Hunt for the
Red River
A Congressman said in 1800 about the Red River Valley:

“The masses of virgin silver and gold that glitter in the
veins and rocks which underlie the Arkansas River mingle
with the minerals near certain other streams and offer
themselves to the hand of him who will gather, refine and
covert them to use are common and wonderful.”

This congressman may have not known what he was
talking about, but neither did anyone else who wondered
what treasures the western Red River hid. For most of the
19th century, the Red River above Natchitoches,
Louisiana,  was still a complete mystery to the white man.
Special thanks to Greg Huber for the
tons of information - including maps
and excerpts of books - that he
shared!
The Indian, French and Spanish Red River
The Caddos, Wichitas, Taovayas, and Comanches
traded and raided around the Red River for centuries
before Spanish and French explorers made their way
to the region. The impressions of the middle Red River
the Europeans took back with them were quite
frightful: Athanse de Mezeires, the lieutenant governor
of the Natchitoches district, reported of the fierce
"Nortenos" whose women tattooed their lips and
breasts. Other explorers, such as Pierre (Pedro) Vial, a
Frenchman working under Spanish employ, and Philip
Nolan (possibly an American spy), wrote about and
mapped the Red River region.

However, because the lands were so far away from
Mexico City, the Spanish governors had an impossible
time enticing settlers that far north, and left the Red
River pretty much alone.

Purchasing a River
The remoteness of the Red River still weighed heavily
when Thomas Jefferson finagled the deal to buy
Louisiana Territory from the French. Jefferson not only
wanted to have the Mississippi explored - which was
the eastern boundary of the Purchase - he also wanted
to know about the Red River. The river formed the
southern border, the line between New Spain and
America. Was it a water way to Santa Fe? Maybe even
to the Pacific?

Four expeditions were sent up the Red River within a
span of 20 years, but all journeys ended in failure. In
1804, William Dunbar and George Hunter - Lewis and
Clark's counterparts - set out to follow the Red River,
but went up the Washita River instead. Thomas
Freeman and Peter Custis then attempted the same
journey in 1806 but were stopped by the Spanish at
Spanish Bluff (which is in Bowie County, Texas).
Freeman and Custis did bring back a detailed map of
their journey, which would serve future explorers well.

John Lewis and William Alexander led another
expedition in 1806 but didn't go farther than the Plains.
And Stephen H. Long's expedition of 1818 ended in
confusion: he and his men accidentally followed the
Canadian River, a river they had explored previously.

Guess who the Illegals were?
The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1820 settled the boundary of
New Spain and the United States once and for all, with
the northern banks of the Red River considered a part
of Spain. Until Texas statehood in 1845, neither
Americans nor Mexicans undertook expeditions to the
western Red River, where the Comanches and Kiowas
ruled unimpeded. The Mexican government, however,
did keep a weary eye on the eastern Red River region
in Texas: illegal Americans had begun settling the area
while still New Spain, and Mexican independence didn't
change this influx any. Without empresarios,
Americans were developing plantations, towns, and
most importantly, roads. Their presence may have
been a great advantage for the eventual Texan
rebellion.
All the fashionable exlporers used John Melish's map, including
Randolph B. Marcy.
The Freeman map of the Red River may have been plain, but it
charted parts of the western Red River which were unknown
before 1806.
"Wrong Way" Stephen H. Long. He wasn't really called that.
Enter Randolph B. Marcy
By the 1850s, most of the United States had been mapped.
Lewis and Clark had determined that the Pacific Ocean could
not be reached by river. John Melish, a geographer, had
mapped the location of the 100th meridian, which determined
the established "frontier" of the west. Everyone was flocking to
California in search of riches, and overland trails were blazed
by the Union army to aid the emigrants in their treks.

One of these trail blazers was Randolph B. Marcy. From his
station at Fort Smith (Arkansas) and later Fort Arbuckle (Indian
Territory), Marcy established the California Emigrant Trail,
through Texas to Santa Fe, in 1849 (this later approximated the
Butterfield Overland Stage and Mail Route). He also helped
General William G. Belknap select sites for Texas frontier forts
in the early 1850s. It was Marcy who recommended the site for
Fort Sill in the 1860s.

