Near Site of Indian Battle
Merkel, Taylor County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On February 15, 1870, Corporal Hilliard Morrow and five men of Company E, 24th U.S. Infantry, set out from Fort Griffin to relieve guards at Mountain Pass mail station near here. Soon after arriving, however, they were besieged by a raiding party of 75 Comanches. Although outnumbered by more than ten to one, the courageous group repelled the attack. The Indians, however, drove off five mules and one horse belonging to the El Paso and San Antonio Mail Company, which ran a branch line to the station. Three of the Indians were killed, but the soldiers suffered no losses. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On February 15, 1870, Corporal Hilliard Morrow and five soldiers of Company E, 24th U.S. Infantry, rode from Fort Griffin to relieve the guard at the Mountain Pass mail station. Soon after they arrived, a Comanche raiding party estimated at seventy-five warriors besieged them, but the vastly outnumbered soldiers held their ground and drove off the attack, losing no men though the raiders made off with army mules and a horse from the mail company.
Why it matters
The skirmish is a small but vivid episode of the post-Civil War Indian Wars, when the U.S. Army and the Comanche contested control of the West Texas plains and the mail routes crossing them.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
After the Civil War, the U.S. Army came back to the Texas frontier, which had been largely stripped of federal troops during the war. A chain of forts was built or reoccupied to guard settlements, roads, and mail routes across West Texas. Fort Griffin, on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, was one of them, and it became a key post on the edge of Comanche country.
The Comanches had dominated the southern plains for generations. They were skilled horsemen whose raids on frontier settlements, ranches, and stations were part of a long struggle over land, horses, and survival. In the years after the war that conflict sharpened, and it ended only with the campaigns of the mid-1870s that forced the last free Comanche bands onto reservations.
Mail lines were vital to the frontier, carrying letters, news, and passengers across hundreds of lonely miles. The stations along them, with their horses and mules, were often targets. Guarding them was dull, dangerous work for small groups of soldiers far from help.
People & events
The soldiers in this story came from Company E of the 24th U.S. Infantry. The 24th was one of the Army's regiments of Black enlisted men, the soldiers who became known as Buffalo Soldiers. Many had been enslaved only a few years before. They served on some of the hardest, most isolated posts in the West.
On February 15, 1870, Corporal Hilliard Morrow and five of his men left Fort Griffin to relieve the guard at the Mountain Pass mail station near here. Soon after they arrived, a Comanche raiding party of about seventy-five surrounded the station. Six men faced odds of more than ten to one.
They held. Morrow's small detachment drove off the attack without losing a man, and three of the raiders were killed. The Comanches did get something, though: five mules and a horse belonging to the El Paso and San Antonio Mail Company, which ran a branch line to the station. On a frontier where animals meant both wealth and mobility, that was a real prize.
Its place in the American story
Small fights like this one rarely make it into history books, yet they made up much of the Indian Wars. The struggle for the southern plains was decided less by famous battles than by countless raids, sieges, and patrols along roads and mail lines.
This fight also belongs to the story of the Buffalo Soldiers. In the years just after emancipation, Black soldiers took on some of the nation's most difficult assignments in the West. They did that while facing discrimination from the very country they served. Corporal Morrow's stand is a clear example of their discipline under pressure.
The story can be seen from more than one side. For the soldiers and mail company, it was a defense of a vital line of communication. For the Comanches, it came during a long fight to hold onto their homeland and way of life, which they lost within a few years. A full understanding of the frontier keeps both perspectives in view.
If you visit
The country around Merkel is rolling West Texas ranch land, and the Mountain Pass area lies in the hills to the south. Looking at the land here, you can see why a pass through the hills mattered to travelers, and why a station there was both a lifeline and an easy place to attack.
As you stand near the marker, picture six soldiers who had just arrived for a long stretch of guard duty, then suddenly found themselves surrounded. The quiet of the place today makes that moment all the more striking.
This marker fits well into a trip along the I-20 corridor or a broader tour of West Texas frontier history, including the forts that once guarded this region. For families, it is a good opening to talk about the Buffalo Soldiers and about the Comanches, whose story on these plains is much older than this one day in 1870.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Hilliard Morrow
Related events
- · Mountain Pass mail station fight, 1870
Themes & tags
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