Washita Battlefield National Historic Site

Black Kettle had survived Sand Creek in 1864 and still sought peace. On November 20, 1868, at Fort Cobb, General William Hazen told him the army was hunting the Cheyenne and Arapaho and that he would have to make peace with its field commanders. He meant to move his camp of about 250 Tsistsistas, Cheyenne people, downriver to the larger winter camps. Before he could, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry out of Camp Supply through a foot of snow, his scouts found the camp, and at dawn on November 27 four battalions charged across the river.

Black Kettle and his wife, Medicine Woman Later, were shot crossing the Washita. Custer reported 103 warriors killed. The Cheyenne said only about eleven of their men died and the rest of the dead were women and children, and the Park Service puts the Cheyenne dead at 30 to 60. Fifty-three women and children were taken captive. Arapaho, Kiowa and others riding up from the downstream camps killed Major Joel Elliott and his detachment. Custer burned the lodges and their winter stores, had most of the 875 captured ponies and mules killed, and withdrew. The Park Service calls the event an attack; it is also called the Washita Massacre.

Congress made the site part of the park system on November 12, 1996. The visitor center is on OK-47A, the Black Kettle Memorial Highway, and a 1.5-mile trail leads from the overlook to the village site.