Col. John I. Gregg 1872 Battle Site

John Irvin Gregg had enlisted as a private in the Mexican War before rising through the Civil War cavalry. He led the Third Brigade at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, was wounded at Deep Bottom and again at Sayler's Creek, was briefly captured near Farmville, and on June 17, 1865, received John S. Mosby's surrender at Lynchburg. Named colonel of the Eighth Cavalry in 1866, he commanded Fort Union, New Mexico, from 1870 to 1873 and in 1872 led a reconnaissance to survey and map the Texas Panhandle. The Kiowa people are represented today by the Kiowa Tribe.

What the plaque says

Col. John I. Gregg 1872 Battle Site The decade after 1865 was a time of transition for the U.S. Many citizens moved west, coming into conflict with Native American tribes living on the Great Plains. Settlers demanded the U.S. Army provide their protection. The Army responded by conducting campaigns against the Southern Plains Indians. In 1872, one such campaign included troops of the Eighth Cavalry commanded by Colonel John I. Gregg, who departed from New Mexico into West Texas to locate Native American raiders. On August 16, his troops skirmished here with Kiowas, killing or injuring twelve while suffering one wounded. This and the Red River War (1874-75) led to the subjugation of Plains Indians and their confinement to reservations. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 1.8 mi
  The Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.
• Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  A 1938 Depression-era lake on Tierra Blanca Creek that has gone dry, now 7,664 acres of shortgrass, cottonwood canyon and a prairie dog town on the High Plains south of Umbarger.
• Palo Duro Canyon State Park — 13 mi
  The upper end of the canyon the state bought in 1933, where CCC crews built the road to the floor and the army burned the winter camps of the Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne in 1874.
• Cadillac Ranch — 13 mi
  Ten Cadillacs from 1949 to 1963 planted nose down in a pasture west of Amarillo by the Ant Farm collective in 1974, on private land where visitors are let in to paint them.

More markers nearby

• T Anchor Ranch — steps away
• Randall County — 0.7 mi
• Tex Randall — 1.6 mi
• Georgia O'Keeffe in Canyon — 1.8 mi