Too young to fight, Robert was 15 by the end of the war. But there was looting and pillaging taking place by ex- (and still current) soldiers from both sides. At sixteen (after the murder of his grandmother) Robert joined the Ozark Militia, a volunteer group of horsemen attempting to protect three local communities from raiders. Unfortunately, they were mistaken for raiders
themselves and Robert joined the Army to escape prosecution.
In 1867 Private Robert Wolfe completed his training. He was assigned to the Seventh Cavalry under Major General Philip H. Sheridan. In 1868 his mother and sister moved to Houston Texas where his sister became a nurse and married a doctor.
Camp Wichita was staked out on January 8, 1869 by Sheridan who led a campaign into Indian Territory to stop hostile tribes from raiding border settlements in Texas and Kansas. Later this camp was to be named Fort Sill. The first post commander was Brevet Maj. Gen. Benjamin Grierson and the first Indian agent was Colonel Albert Gallatin Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone.
Sheridan's massive winter campaign involved six cavalry regiments accompanied by renown frontier scouts such as "Buffalo Bill" Cody, "Wild Bill" Hickok, Ben Clark and Jack Stilwell. Robert became good friends with Cody and Clark, but never quite saw eye-to-eye with Hickock.
Troops camped at the location of the new fort included the 7th Cavalry, the 19th Kansas Volunteers and the 10th Cavalry, a distinguished unit of black "buffalo soldiers". Troop L of the 7th Cavalry was a unit comprised entirely of Indians and considered one of the best in the west.
Several months after the establishment of Fort Sill, President Grant approved a peace policy placing responsibility for the Southwest tribes under Quaker Indian agents. Fort Sill soldiers were restricted from taking punitive action against the Indians who interpreted this as a sign of weakness. They resumed raiding the Texas frontier and used Fort Sill as a sanctuary.
From Fort Sill, General George Armstrong Custer with his command, consisting of his own regiment and a regiment of Kansas volunteers, marched westward through the counties of Comanche, Kiowa and Greer and on into the Texas Panhandle to the border of the Staked Plain. Finally, the Cheyenne were overtaken, their village was captured and they were forced to come back with the troops. This was the beginning of the end of the old order, wherein every tribe
was free to roam at will on the Great Plains.
In 1871 General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman arrived at Fort Sill to find several Kiowa chiefs boasting about a wagon train massacre. When Sherman ordered their arrest during a meeting on Grierson's porch two of the Indians attempted to assassinate him. Corporal Wolfe's actions in that crisis got him promoted to Sergeant. In memory of the event, the Commanding General's quarters were dubbed Sherman House.
As for George Armstrong Custer, in 1873 he was ordered to the Dakota Territory to protect railway surveyors and gold miners who were crossing land owned by the Sioux. Later he was to be massacred at Little Big Horn in 1876.
In June 1874 the Comanches, Kiowas and Southern Cheyenne went on the warpath and the South Plains shook with the hoofbeats of Indian raiders. The resulting Red River Campaign, which lasted a year, was a war of attrition involving relentless pursuit by converging military columns. During this timeframe, Sergeant Robert Wolfe was field commissioned into the grade of Lieutenant.
Without a chance to graze their livestock and faced with a disappearance of the great buffalo herds, the hostile tribes eventually surrendered. Quanah Parker and his Quohada Comanches were the last to abandon the struggle and their arrival at Fort Sill in June 1875 marked the end of Indian warfare on the South Plains.
Robert married the daughter of a Swedish immigrant in 1878. Until the territory opened for settlement, Fort Sill's mission was on of law enforcement and soldiers protected the Indians from outlaws, squatters and cattle rustlers. Robert was promoted to Captain in 1879.
In 1880, Captain Robert Wolfe left the Army and using his savings bought an outfit and 500 head of cattle in Texas. These he moved up the Great Western Trail into the Red River area he was so familiar with from the campaign of 1874. The RKW Ranch was not large by the standards of the time, but offered Robert and his wife a comfortable life.
He settled at the base of Tepee Mountain where the Red River met with Elm Fork. This was in Kiowa County right on the border of Greer, about fifteen miles East of Mangum. Roughly a six by eight mile rectangle, it was bordered by running water and hills. Robert purposefully chose that location as it kept the cattle from drifting too much from the ranch headquarters, and the cattle drives moving North would be much less likely to pick up his cattle in the process.
