Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Comancheria

DocRoc- thanks for the review; I'll get it. Our past history intrigues me greatly. I often wonder when "out in the country" what was it like here 150-200 years ago?

For you and others who love this genre check out GREAT GUNFIGHTERS OF THE KANSAS COWTOWNS by Miller and Snell, THE OLD NORTH TRAIL by McClintock, GREAT WESTERN GUNFIGHTS by members of the Potomac Corral of the Westerners, and THE BUFFALO HUNTERS by Sanoz.

Woo hoo!!.... finally laid hand upon my copy of "RIP Ford's Texas", the actual first-person memoirs of a guy who was there; the Dean of Texas Indian Fighting hisself describing it as it was practised upon the Texas Prairies back in the days...

(though said prairies are beyond even distant memory now, Texas having changed in appearance with settlement possibly more than any other State).

Anyhow... lengthy to for me to transcribe but worth it....

In the event of being pursued, immediately after the preparation of depredations; the Comanches move day and night, very often not breaking gallop except to exchange horses (which they do several times) and water the caballada, until they deem themselves safe. Under these circumstances they will travel at least 70 miles a day, which is a long distance with the incumbrance of loose animals.

A party of warriors dressed in their trappings - embellished shields, fancy moccasins, long pig tails bedecked with siver, shoulder belts worked with beads and adorned with shells, fine leggings, ornamented cases for bows and arrows - mounted upon spirited horses, singing a war song, and sweeping over a prairie is a beautiful spectacle to a man with plenty of brave fellows to back him.

Their motions are easy and graceful. They sit a horse admirably, and manage one with a master hand. Charge them and they will retreat from you with double your numbers. But beware when pursuing them; keep your men together, well in hand, with at least half their arms loaded, else you will find when it is too late, the flying Comanches will turn on you and charge you to the very teeth.

A Comanche can draw a bow when on horseback, standing or running, with remarkable strength and accuracy. They have been known to kill horses running at full speed over one hundred yards away.

In the commencement of a fight, the yell of defiance is borne to you loud, long, and startling. The war whoop has no romance in it. It thrills even a stout heart with an indescribable sensation. The excitement of battle is quite as evident among these people as among others. Let the tide turn against them, send lead messengers through some of their warriors, and then the mournful wail is heard; its lubrigous notes are borne back to you with uncouth cadence, betokening sorrow, anger, and a determination to revenge.

Never ride upon a bowman's left; if you do, ten to one he will pop an arrow through you. When mounted, an Indian cannot use his bow against an object behind and to his right.

The dead are usually borne from the field. Nothing but the most imminent danger prevents them from performing the incumbent duty of not leaving the body of a comrade in the hands of an enemy. Over a fallen chief they will make a desperate stand. Their caution seems merged in the determination to risk everything to bear him from the field. To attain this object they will fight furiously, bravely, and often.

If they abandon him, it is usually in despair. Flight is no longer methodical and menacing to the pursuer. Retreat degenerates into route. After this they have seldom if ever been known to resume the offensive. They will hide themselves in the first chapparal affording security against discovery, remain during the day, and visit the dead at night, and if not able to remove them will spread blankets or some covering over them.

The bow is placed horizontally in shooting; a number of arrows are held in the left hand; the bow operates as a rest for the arrows. The distance - the the curve the missile has to describe in reaching the object - is determined by the eye without taking aim. At the distance of 60 yards and over, arrows can be dodged, if but one Indian shoots at you at a time. Under forty yards the six-shooter has little advantage over the bow.

At long distances the angle of elevation is considerable. It requires a quick eye to see the arrow and judge the whereabouts of its descent, a good dodger to move out of the way, and a good rider withal to keep in the saddle. A man is required to keep both eyes engaged in an Indian fight.


