Near Site of Indian Battle

Corporal Morrow's detachment came from a regiment barely four months old in 1870. In 1869 Congress cut the regular infantry to twenty-five regiments, and the Thirty-eighth and Forty-first, two of the regiments reserved for Black enlisted men and including many former slaves, were combined into the Twenty-fourth Infantry. Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie took command at Fort McKavett on November 1, 1869. The Handbook of Texas says the regiment garrisoned posts in western Texas and along the Rio Grande until 1880, mostly on garrison duty, routine patrols and minor skirmishing like the fight at this station.

What the plaque says

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)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Abilene State Park — 11 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 13 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Frontier Texas! — 21 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Fort Chadbourne — 23 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.

More markers nearby

• Mountain Pass Station — steps away
• Mulberry Canyon — 5.8 mi
• Cornelia Clark Fort — 5.8 mi
• In Vicinity of Coronado's Camp — 6.2 mi