1.2.2.20 Red River War (1874)

The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the U.S. Army in 1874 to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indian tribes from the Southern Plains where they had been raiding settlers and travellers and enforce their relocation to reservations in Indian Territory. It brought an end to the Texas–Indian Wars. The war strategy was formulated by senior Army officers led by Sheridan and Sherman, and achieved its objective with relatively few casualties on either side. The war’s end saw the final military defeat of the once powerful Comanche, Kiowa, and southern Cheyenne Indians, and, with the virtual extinction of the southern herd of buffalo, the opening of the Texas Panhandle to settlement by cattle ranchers.