Birdwatcher

Just finished it. Fascinating. I do have some issues with it however, namely the author's disdain for the military (how one can even come close to comparing what Comanches did to their victims (see page 41 for starters) to even the most egregious acts of violence committed by US forces in Vietnam is a stretch and while there is no doubt as to the Comanche's fighting and endurance prowess, they were not by any stretch the Wehrmacht or anything approaching that. They were consumate warriors to be sure,but by Stone Age standards and once we broke their code, the end came fairly fast. Lastly, the kooks( READ: TRH& DD and the rest of the crowd) among us should read what I consider one of the best descriptions of Manifest Destiny I've read in a while, namely our western expansion was nothing more that empire building pure and simple, with the Mexican War as the quintessential example of a trumped up war as an excuse to gain about a 66% increase in national territory. Love the book.

Ol' RIP sure talked purty, didn't he?

No reason why a fire can't be lit under this thread so it can be ridden fer another ten miles or so.



Yeah he did, but he walked the walk and talked the talk.
Some photos, some better'n others.

First off, not too far from where I live, a familiar sight in Texas; one of those 1936 State of Texas historical markers, but this one more melancholy than most.



Marking the demise of one Moses Lapham, and ten stalwart companions. Like Hays he was a surveyor, a highly hazardous profession at that time and place. But apparently such wholesale mortality of young men was not uncommon in those years. Dunno what, if any, cost to the Comanches in this one.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fla37



In the background lies Leon Creek, modern Highway 90 following the course of the old Spanish road.

It looks green and rural in the shot, but appearances can be deceiving, Just about a half mile or so upstream lies one of the more notorious neighborhoods in this town. Downstream of this point the creek meanders across Lackland AFB and Kelly Field. Point of interest; a certain doted-on Corpus Christi pit bull was first located abandoned at that very spot, hanging around a pile of construction trash that had been dumped.

Nowdays there's "DO NOT EAT THE FISH CAUGHT HERE" signs all over; a legacy of decades of dumping along the creek. The marker too is surrounded by the shards of beer and wine bottles thrown against it. But in 1838 this was a fording place along the Camino Real, a forested strip running along the creek, said creek winding across across an open plain dotted with big old live oaks.

It was reportedly Comanches what did Lapham and his friends in, taking out the four of them and then maybe waiting for the rescue party the next day.

I wonder though what the REAL story was. This was in 1838, before the area was inundated with Anglos, and just five miles west of Old San Antonio, along an active trading route. I'm guessing at least some of the local Bexareno inhabitants prob'ly knew the Comanches were there.

Speaking of Comanches raiding in and around established towns, here's Ford's take on Comanche raids in the new settlement of Austin: Beginning in 1846, between two and five full years after Hays "changed the balance of power" with them newfangled revolvers, that a full 40 miles deeper yet into Comanche country west of Austin.

And here, after his extensive service with the Rangers in the Mexican War, IIRC Ford describes his own first actual foray against Comanches (weren't the last), here writing in his usual third person...

In 1848 Indian alarms were not infrequent in Travis County, and even in the city of Austin, the capital of Texas. In those days a gentleman seldom rode into the country any distance without carrying arms. It was not safe to ramble in the suburbs of the town unarmed.

Mr. Horst lived within the corporate limits of Austin. He was attacked by Indians on his way to market. Early in 1846 the writer noted hearing the "check" of billiard balls, the howling of wolves, and the yelling of Indians while he was standing on Congress Avenue.

Austin was a bona fide frontier town. The Indians had killed a goodly number of people within the city and nearby. The citizens would get together and make a reconnaisance in the adjacent country, usually with little effect.

Early in 1849 depredations were committed in various localities south and west of Austin. It was known that Indians often passed down the valley of the Colorado River, which was almost unsettled above the capital.

It was a known habit of theirs to go out by the same route by which they came in. A suggestion was made to raise a company of citizens, move up the Colorado, and endeavor to intercept the murdering marauders. John S. Ford was elected captain of a detachment of a little more than twenty men.

After having ascended the river about twenty-five miles, we found a fresh Indian trail. It was followed two days with a good prospect of overtaking the savages. The second day, in the evening, small fires were built and coffee made - a very indisrete proceeding.

At night a heavy rain fell. It was probable the Indians and whites were camped near each other. The redskins discovered us and left in a hurry. The trail could not be followed the next morning. The scout was not a success.


