Thanks for posting this James. Speight's Brigade was ordered from Ft Smith west to Johnson's Depot on Canadian River under the belief that there were was sufficient food there for them. Due to a severe snow storm, the supplies from Texas did not arrive at Johnson's Depot and Speight was ordered to take the Ft Smith-Boggy Depot Road to Johnson's Station on Brushy Creek and then to the vicinity of Doaksville.

A clip of an 1894 map is shown below. Earlier maps do not show accurately the location of the mouth of the Kiamichi being nearly south of Doaksville.

From the Barr's book...

A thaw set in finally on February 7, and the weary Texans struggled into camp on the 8th. Alfred T. Howell of the 34th Texas vividly recalled that they:

lived for three weeks on cold flour (parched corn, ground to meal) and water. No tents, no blankets, hardly anything to keep life and soul together. Many and many a night have I slept on the frozen ground with nothing around me but a blanket with a lump of ice for a pillow. By day, I limped along in my rundown boots, holes wearing into my feet. At night, my feet swelled and I could not stand. Men died every day. They laid themselves down. They would not move and they died. Men died on the wagons. From Fort Smith to the Mouth of the Kiamichi [River] where we camped, our trail was a long graveyard. The bones of dead horses and mules, with destroyed and castaway wagons, would have made almost a turnpike.

Alwyn Barr, Polignac's Texas Brigade, Texas A&M University Press. College Station, TX. 1998. Page 15-16.

Ken Martin