In 1881, Robert secured a beef contract with the army to feed the Indians. Obviously his prior contacts with the army didn’t hurt, but there was no talk or rumors of impropriety. With that contract, his spread wasn’t enough so he hired more cowhands and started using “free range” in Greer. At this point in time, almost all of Greer County was cattle and ranches.
1881 was a bad year for Robert. His wife died at the hands of two trail drivers while he was chasing cattle in the hills. After burying his wife, he set out to get the men responsible. Apparently the found out he was on their heels and leaving their herd, lit a shuck for Texas. He caught up with them at Doan’s Crossing.
Corwin F. Doan and an uncle, Jonathon Doan, operated a very successful supply store at the strategic point along the Red River where cattlemen crossed with their herds of cattle on the way to Dodge City, Kansas. It was known as the “jumping off” place as it was the last store on the Great Western Trail before entering the Indian Territory on the way to Eastern markets.
In the resulting altercation, Robert shot down one of the men while the other escaped. The trail eventually led to Muskogee in the Indian Territory. Muskogee was a major stopping point for the M, K, & T Railroad. Due to the resulting gun trouble, Robert was arrested and imprisoned in nearby Fort Gibson. After a short stay, he was transferred to Fort Smith Arkansas for his trial.
While he was in jail, his ranch hands left and rustlers ran off with most of his stock. However, he was found innocent by the jury and set free.
Judge Isaac C. Parker, who for 21 years presided over the Western District of Arkansas and all of Indian Territory, stood for the law west of Fort Smith. Parker's court was largely responsible for bringing civilization to one of the last and wildest frontiers remaining in the American West. But the price of civilization was very costly. Assisting Judge Parker was a company of 200 deputy marhals, 65 of which died in the line of duty.
From 1875 through 1896, Judge Parker became famous for his stern brand of justice in a wild and untamed land. For the first 14 years of his 21 at Fort Smith, Parker's judgments were final and irrevocable. He was hard on killers and rapists but was not a cruel man. He reserved most of his sympathy for the victim and his family. Most of Parker's critics lived in civilized communities and did not appreciate the raw frontier conditions of the Indian Territory. Most local citizens approved of the hanging judge.
The Oklahoma Territory was a wild and lawless place back then. There were only a few territorial marshals to keep the peace. Judge Parker of Fort Smith saw an opportunity in the recently released ex-cavalryman. As such he recruited Robert as a Deputy United States Marshall and assigned him the Southwest area of Oklahoma to patrol.
In 1883 Congress reduced Judge Parker’s territorial jurisdiction by dividing up the Oklahoma Territory into three parts. The court for the Northern District of Texas, headquartered in Graham, took charge of the region south of the South Canadian River. Due to his knowledge of the Red River areas, Robert was transferred to the court in Graham Texas.
Marshal Wolfe’s circuit included the Southern Oklahoma Territory west of line known as Hell’s Fringe to Greer County. At that point in time, Greer County was considered part of Texas. Robert’s area was mostly Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Counties west of Fort Sill and along the Red River. He often chased outlaws into Greer County.
On a typical circuit of his assigned territory, Marshal Wolfe would start out with the ten days hard ride from Graham, Texas to Fort Sill in the Oklahoma Territory. Once at Fort Sill he would rest for a few days while he gathered information on what had been going on in the area since his last visit. Then he would acquire a scout and ride his patrols of the Red River area,
collecting outlaws and depositing them at Fort Sill. Periodically, a jail wagon would arrive and cart off his prisoners to the prison in Graham. About three or four times a year Marshal Wolfe would return to Graham to attend the trials that he had to testify in. After about a month of trials he would return to Fort Sill and continue his patrols of the Red River region.
In what spare time he had, Robert would work on rebuilding his ranch. This time he hired young Indian boys to run the place, paying them the full wages of a standard cowhand. He recruited from families he trusted, he had fought against their fathers years before.
In 1890 Texas lost Old Greer County and it was added to Oklahoma. This decision was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1896. As such, in 1890 Robert’s area of authority was shifted westward and he patrolled most of the Red River country to include Greer County. In 1893 H.S. Tittle was appointed Sheriff of Greer County and his office was placed in Mangum.
Marshal Wolfe retired in 1897 after fifteen years. He believed strongly in justice and establishing the Oklahoma Territory as a state with it’s own laws and courts. This dream was not to be realized until Theodore Roosevelt signed the Hamilton Bill on June 14, 1906. At which time Robert was 56 years old and long since hung up his guns retiring to his RKW ranch in the Red River country.