What was REALLY going on about that time was that the Comanches would be whupped later that same year by a massive Cholera epidemic brung out onto the Plains by the 49'ers, said germs carrying off most of the Southern Comanche bands plaguing Austin.

The usual story, first disease and then the unstoppable power of population demographics sweeping everything in its path. Even so, IIRC the Austin/San Antonio region would STILL suffer from occasion Indian raids as late as 1873, thirty years after Walker's Creek.

Birdwatcher

Thanks for the recommendation. Good book.

Birdwatcher and others,

I've read the book about Nelson Lee and his time spent with the Rangers and capture by Comanches. What are your thoughts on his story and how credible is it?

More photos, some better'n than others. As fate would have it, we had occasion last weekend to drive north out of Boerne Texas, up RR 1376 past Luckenbach clear to Hwy 290, 1376 roughly running along the route most likely taken by Jack Hays in May of 1844, scouting north from San Antonio in search of Yellow Wolf and his marauders, crossing the Guadalupe and headng up to the Pedernales (both of which rivers run roughly west to east at this point).

Here's a high point about forty miles north of Old San Antonio, looking north to the Guadalupe River Valley, that actual river five miles north from this point...



You can at least get an idea of the scale of the country and the distances covered. In 1844 this was a sea of grass, enough to swallow up any party of sixteen men, riding boldly out against unknown odds.

Nowadays it ain't nearly as wild as the photo suggests.

This is just thirty-forty minutes west of the Austin-San Antonio corridor, and most of the land here is subdivided, as much as anyplace I've seen say in Connecticut, Pennsylvania or New York. More'n anything too there's TREES, not big ones, but everywhere: What happens to prairies when you overgraze 'em and don't let 'em burn.

Here's the river itself from the bridge, cose to the old fording place, lined as watercourses usually are at this Southern latitude with bald cypress.

The river channel itself at least might look about as it did in 1844. We are in the grip of a tremendous drought though, and this river is the lowest I've ever seen it.



Just north of the river, the hamlet of Sisterdale, a wide spot in the road...



Nobody knows for sure where exactly Hays was when he went to bat against all them Comanches, but you might've been able to hear the fracas from here. This is a pretty heavily travelled road nowadays; minivans and SUV's passing up to the antique shops and restaurants of Fredericksburg, motorcycles heading for Luckenbach, and the occasion swarm of spandex-clad cyclists.

Apropos of not much at all, a party of zebras along the way. The Texas Hill Country is sorta like a zoo, never know WHAT you're gonna see, most of it available for shooting. But hey, paid hunts behind tall fences keep a LOT of Texas ranches open, and not subdivided like everywhere else.





A guy riding a steer amid the ruins of Luckenbach...




Awww heck, it ain't all THAT bad, the propieters of that hamlet striving mightily to preserve the character of the place as popularity and population slowly strangle it. Here's the famous post office/general store....




The old gas pumps have been gone for at least ten years, but people still sign the building. Its just that I remember the place from a quarter-century back, before the surrounding fields were parking lots, and when you couldn't get yer picture taken sitting on a beeve. We would leave the bar in College Station at closing time, ride most of the rest of the night to get to Enchanted Rock for the sunrise, eat breakfast in Fredericksburg, and then fall asleep with a beer under a tree at Luckenbach to the strains of talented musicians holding informal jam sessions.

Anyhow, apparently too there's still some cool bikes show up on weekends, check out this '37 (at least in part) Triumph...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/luchenbach3.jpg[/img]

But, they were setting up for a wedding amid the live oaks along Grape Creek (more accurately the bone-dry bed of the same) and festooning the oaks there with a rainbow of colored ribbon. Dunno if it was to be a same-sex ceremony, but we suspected so given the history of homosexuals elsewhere co-opting cool locations.

As it would turn out, along the lines of that same suspicion, we headed east on 290 east of Fredericksburg, said highway paralleling the Pedernales, Hays' turn-around point in late May of '44.

In the last quarter-century a succession of vinyards have grown up along this route now, and we stopped in at one open for weekend "wine-tasting" to pick up a bottle to try that evening.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/windery-1.jpg[/img]

We was disappointed on two counts.

