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Submitted: 1/19/14 • Approved: 1/28/14 • Last Updated: 3/25/18 • R2358-G0-S3
PRIVATE
INDIAN SCOUTS
Indian Wars
1843-1877
Medal Of Honor Recipient
On Sept. 19th, 1874, Paine, two Tonkawa scouts and two other Black Seminole scouts were sent out by Mackenzie to search for hostiles. Instead, the hostiles found them. Outnumbered by 40 Kiowas the scouts fled, fighting as they went. The details are not clear, but Paine seems to have held back to protect the others, allowing them to get away as he fired repeatedly at their pursuers. When his horse was shot out from under him he used it as a shield and somehow managed to kill one of his attackers and capture the dead man's horse and use it to escape.
For this feat of "habitual courage" he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He is the only known Medal Of Honor Recipient ever to be shot and killed by another Medal Of Honor Recipient. After he left the Army he resorted to the outlaw life and on New Years Day of 1877 he was killed in a barroom confrontation with Claron Windus, another Medal Of Honor recipient who was a daputy sheriff of Kinney County at the time. To add another coincidence to the occasion there was a third Medal Of Honor winner in the barroom at the time, Isaac Payne. Isaac, another former Buffalo Soldier, and Adam were not related, but Isaac did sometime spell his name Paine.
Contributed on 1/19/14 by tomtodd
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Record #: 2358