Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S.C. Gwynne

From the moment of Quanah’s arrival, Colonel Mackenzie took an intense interest in him. In spite of his travails with them, Mackenzie admired the Quahadis. When he learned they were coming in, he wrote Sheridan: “I think better of this band than of any other on the reserve. . . . I shall let them down as easily as I can.” He did, in fact. The Quahadis were allowed to keep a large number of their horses, and he made sure that no one in Quanah’s band was confined in the icehouse or guardhouse at Fort Sill.30 There are no records of what happened when the two men first met, or what they said to each other. What is known is that before Quanah even arrived, Mackenzie had found out via messenger the identity of his mother and had written a letter, dated May 19, 1875, to the military quartermaster at Dennison, Texas, inquiring about the whereabouts of Cynthia Ann and Prairie Flower. The letter was also published in a Dallas newspaper, and managed to elicit the information that both Quanah’s sister and his mother were dead.31 He had not yet met Quanah, but the letter was the beginning of what history records as a remarkable friendship.