First off, despite the cultured-looking crowd crowding the inside and hanging out in the shaded yard out back listening to some guy (actually pretty good) play guitar and sing, there were few actual bottles of wine to be had, just some small ones. So, contrary to my expectations it weren't like a liquor store, only with wine.

Secondly, at least half the clientele were women.... who apparently preferred the company of other women.

Some were quite attractive and the whole thing might have been somewhat titillating except for that vaguely hostile aura that generally surrounds actual lesbians, especially crowds of actual lesbians.

I expect if you could have stopped the action at Walker Creek that long ago early-June day, and showed both sides just what would be transpiring around those parts 167 years down the line....


Anyhow, I dunno if those girls were a regular thing, or maybe just on a field trip out of Austin or something, but we were happy to roll on down the highway to the LBJ Ranch, now a State Park.

And.. hallelueia! There we found a sight familiar to anyone around those parts 167 years ago...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/buffalo3.jpg[/img]

The business end of an old bull....

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/buffalo5.jpg[/img]

Birdwatcher

Working from distant memory, the most diplomatic way I can put it is the elaborate "Comanche" ceremonies and customs described in detail by Lee are NOT supported by any other sources, contemporary or otherwise.

The gist seems to be that the book is a load of humbug.

Birdwatcher

Thanks for the input on Lee.

The pics are great and it sure is nice to put a visual on the terrain, especially for someone like me who has never seen this area. Thanks for posting.

Back to Nelson Lee. Did he even ride with Hayes and the Rangers?

If you had to reccomend a book or two about Jack Hayes or the Rangers, what might it be?

Nobody knows how much of his book was pure invention. Walter Prescott Webb, a renowned Texas historian wrote a foreward of one edition of Lee's book saying how well it described Ranger life.

Which would seem to indicate that Webb knew startlingly little about Indians, indeed his seminal work "The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense" (1936) is light on specifics in that regard. Webb devotes 23 pages to a chapter on Hays, but devotes most it to the time the Rangers spent fighting Anglo and Mexican thieves and brigands.



I dunno that there IS a good book about Hays, the problem being so few records were kept as to the specifics of Ranger activities prior to the Mexican War, such that all we get are collections of anecdotes from the five years or so Hays rangered out of San Antonio.

These are all Texas classics, already mentioned here and worth a look...

The Texas Rangers Walter Prescott Webb 1936
Comanches: The Destruction of a People T.R. Fehrenbach 1973
Empire of the Summer Moon Gwynne 2010 (???)

..there's more mentioned on this thread, I just ain't read 'em. The latest and greatest Ranger book though is prob'ly one Steve NO clued me on to...

The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso Mike Cox 2008.

All contemporary sources, both Indian and White, testify to the remarkable abilities of John Coffee Hays. Cox does devote 20 plus pages to him, but is likwise reduced to anecdotes, best summed up by the following quote, pertaining to 1844, two months before Hays rode out after Yellow Wolf...

Though not yet at full strength, Hay's company rode that March in pursuit of cattle thieves. The rustlers had driven off nearly two thousand head of cattle and were believed to be headed north towards the Colorado River. If Hays caught up with the cattle thieves, the result did not make the public print.

(One wonders how one sneaks 2,000 cattle anywhere without leaving a trail plain as day, likewise one wonder how such thieves could hope to outrun any sort of pursuit.)

Given the anecdotal history of Hays from even the best sources, this account on http://www.theoutlaws.com/heroes2.htm is prob'ly as good as any.

Here's a quote from that last link that interests me, concerning the ubiquitous Delawares again, practically the phantoms of Texas history, they show up all over the place.

The time that Hays went hunting with seventeen Delaware friends to the Pecos River, he learned what it meant to live like the Comanche.

The eighteen friends traveled on foot, leaving their horses at home, hoping this maneuver would eliminate any temptation to the Comanche, who took every opportunity to steal horses. Reaching the river, they split into pairs for their hunt, but one member of the party stumbled into camp and said his partner had been killed by a passing band of more than 100 Comanche.

