Indian Raid on Elm Creek, CSA
Newcastle, Young County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Indian troubles continually plagued the Texas frontier in the Civil War, with great loss in lives and property. One of the most serious raids occurred near here on Oct. 13, 1864, at Fitzpatrick Ranch. Comanches killed seven ranch people and five Confederate soldiers. Six women and children were kidnapped. 10,000 cattle were stolen. Brit Johnson, Negro slave who that day lost his whole family, later "joined" the Comanches, got their confidence, and freed his people . Later Indians punished him with mutilation and death.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
With frontier defenses stripped thin during the Civil War, the Texas borderlands suffered repeated raids, and one of the worst struck near here at the Fitzpatrick Ranch on October 13, 1864. Comanche raiders killed seven ranch people and five Confederate soldiers, carried off six women and children, and drove away thousands of cattle. Among those who lost family that day was Brit Johnson, an enslaved man who later won the raiders' trust, recovered captives, and eventually died at the hands of Indians on the plains.
Why it matters
The Elm Creek Raid shows how the Civil War left the Texas frontier exposed, and Brit Johnson's daring rescues make him one of the most remarkable and legendary figures of the era.
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Related people
- · Brit Johnson
Related events
- · Elm Creek Raid (1864)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Britt Johnson
Graham, TX
Britt Johnson, a formerly enslaved African American frontiersman, worked as a cowboy and scout near Fort Belknap when the Elm Creek Raid of October 1864 killed his son and carried his wife and children into captivity. He tracked his family and, by daring and stealth, recovered them from Indian Territory. In 1871 Kiowa warriors attacked his camp near this spot; the more than one hundred spent shells around his body testified to the fierce fight he and two companions waged before they were killed.
Common Grave
Newcastle, TX
This grave holds three young men — Rice Carlton, Reuben Johnson, and Patrick Euell Proffitt, all in their teens or early twenties — killed together during an Indian raid along Elm Creek on July 17, 1867. A brother of one of the slain, John Proffitt, donated the cemetery land where they were laid to rest. Their common grave marks the deadly reality of frontier settlement in North Texas in the years just after the Civil War.
Proffitt Cemetery
Newcastle, TX
The Proffitt family settled this Young County area around 1862, and son John Proffitt built up land, a gin, and businesses that gave the community its name. The cemetery began in 1867 with the common grave of three young men killed in an Indian raid, and its many infant and child graves testify to the hardships of frontier life. Burials peaked between 1910 and 1920 amid the World War I-era influenza epidemic, and veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars rest here.
Joseph Alfred Woolfolk
Newcastle, TX
Kentucky-born and Louisville-trained in law, Joseph Alfred Woolfolk came to frontier Belknap in 1858 to survey Peters Colony land grants and soon served as a Young County official. He joined a home-guard Ranger unit and then the Confederate army, was captured in West Virginia in 1863, and spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ohio. Back in Texas, he gained notoriety in 1871 when the court appointed him to defend the Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree at their murder trial after the Salt Creek raid.