’s and 1850’s giving him a unique look into the culture of the Indians he called the “Arabs of the Plains” because of their unique horsemanship and fighting skills.

There were three subdivisions of Comanche’s known as the Northern, Middle and Southern bands.  The Southern band stayed mostly in Texas and Northern Mexico.  The Middle band resided in the Texas Panhandle and Indian Territory between the Red and Canadian rivers.

The Northern band followed the herds of buffalo and resided mainly between the Red and Arkansas rivers.  The Northern band was by far the most violent and warlike.

On his 1849 journey, he met a band of  Northern Comanche who wanted to hold a “big talk”.  On the evening of the parley, the Comanche chief, Wolf’s Shoulder, rode into camp with full head dresses and war paint.  The headmen seated themselves on the ground in front of Marcy’s tent.  Captain Marcy explained that he was taking a group of immigrants to California and it was not a white man’s war party that was coming to attack the Comanche.  He then told them that the white chief in Washington and the Mexicans had a treaty and that they must stop their depredations into Mexico.

After the talk was completed, Marcy noticed Black Beaver and Wolf’s Shoulder were in a very animated debate.  Marcy asked Black Beaver what was being said.  As was the custom of the Comanche, great gifts were offered to Marcy.  It seems that Wolf’s Shoulder had brought two Comanche wives to present to Marcy.

Captain Marcy instructed Black Beaver to tell the chief that he was honored but in the white man’s culture, one had only one wife.  The chief’s reply was “You are the strangest man I ever saw.  When Comanche goes on long trip, first thing he want is wife”.

The Comanche wedding ceremony was equally short.  If a man wanted a wife he would take horses, blankets, lead, powder, ropes and anything else of great value and present it to the girl’s father.  If the gifts were acceptable the girl simply left with the ‘groom’ and the marriage was completed.  The girl had no say in the affair.

If the girl didn’t like the new husband and found another man she loved she would elope with him to a distant village.  When the jilted husband tracked them down he would kill both of them.  In later years the Comanche became a little more civilized and the new lover had to pay back the gifts that the husband had paid to the girl’s father.

While many ancient civilizations of the Asian and South American continents worshiped the Sun, most Indians of North America did not.  The Comanche seemed to believe that there was a single great spirit that had created all things.  However, your chances of getting to heaven were determined by the number of enemy killed, scalps taken and the number of horses one had stolen.

One story of the kidnapped women and children by the Comanche happened in the 1850’s in Cooke County, Texas.  The Comanche attacked a remote ranch house.  Only the wife and two children were at home as the men were working cattle.  It was a bitterly cold day and when the sun set it became unbearably cold for the woman.  She was riding at the rear of the band of Comanche and she had not seen her children for hours but assumed the headmen at the front of the band had them.  Finally, the cold took its toll on the woman and she fell off her horse onto the frozen ground.  Lying there in the cold and darkness a Comanche brave rode back to her where she expected to be killed.  Instead the Comanche brave threw her a buffalo robe and said “Papoose gone to heaven” and he rode away.  Evidently the baby had frozen to death.  The woman began walking and eventually spotted a light of a distant ranch house and made it to safety.

One of the great joys of the Comanche was horse racing and gambling on these races.  The Comanche would bet anything and everything they  owned on a good horse race.  After the big talk with Wolf’s Shoulder, the chief challenged Marcy to a horse race with any of the army stock against the Comanche war ponies.

Black Beaver warned Marcy not to do it and related an event that had happened to him.  Several years earlier, the Kickapoo who also enjoyed horse racing had traveled to Missouri and bought a fancy thoroughbred race horse from a white man.  They then took the horse to the Comanche camp in western Indian Territory and challenged them to a horse race.  The Kickapoo were very sure the thoroughbred would win easily and bet everything they had on the race.

Black Beaver related that he bet everything he owned on the race.  The Comanche chief refused his bet as he was a guest but Black Beaver insisted so the chief accepted his bet.  When the race was run, the Comanche war pony easily beat the Kickapoo racehorse.  The chief refused to accept Black Beaver’s goods and told him to never bet against a Comanche horse again.

Although the bravest of Indian fighters with the greatest riding and shooting skills, the Comanche were terrified of the cannon.  Often all an army expeditionary troop had to do was hook a 6-pounder to the back of a wagon.  When the Comanche scouts reported this to their headmen, there would never be an attack on that unit.

Many years ago the Spanish had proposed a peace talk between the Comanche and the Spanish explorers of Mexico.  When the Comanche arrived to the meeting place, the Spanish ambushed the Comanche killing all the headmen and the death toll was in the hundreds.  The Comanche evidently equated the Mexicans with the Spanish because they spoke the same language.  The Comanche hated the Mexicans.  They made frequent raids into Mexico and took many hostages.  The usual procedure was to keep the children and raise them as Comanche and sell the adults into slavery.

Jesse Chisholm had seven Mexican slaves he had bought from the Comanche.  Chisholm and the fur trader Choteau had a trading post near the present day site of Lexington, OK.  Later Jesse would move to Silver City on the cattle trail that would take his name.

One of the things to remember about the wild plains tribes is that they looked upon their depredations totally different than that of the civilized tribes or the white man. They were of the mindset that all these things were for the taking.  To the victor go the spoils.  A doctor goes to the hospital and heals the sick.  A teacher goes to school and educates the unlearned.  The wild tribes go to work, steal ponies and kill the enemy.  It is that simple.  It does not require a degree in sociology to understand.

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Conributed by Dennis Muncrief - September 27, 2003