William Averill Comstock

William Averill Comstock. "Ace of Scouts". , “Will Comstock was the favorite and best known scout on the Central Plains… the superior of all men who were scouts by profession with whom I had experience.” , , Lt. Col. George A. Custer “My Life on the Plains” , William Averill Comstock was born on January 17, 1842, in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, in the town of Comstock, named after his father. After family setbacks and the death of his mother, William, at age four, was sent to live with his sister, who had married a judge in Wisconsin. By the age of 18, Comstock had decided to move further west and became part owner of a road ranch at Cottonwood Springs, Nebraska. There, working as an Indian trader, he maintained two employees and $500 in property. In 1861, his address was listed as “Pike's Peak, Nebraska Territory”. Most assuredly, it was during this time that Comstock learned some of the ways of his native customers, their languages, dress and customs that later would serve him so well. He then scouted for a short period of time in Wyoming at Fort Halleck and later, in 1865, moved to Western Kansas, establishing his famous Rose Creek Ranch, eight miles west of Fort Wallace, Kansas. Here with abundant water and meadows of fine prairie hay, he was able to start a business providing Fort Wallace with forage for horses and livestock. From December 23, 1865 until January 15, 1868 he served with distinction as a scout at Pond Creek Station and Fort Wallace, and was known as the “Ace of Scouts”. , In 1867, Lt. Col. George A. Custer requested that Comstock join him on the Hancock Expedition. Comstock led Custer's famed Seventh Cavalry over 1500 miles through Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado in pursuit of evasive Cheyenne and Sioux Indians. Custer would later write, “No Indian knew the country more thoroughly than did Comstock. He was perfectly familiar with every divide, watercourse and strip of timber for hundreds of miles in either direction. He knew the dress and peculiarities of every Indian tribe, and spoke the languages of many of them… he was perfect in horsemanship, fearless in manner, a splendid hunter and a gentleman by instinct, as modest and unassuming as brave”. Comstock's bravery and skill were firmly established when the Seventh Cavalry's wagon train was attacked on its return to Fort Wallace and when he found the remains of Second Cavalry Lt. Lyman S. Kidder's ill-fated command, on Beaver Creek, near current day Edson, Kansas. , In 1868, Comstock was involved in a dispute with a man named Wyatt, over payments for wood contracting which had been reneged by Wyatt to Comstock. The bitter dispute culminated with Wyatt dying from gunshot wounds. Comstock stood trial and was later declared “not guilty” by a judge in Hays. In May of 1868, General Phil Sheridan requested Comstock's help in joining an elite group of scouts and frontiersmen being assembled to assist in subduing the hostiles that had been committing raids on the Saline, Solomon, and Smoky Hill River Valleys. In August, 1868, Comstock was ordered by Lt. Fredrick Beecher to track down the Cheyenne and persuade their leaders to stop their attacks. Comstock was joined by another scout named Abner “Sharp” Grover. , What the annals of history tell from that time forward, remain a mystery. What is known is that on August 16, 1868, William Averill Comstock died at the young age of 26. It was said that Comstock and Grover visited a Cheyenne village and upon leaving were attacked with Grover being injured and Comstock killed. Many theories exist including the belief held by many of Comstock's admirers and friends that Grover killed Comstock in order to become the “Chief of Scouts” and to acquire Comstock's Rose Creek Ranch. Surgeon Theophilus H. Turner, with whom Comstock helped find fossil specimens wrote, “I know of no one whose death would have produced so wide-felt an impression. He is certainly a great loss.” The remains of the “Ace of Scouts”, William A. Comstock, lie on a windswept Western Kansas prairie, a testament to the man, his bravery, and the mystery that surrounded him.