Due to his intimate knowledge of Texas and Indian Territory
geography, Marcy was selected to find the source of the Red
River in 1852.  The U.S. actualy had several reasons to go up
the Red River besides the official, "let's just see what's there,"
justification. Marcy was to report back on the minerals he
found, just in case there were any precious metals laying
around. He was also to report on the condition of the region.
Was the unexplored west really the "Great American Desert,"
suitable to only wild savages, as Stephen H. Long insisted it
was, or could the Southern Plains tribes be forced into farming,
thus opening the west for Anglo settlement?

The Red River Expedition of 1852
Along with several troops, a Delaware guide named Jim Ned,
and Captain George B. McClellan, Marcy set out to discover the
Red River headwaters. Unlike his predecessors, Marcy didn't
use a boat, but explored mainly on horse back. He kept a
meticulous diary, reporting on  the different animals, plants,
and nature he encountered. He made friends with the Indians,
and even wrote a dictionary of sorts of the Wichita language.
He reported on Wichita, Comanche, and Kiowa customs. He
found a huge prairie dog town (estimating it to contain around
20 million of the critters), and wrote passionately of his
impressions of the wild and unexplored regions of the Red
River, especially of the Cross Timbers:

"The trees, consisting principally of post oak and black jack,
stand[ing] at such intervals that wagons can without difficulty
pass between them in any direction. The soil is thin, sandy, and
poorly watered. This forms a boundary line, dividing the
country suited to agriculture from the great prairies, which, for
the most part, are arid and destitute of timber. It seems to have
been designed as a natural barrier between civilized man and
the savage.”

Palo Duro!
Marcy found the source of the Red River within the sheer cliffs
of Palo Duro Canyon. Upon seeing the canyon, his writing  
sounded almost poetic: “The magnificence of the views that
presented themselves to our eyes as we approached the head
of the river, exceeded anything I had ever beheld. It is
impossible for me to describe the sensations that came over
me, and the exquisite pleasure I experienced, as I gazed upon
these grand and novel pictures.” For Marcy, Palo Duro looked
like castles and fortresses with an “azure and transparent sky
above.”

A Hero
Back in Washington, people thought Marcy was dead from an
Indian attack, and they gave him a nice funeral, which Marcy
found amusing. Upon Marcy's (very lively) return with his
hundreds of sketches, dozens of maps, and pages upon pages
of diary entries, he was given a hero's welcome. His extensive
report was published and a shortened version of it became a
best seller. Here was the man who had explored the last wild
place in the United States! Marcy testified of his adventures in
front of an eager Congress. One could argue he was the John
Glenn of the 1850s!
Randolph B. Marcy was a happening dude.
He married, (I swear I'm not making this up,
to paraphrase Dave Barry) Mary A. Mann. I
wonder if they had a "do not ask, do not tell"
policy back then?
Red River Legacy
Well regarded historians have contemplated the
impact of the Red River Expedition ever since Marcy
undertook it in 1852. Walter Prescott Webb took to
heart Marcy's description of the Cross Timbers as a
dividing line between the fertile east and the arid
west. Angie Debo retraced Marcy's steps in
Oklahoma, where she found some discrepancies in
his calculations.

Oddly, Marcy himself isn't well remembered in
mainstream history. Maybe because he became
America's last explorer, or because other captains
superseded him when the Civil War came around.

The legacy is clear, however. Finding the Red River
headwaters became a watershed moment in the
history of the American west. The southern plains
proved inhabitable and maybe even conducive to
farming. The Native Americans could be better
understood and strategies could be developed to
"civilize" them. New roads were opened for
American settlers, though they didn't appear en
masse until the 1890s. For good or bad, a new
country had opened, and the last river to be explored
in the contiguous United States was finally known.
Marcy's 1852 map of the Red River (a better
version of the map will be uploaded soon)
The birthplace of the Red River - the Prairie
Dog Town Fork. The river is spring fed.
Marcy's Impressions

Mount Scott – Named one of the highest peaks Mount Scott,
which later became part of Kiowa lore as to where the
buffalo went

Petrified Forest (around 100th Meridian, along “Great Divide”)
– “Upon the rocky bluffs bordering the river we found
silicified wood in great quantities, strewed about over a
distance of two miles. The petrification was most perfect,
exhibiting all the fibers, knots, and bark, as plainly as in the
native state, and was quite similar to the cotton wood.”

Prairie Dog Town – Had to reroute around the mounds,
which he guessed at 40,000 acres of mounds (roughly 20
million prairie dogs)
A view of the Cross Timbers near Fort  Washita
A boulder along the shore of the Red River by the 100th Meridian