American Historical Ephemera and Photography

Cabinet photograph on cardstock mount, with period inscription on mount below image, "Tom-e-ath-to & Squaw, Kiowas." Tom-e-ath's wife's name was Eonah-pah. Fort Sill, Indian Territory: W.S. Soule. Verso with photographer's imprint and penciled identification.

Trailing the Enemy was a leading Kiowa warrior. The curved feather in his hair proclaims him to be a member of the Onde, the highest caste in Kiowa society. Trailing the Enemy happened to be a guest in the camp on the Washita River of the Cheyenne chief Black Kettle, when it was attacked without warning by the 7th US Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Custer at dawn on 28 November 1868. A group of about 30 women and children fled along the river bottom, protected only by Trailing the Enemy with a bow and arrows, an elderly Cheyenne chief named Little Rock with a single-shot fusil, and a teenage boy. Custer's second-in-command Major Joel Elliot led a group of soldiers out of the village, chasing these fugitive women and children. Little Rock had been killed by Elliott's men and some of the Cheyenne women had been wounded when Arapaho reinforcements reached the area, quickly surrounding Elliott's force and wiping them out. Soule's portrait of Trailing the Enemy was made about a year and a half later.