July 20, 1848; Protection, Kansas: Lt. Col. William Gilpin wanted confirmation that the hostile Indians had been removed from the vicinity of the Santa Fe Trail and no longer posed a threat to travelers. On 15 July 1848, Gilpin ordered Capt. Thomas Jones, Company B, Indian Battalion, to take 113 cavalry, civilian guides, and a six-pound howitzer to scout for any remaining Indians.
Jones left the Arkansas River at its south bend and headed south along Bluff Creek to the Cimarron River, camping there on 19 July. At dawn the next day, the company marched west up the north bank of the Cimarron. At 10 a.m. civilian guide Micheau Duvall spotted Indians upriver. Jones organized his men for an attack and proceeded to a densely vegetated spot near the mouth of Willow Creek, about twelve miles south of present-day Protection, Kansas. A Lieutenant Bain took thirty cavalrymen to inspect the grove, whereupon a band of Comanches sprang out and attacked them. Jones, seeing Bain's predicament, sent Lt. Joseph C. Eldridge to the other end of the grove with thirty additional troopers. Eldridge approached from the south, trapping the Comanches between the two detachments. The battle was fought hand-to-hand for a while, but the troopers finally managed to get into shooting positions and overwhelm the Indians with their superior firepower.
The soldiers counted forty-one Indians in total, and only six were seen to get away. They found twenty-one Comanche bodies; Jones assumed the remaining fourteen were dead or dying in the thick brush, but he didn't stay around long enough to police the woods. Five soldiers were severely wounded, one of them Eldridge, whose wound was his second in eleven days.
After tending to his men's wounds, Jones trekked along the Cimarron to the mouth of Snake Creek, where he discovered the remains of an Indian village near the site of the Battle of the Cimarron. Jones returned to Fort Mann to get medical care for his wounded, arriving there on 23 July. The army's two recent victories appeared to have driven the Comanches away from the Santa Fe Trail, at least for the time being