The Delaware and Comanche were bitter enemies, and a vote was quickly taken to overtake the Comanche before they could cross the Rio Grande, since both Jack and the Delaware were obligated to remain on the Texas side of the river. They took to the trail with the Delaware in a never-tiring trot from which Hays wearied at the end of the first few miles.

The Delaware and Hays ran for two days and nights, making only brief stops for food, drink, and rest, while the everlasting pounding of feet set Jack to wondering how much longer he could endure. Finally, he surpassed the point of no return, and his screaming muscles and depleted lung power somehow remembered his days at Davidson Academy in Nashville. He had run further than he had ever run before, but he had kept up.

At dawn on the third day, they attacked, surprising the Comanche, who ran frantically to the river to escape. It was a victory for the Delaware and Jack, who fought hand-to-hand with only a knife and tomahawk.

An extraordinary feat by anyone's standards: Eighteen guys carrying rifles and the equipment for the same run down 100 mounted Comanche raiders ON FOOT and put 'em to rout. Tho' nary a revolver in the bunch. Oughtta be a Texas legend, but it aint.

Birdwatcher

On the topic of flogging reluctant mules, this thread has some miles left on it

...got me to thinking on Noah Smithwick, in particular his account "from the winter of '37 or '38...

http://www.oldcardboard.com/lsj/olbooks/smithwic/otd15.htm

I can not just say when it was, but I think in the winter of 1837 or 1838, that Colonel Karnes, who was stationed at San Antonio, sent in for Captain Eastland to take his men out there, as the Indians were proposing to come in for a treaty, and Colonel Karnes, suspicious that it was a ruse, wanted to be prepared for any treacherous movement. Thinking it might have a good effect on my red friends, Captain Eastland invited me to go along as spokesman. Owing to the scarcity of money, the blacksmith business was not very remunerative, and one of the rangers, Isam M. Booth, offering to give me his time if I would take his place, I once more cast my lot with the Texas rangers.

The principal road in those days was the old Spanish Trail, the Camino Real, which ran from San Antonio through the present towns of New Braunfels, San Marcos and Bastrop, angling northeast to the old Spanish settlement of Nacodoches in far East Texas.

Smithwick at the time, enduring "the scarcity of money" was called to San Antonio as an interpreter. To get to San Antonio from Bastrop he would have decended the Camino Real.

Worth noting here that this was ghe exact same route travelled by Davy Crockett and his companions en route to martyrdom at the Alamo.

In all my years here I had never bothered to trace Smithwick's route, although the Camino Real remains today as Nacodoches Road, angling from above downtown off Broadway northeast along secluded roads to New Braunfels on the Guadalupe, thirty miles north from old San Antonio.

Took a long morning the other morning to set that right.

We went on out to San Antonio and struck camp, to wait for the Indians to come in. Several days elapsed and, nothing having been seen or heard of them, Captain Eastland, concluding that we were on a false scent, announced his intention of returning to Fort Coleman. On the day preceding that set for breaking camp I went into San Antonio, wearing a cloak with a gay lining in it, which so struck the fancy of a Mexican resident that he offered me a good mule for it.

I accepted the offer and, returning to camp with my prize, Francisco, a Mexican boy who was with us, warned me that the animal had probably been stolen, and pretty soon there would come a claimant who would prove it away from me, that being a practice among them. Determined to outwit them for once, I sought Captain Eastland and, explaining the situation to him, asked leave to depart at once, and await the company at some point between that and home.

My request being granted, I saddled up my mule and, leaving my horse with the boys to bring on, struck out for home.


The thing to understand about this region is that it overlies the huge Edward's Aquifer, an artiesian formation in porous limestone underlaying most of the southern edge of the Texas Hill Country from Del Rio, 150 miles west of San Antonio to Austin, one hundred miles north.

Springing up, or formerly springing up from this huge formation are/were a number of major springs, these springs giving rise to the major trails or roads through this area and what became our major communities and highways.

San Antonio grew up around the five Spanish Missions moved here after they failed further east. The missions were moved here on account of the San Antonio River, and the San Antonio River is here on account of two major springs, now reduced to a trickle; San Antonio Springs and San Pedro Springs.

