If you look at battlefield casualties records as far back as they've been kept, wounded numbers were/are generally 2-3 times the number of KIA.
True, but one has to figure in in this case the number of presumed dead who weren't, as in clearly hit but retreated out of sight, and cases where two guys shot at the same Comanche at about the same time.
Robert Hall, who was there for the aftermath sums up the way the casualties were tallied...
From the best information I could gather I think the boys killed about forty of the Comanches. IOW, nobody was in charge of keeping count at the time, the total seemingly tallied by consensus. Again I'm going to refer to aerial combat in WWII, similar in that combat was mobile against an elusive foe, and kills were hard to confirm. And once again the example of Custer at the Washita. There's certainly a whole host of other examples, the gist being that absent an actual after-action body count, the overwhelming tendency is to over-estimate hits.
Maybe Smithwick summed it up best, referring to a Comanche he had shot in 1836, and hit hard enough to put the guy down right there...
http://www.lsjunction.com/olbooks/smithwic/otd8.htm That was the only Indian I ever knew that I shot down, and, after a long experience with them and their success at getting away wounded, I am not at all sure that that fellow would not have survived my shot, so I can't say positively that I ever did kill a man, not even an Indian. With regards to rate of fire, common practice for the Eastern Tribes on the Plains was for at least for part of the party to always reserve fire such that some people were always loaded at any moment in time. This being the origin of the classic Plains Indian ploy observed on a couple of occasions, and paralleled in the opening combat scene in "Dances With Wolves"; a single daring warrior riding across the front of their foes in order to get them to all empty their rifles.
IIRC the Cheyenne Chief Roman Nose died attempting that exact same stunt in tbe 1870's. Relative to Plum Creek, seems a safe bet the "reserve fire so someone's always loaded" thing was common practice for all folks in that muzzleloading era, including Texans.
Indeed, the power of a rifle on the Plains was so well respected that a gesture of friendship in that era upon the approach of unfamiliar folks was to fire one's gun into the air beforehand, so demonstrating that it was empty. Sorta like tbhe universal open-handed wave, stretched out over a few hundred yards.
Among the rifles of that era, I believe "swamped" barrels were common, the bore actually wider near the muzzle to facilitate loading. How much they could keep up a SUSTAINED rate of fire with those rifles of course depends on the fit of the load (prob'ly looser back then) and the speed that fouling accumulated. One might assume too they'd be pretty quick with a cleaning jag and damp patch when fouling became a problem.
With regards to rate of fire, this first standoff was a long action (estimates run from 20-40 minutes), and must have seemed an eternity to thouse who were in it. I would guess we can be reasonably sure that the total number of shots fired were in the thousands, and even if we go with high estimates of hits, anywhere from one in ten to one in twenty or more shots actually drew blood (actually a pretty good ratio for firefights in the modern era).
One might expect a flurry of opening fire at first, settling down to more carefully aimed fire later on. These guys were likely skilled riflemen for the most part who had been shooting their whole lives, tbhe sort who would carefully observe the outcome of each shot rather than shooting blindly for twenty minutes. At least thats my guess, after all this was a holding action on the part of the Comanches, they didn't assault the lines direct.
Individual assaults on the lines are recorded, and likely drew flurries of shots, like the bold Comanche in the tall hat (apparently there was more than one of these).
But, as you state, the flow of wounded and dead Comanches away from the line would prob'ly kill the party atmosphere pretty quick, even among folks who expected to eventually die in battle anyway.
Birdwatcher
