Since federal troops would not attack the Comanche and Kiowa in that portion of the Comancheria, the Texas Rangers launched the incursion into the Antelope Hills.

[3] The Comanche realized their homeland of the Comancheria was increasingly encroached on by Anglo-Texas settlers, so they struck back with a series of ferocious and bloody raids into Texas.

In most other new states, the overwhelming majority of publicly owned land belonged to the Federal government as well as sole jurisdiction over Indian affairs, in particular the authority to make treaties guaranteeing reservations for various tribes.

These troop movements, including the transfer without replacement of the 2nd Cavalry in Texas, left much of the frontier of the Great Plains without protection from Indian attacks.

[3] Ford, whose habit of signing the casualty reports with the initials "RIP" for "Rest In Peace," was known as a ferocious and no-nonsense Indian fighter.

[4] As the original Comanche moved southward into a swath of territory extending from the Arkansas River to the area of central Texas north of the Edwards Plateau, their population increased dramatically because of the abundance of buffalo as an easy food supply, an influx of Shoshone migrants, and the adoption of significant numbers of women and children taken captive from rival groups.

Realizing that with Sharps rifles and modern Colt revolvers he needed additional men, Ford set out to recruit ones he did not have to pay, as he did his Rangers and militia.

At least 120 warriors volunteered, 111 of them Tonkawa, led by Placido, and scouts were sent to locate Comanche camps north of the Red River in the Comancheria in the Oklahoma Indian Territories.

The Tonkawa Indians, commanded by their "celebrated" chief, Placido, were hailed as the "faithful and implicitly trusted friend of the whites" (with limited mention of their cannibalism)[11] and undertook a campaign with approximately an equal number of Texas Rangers against the Comanches.

Ford and Placido were determined to follow the Comanche and Kiowa up to their strongholds amid the hills of the Canadian River and into the Wichita Mountains, and if possible, "kill their warriors, decimate their food supply, strike at their homes and families, and generally destroy their ability to make war.

[5] Thus, at the break of dawn at Antelope Hills on Little Robe Creek in the heart of the Comancheria, Ford's men attacked the first Comanche camp they found.

What Comanche women and children were able to get out of the lodges without being killed or captured by the Tonkawa fled for their lives, while the few men who survived the original attack tried desperately to cover their flight.

[1]: 234 Fehrenbach and other historians have labelled this a massacre, where a sleeping village was attacked without warning, and the population slaughtered, the dead later eaten (by the Tonkawas)[1]: 236  or enslaved[3][5] among the allied Indian tribes.

Fortunately for the Comanche, a warrior saw the Texan forces advancing upriver after the original dawn attack on the solitary encampment and had ridden hastily to warn the larger village.

Most devastating to the Comanche, their legendary Chief, Phohebits Quasho, Iron Jacket, "professed to blow arrows aside from their aim",[1]: 233  was killed in the fighting.

He had worn a Spanish coat of mail in battle which had earned him a reputation of invincibility as it evidently protected him from some light weapons fire.

Iron Jacket had sent messengers to warn others and summon help, especially the nearest encampment, led by his son Peta Nocona, the husband of Cynthia Ann Parker.

[5] Realizing that his warriors, with their bows and lances, could not fight at close quarters with the Rangers and their revolvers, and not intending to repeat the mistake of his father, Peta Nocona attempted to lure them into the woods surrounding Little Robe Creek, where the Comanches' legendary skill on horseback and with bows and lances could be brought into play, with the woods negating some of the advantages of the Texan superior firepower.

[5] The strategy failed, though, when he realized that the Tonkawa had removed the white bands he had ordered them to put on their heads so he could differentiate between Indian allied and enemy warriors in the heat of battle.

[5] In the end, the vast bulk of the Comanche force under Peta Nocona safely retreated, having bought time for Iron Jacket's people and their own families up the Canadian to flee.

[3] "The Rangers noted most of their dead foes were missing various body parts, and the Tonkawa had bloody containers, portending a dreadful victory feast that evening.

[9] Ford triumphantly returned to Texas, claiming he had killed 76 Indians and captured 16,[3] though official Army records state 60 casualties.

[1]: 233  Ford requested that the governor immediately empower him to raise additional levies of Rangers and return north at once to continue the campaign in the heart of the Comancheria.

For the first time, Texan or American forces had penetrated into the heart of Comancheria, attacked Comanche villages with impunity, and successfully made it home.

The U.S. Army later adopted many of Ford's tactics, including attacking civilians as well as warriors, and destroying the buffalo herds that were a main source of food for their enemies,[3] in their campaigns against the Plains tribes following the Civil War.

[5] As Frank Secoy and John C. Ewers emphasize in their military history book Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains, the Comanche and other Plains Indians had combined mastery of horsemanship while incorporating first, their native weapons of bow and lance, then single-shot firearms, with the horse, but two things combined to alter this battlefield dynamic: first, the Rangers adopted the nomad tactics of cold camp and relentless pursuit to the Indian encampments; second was the introduction of rapid-fire pistols and rifles.

[8] The invention and deployment of rapid-rate firearms destroyed the tactics the Plains Indians had developed and used with such success against the Spanish, Mexicans, and early Americans.

[8] Only when the Rangers had adopted classic Comanche tactics of cold camps, forced marches, and use of scouts were they able to alter the dynamic of nomadic cavalry attacking fixed settlements.

[5] Certainly the Spanish, then the Mexicans, and later the Texans had learned that single-shot weapons were not enough to defeat the deadly Comanche light horsemen, whose mastery of cavalry tactics and mounted bowmanship were renowned.

[3] The killing of women and children had occurred before, on both sides, but this marked a watershed in terms of open use as of attacks on noncombatants as a tactic of war.