Folks may note that the San Antonio River still has some water in it, this is because significant water is pumped up from the aquifer into the hippo enclosure at the San Antonio Zoo, them getting first crap at it, as it were. This water is then routed around the zoo through various enclosures before flowing into the river channel proper. Maybe three miles downstream part of this flow is dammed to form the riverwalk.

Heading out from Old San Antonio then on that slow mule, Smithwick would have first ascended either the east or the west side of the river to the San Antonio Springs just north of the present zoo, and then headed out on the Camino Real proper.

During their eighty years of operation, more than fifty miles of acequias (irrigation ditches) were dug to serve the mission fields, the oldest streets and property lines laid out along the lines of these acequias, even though in most cases the ditches have been filled in for about 100 years now. They were still all in use in the 1830s though the missions were all inactive by that time.

One the east bank of the river, one acequia ran more or less straight south to from the river headwaters to the Alamo mission, conforming more or less to the route of present-day Broadway...



OTOH, if Smithwick had come up the west side of the river, he would have taken the road that meandered along THAT acequia, said road later to become the equally meandering N. Saint Mary's Street...



Either route would have put him about here, yet another spectacularly uninformative pic showing the river just below the ingress point of all that zoo poop water...



From there the route moves north along present-day Broadway through the upscale Burg of Alamo Heights, climbing the low hills that would later be called Alamo Heights to cross over from the San Antonio River/Olmos Creek drainage to the Salado Creek drainage, the gentle meanders of the road along this stretch giving away its age; the route was laid out by use, not by surveyors.

Alamo Heights today is notoriously upscale (said residents locally known as the "09'ers" after the zip code ending). In Smithwick's day it would have been open country, oak-studded prairie...



Maybe three miles after leaving the springs, and about five miles as the crow flies from the Alamo, Smithwick woulda descended from the heights to a flatter, gently rolling area, this about the place where the modern North Loop 410 passes east-west over the route (seen here looking downslope, the 410 overpass visible in the far background)....



Birdwatcher

always like to stop in at Luckenbach when I'm in the neighborhood....it ain't what it was forty years ago, but neither am I, I guess. summer before last I went by with my daughter on the way up to kayak and fish the Llano....it was pretty dead. couple of bikers (non-lesbian) and a truck load of aging cosmic cowboys having a cold Lone Star. Grace liked it.

I'm about 80 pages in, thanks for the recommendation.

"But, they were setting up for a wedding amid the live oaks along Grape Creek (more accurately the bone-dry bed of the same) and festooning the oaks there with a rainbow of colored ribbon. Dunno if it was to be a same-sex ceremony, but we suspected so given the history of homosexuals elsewhere co-opting cool locations"

Along about 1980 - it was AFTER Hondo died,for sure - the local JP or County Judge came outside the old store one Sunday afternoon and ordered one of the "local legends" to gather up a couple more pickers and come inside to provide music for a wedding he was officiating.

The jurist admonished the newly appointed band leader to play only the wedding march and "no shennanigins like last time".

As soon as the bride and groom had been properly pronounced as man and wife,the 3 piece band[I was NOT included]struck up Jimmy Buffets'" Why don't we get drunk and screw?".

One of the newly formed band's members was a guy just passing thru who had a Crown Royal bag full of harps in different keys and he was top notch Luekenbach quality for the time,which was plenty damn good.

There were so many really good musicians back then that I can't recall but a couple of them that really stood out from the rest.Everything was acoustic and nothing was pre-arranged.

It went to hell shortly afterwards.

Just bought it for my Kindle, looking forward to it.

Know the are well BW. My best friend's son lives in Uvalde and they have a hunting ranch out there near Fort Calrk. We routinely do that triangle from San Antonio north to Fredericksburg the west to Bracketville and down to Uvalde. I love it, wife hates it

Reminds me of a song about a drunken depressed man that called his ex to say he was going to fling himself off the bridge at Luckenbach. He didn't mention it was a 3ft. drop.

to dry gravel.

Yeah Steve it was pretty sad.