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As a matter of explanation, the first Battle of Adobe Walls was not so much of a battle as it was a retreat. While on patrol with a regiment of Union soldiers in 1864, Kit Carson used the original Adobe Walls trading post, established and abandoned by William Bent around 1843, to rest his horses after a fight with about 150 warriors. As it happened, there where about five to six thousand more Indians nearby and Col. Carson had to fight a running retreat with his 300 soldiers in order to escape.
In 1874, noted buffalo hunter Billy Dixon led the founders of Adobe Walls to the Texas Plains, where he knew that buffalo still roamed in abundance. The business firms were to establish a serious trading post in this forbidden territory for the opportunity to get rich off of the buffalo hunters. They located the business near the former site of the crumbling "old" Adobe Walls trading post in the upper Llano Estacado.
On June 26, 1874, a Saturday night, there were 29 whites at the post which included 20 buffalo hunters and freighters and one woman. Among them where the notable Billy Dixon and a young "Bat" Masterson. At Jim Hanrahan's saloon, some of the hunters and freighters were staying up late, drinking and playing cards. Talk was about the Indians, because there had been recent bloodshed, with friends being killed and, in fact, many had sought the safety of the camp for that reason. But now they gained new confidence with one another and were once again planning to strike out onto the plains.
What most of them did not know, except for Jim Hanrahan, was that there had been rumors of Indians about to attack the camp. A squaw man named Amos Chapman had told Jim that the Indians were bragging that they would attack Adobe Walls on Sunday, June 27th - tomorrow. Whether or not Jim truly believed those rumors, he had no choice but to take them seriously.
Later that night, about 2:00 am, the stillness was broken by a loud cracking sound. The men sleeping in the saloon on pallets of buffalo robes were awakened by Jim Hanrahan shouting that the ridgepoles supporting the saloon roof were braking.
While all of the men were examining the ridgepole, preparing to prop it with support, "Bat" Masterson, the youngest in the company, examined the ridgepole and allowed that such a sound meant that there were at least cracks in the log. A few of the others agreed but continued their efforts to relieve the pressure on the pole. Little did they know that Jim Hanrahan had fired his six-shooter to trick them into an early morning rising.
It was too late to return to bed so many of the men were packing and preparing for the morning's journey. While picking up his Sharps buffalo gun, Billy Dixon noticed movement along the horizon, then heard the high notes of a bugle sounding Charge! Those movements were Indians-700 hundred of them!
All men from the camp ran for the shelter of the saloon, where they quickly began fortifying the shattered windows with bags of flour and grain. Two of the whites were caught outside by surprise and killed immediately. But the men occupying Adobe Walls were the crack shots of the West, cool under pressure, and they aimed and shot, shifted positions for better protection, and aimed and shot again. Just as they did with the buffalo, each shot hit dead center, and before long they drove the attackers off, temporarily.
The Indians continued to charge again and again through the morning hours, until noon when they were no longer making their wild charges close to the buildings, but were hidden in the grass around the trading post. By that time, ammunition was running low. There was plenty of ammunition in Rath's store, a short distance from the saloon, but when Hanrahan suggested that someone run next door to get it, "Bat" Masterson reportedly answered "I'll be glad to oblige you, Jim, and get some ammunition from Rath's. But I've sort of got out of the habit of going there, lately. I've had to keep indoors a lot for my health".
Yet when Billy Tyler attempted to save the horses in the stockade and was fatally wounded, Bat ran to the Myers store within the stockade to help him and was soon followed by others. Amazingly, none were hit in the rain of bullets that followed them.
During the battle, the Comanche chief Quanah was injured, and so by 4:00 pm the next day, the Indian's morale was so shattered that they disengaged from the battle.
The inhabitants of Adobe Walls spent several more days stranded at the camp, as the Indians had driven off or killed all of their horses. A few Indians appeared in the distance at times to exchange gunfire with the defenders before riding off again. On the third day, a small group of warriors appeared on a butte about a mile east of the stockade. Dixon, an accomplished buffalo hunter, raised his big 50 Sharps riffle and took careful aim. As the boom of the shot died away, a tiny figure of an Indian was seen reeling from his horse. The rest of the Indians scattered but two returned to retrieve the body of their brother. The range of the shot was later measured at 1583 yards and would be called "The Shot of the Century".
The battle did have an effect. Besides demoralizing the Indians, many of the hunters in the area returned to their homes in the East or Midwest. Bat Masterson became first famous lawman and, later, a sportswriter in New York. Billy Dixon never again hunted the buffalo.