Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 in Lynn County
Tahoka, Lynn County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Known as Buffalo Soldiers, African-American troops played a vital role on the western frontier following the Civil War. On July 26, 1877, Buffalo Soldiers of Company A, 10th Cavalry left Double Lake in Lynn County in pursuit of a Comanche party. The Comanche led the soldiers away from watering holes and they suffered from extreme dehydration and sickness, enduring heat, dryness, and 86 hours without water. A number of soldiers became lost while searching for water and many of their horses and mules died. On July 30, the remaining troops returned to Lynn County for recuperation. Four died on the expedition, including Pvt. John T. Gordon, who is buried at Double Lakes. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Civil War, African American "Buffalo Soldiers" patrolled the western frontier, and in July 1877 Company A of the 10th Cavalry set out from Double Lake in pursuit of a Comanche party. The Comanche drew the troopers away from water, and the soldiers endured extreme heat and 86 hours without water; horses and mules died and men became lost searching for springs. Four soldiers died on the expedition, including Pvt. John T. Gordon, buried at Double Lakes.
Why it matters
The tragedy captures both the brutal cost of frontier campaigning and the vital, often overlooked service of Black cavalrymen in the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars of the West.
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Related people
- · Pvt. John T. Gordon
Related events
- · Buffalo Soldier expedition of July 1877
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lynn County
Tahoka, TX
Lynn County honors G. W. Lynn, remembered among the defenders who fell at the Alamo, but its ground tells a longer story of the South Plains. Its lakes and springs watered Indian, Spanish, army, and cattle trails; it saw the last great buffalo hunts and the U.S. Cavalry's 1874–77 campaign against the Comanches, with the final skirmish at Double Lakes in 1879. Open-range ranchers arrived in the 1880s, the county organized at Tahoka in 1903, the Santa Fe Railroad reached it in 1910, and it grew into one of the nation's leading cotton counties.
Spanish Explorers' Route
Wilson, TX
This ancient road across the Llano Estacado was first traced by Native peoples and later followed by Spaniards, U.S. Army units, and cattle drovers, running from Gholson Spring past Tahoka Lake toward Big Spring and the North Concho. In the 17th century it carried Spanish visitors including Father Salas, who came from New Mexico in 1629 at the pleas of the Jumano Indians, and treasure- and pearl-seeking expeditions in 1650 and 1654. The trail knit together centuries of movement across the high plains.
Site of Mackenzie Cavalry Camp
Wilson, TX
On December 4, 1874, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and two companies of the U.S. 4th Cavalry were caught by a brutal snowstorm at this spot on the Llano Estacado. With no wood, water, or grass, the troopers spent what they called the most miserable night of their Southwestern service, and several horses froze to death. Mackenzie was scouting for scattered bands during the closing weeks of the 1874 campaign to force the Southern Plains tribes onto reservations.
Route of Nolan Expedition
Meadow, TX
In July 1877, Captain Nicholas Nolan led some sixty Buffalo Soldiers of Company A, 10th U.S. Cavalry—joined by 22 buffalo hunters who called themselves 'The Forlorn Hope'—onto the parched Llano Estacado in pursuit of Comanche raiders. Eluded by their quarry and finding the water holes dry, the men went 86 hours without water, surviving by drinking the blood and urine of their horses before staggering back to a supply base. All but four soldiers lived through the ordeal.