The campaign the Army organized to end off-reservation resistance on the Southern Plains in the summer and fall of 1874 was called the Red River War.

It was a systematic approach, conceived by General Philip Sheridan and executed by the commanders of the Department of Texas and the Department of Missouri.

Rather than chasing mobile bands across open plains — a pursuit that had consistently failed to produce decisive results — the Army would attack from multiple directions simultaneously, driving the off-reservation peoples before them, denying them rest and refuge, destroying their camps and supplies wherever they were found, and ultimately leaving no safe place on the Southern Plains where resistance was possible.

Five columns were organized to converge on the Texas Panhandle from different directions: