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Very interesting quotations, Mike. By these lights, it would appear that "It's the economy, stupid!" applied then as much as it does now. Economic motivation is powerful motivation, and large societies don't exist without it.

And I have to say I want to read more of Mr. Smithwick!

Ya, before reading stuff again for this thread I too was viewing Comanches as "typical" Horse Indians going to war for status etc...

Well, I'm sure they did, but turns out there was this huge pragmagtic angle too. Fer example, everyone here would understand the motives of the Scot James Kirker and at least a few former Texas Rangers actively participating the in the Apache scalp trade beginning in the latter 1840's when Mexico began paying bounties. They were in it for the money.

We would even accord Kirker's Shawnee crew the same motives; being acculturated Eastern tribesmen they were in it for the money too.

But here's the deal, Hamanleinen points out that the COMANCHES down in Mexico, who at that time would form large encampments down there for months, got involved in this trade in a big way too.... NOT yer stereotypical Plains Indians, at least not the ones in popular remembrance.

A similar case, I also have had another book knocking around for years, David Paul Smith's "Frontier Defense in the Civil War: Texas Rangers and Rebels" (1992). Upon first read it seemed cripplingly dull, even given the topic, and frankly it is, devoting most of its time to the repeated organization and reorganization of various units scrambling to both secure the border against pro-Union irregulars and Confederate deserters, enforce the draft, and when they could find the time (not much), fight Indians.

Two things in there especially relevant to this thread. Smith gives the far Texas Frontier populations in 1860 as being just 5,000 Whites (as opposed to 600,000 in the whole state), that figure doubling the next year. Whatever ever the actual figures, the portion of the Texas population actually being flayed by Comanche raids was small compared to the state as a whole, even less compared to the nation. Probably important in seeking to understand why just a few hundred raiding savages were allowed to hold up civilization in that part of the world for eight long years after the War Between the States.

Although Smith does point out that in the 1850's, fully 25% of US forces in the field were deployed on the Texas Frontier.

Smith also gives 1860 as the year that raiding Comanches and Kiowas started to drive off cattle in a big way. This is of interest to me because, while you can run horses and mules probably at least as fast as those ridden by your pursuers and so escape given any kind of head start, you can't do that while driving a herd of cows, at least not to my knowledge.

Ergo, in 1860 and thereafter, Comanche raiders after cattle likely felt that either nobody was gonna come after them, or if they did they would be able to handle the opposition.

Perhaps this was partly due to the absence of that Federal unit that would a training ground for some future prominent Confederates; "Jeff Davis's Own", Robert E. Lee's outfit the US 2nd Cavalry, actively patrolling the Texas frontier in the late 1850's, and once in a while even catching Indians.

The stated reason for the shift to rustling cattle on the part of the Comanches? Trade of course, meeting the increasing demand in the Indian Territory and New Mexico.

Birdwatcher

If we're gonna talk about the Great Raid of 1840, it would help to show the ground...



In 1840 Austin was still new, San Antonio being the largest community in Texas (I believe it would continue to hold that distinction until the arrival or air conditioning made life in Texas bearable to the masses). The distance between Austin and San Antonio was about eighty miles of mostly treeless prairie, said prairies extending in patches at least eastward past Bastrop on the Colorado River.

Thus the events of the raid as they transpired were conducted over terrain far more open back then than it is at present.

Noah Smithwick was living in Webber's Prairie, a few miles below Bastrop, and Colonel Fisher, still nominal commander of the Frontier Regiment in San Antonio, was over by the Brazos (the next river east of Bastrop) raising a company to fight for the Federalist faction in Mexico. At least a faction of that Federalist Army camped along the Medina, which on the scale of this map would be right against the dot signifying San Antonio.

Moore's strictly chronological narrative ("Savage Frontier") is irritating in the book as it leads him to constantly jump between locations within Texas, presenting disparate events as they unfolded along a timeline.

But he uses this style to advantage when covering the Great Raid, presenting the growing alarm among the Texas Settlements as different travellers encountered the tracks of a huge war party, heading south.

As the Comanches moved down south from their territory, they made a glancing evening blow against the fortified structure known as Kenney's Fort... about twenty five miles north of Austin.... where they were met by intense rifle fire...

About fifty volunteers arrived the next morning, but the pursuit party found that they were too late to catch the bdoy of Indians....

The first notice that the Indians were on the move came on August 5th 1840, Dr Joel Ponton and Tucker Foley were en route to Gonzales [~60 miles east of San Antone on the Guadalupe, about where the "O" in "Antonio" is on the map] from the Lavaca settlements [tweny miles further east again] ... the two were attacked by twenty-seven mounted Comanches.


Dr Ponton, two arrows lodged in his back after a three mile running chase, managed to dismount when his horse was fatally wounded and hide in dense cover along a creek, the account doesn't mention a gun but possibly the Comanches feared to get shot if they chased him into cover. Dr Ponton survived, Mr Foley was far less fortunate: Taking him alive the Comanches skinned the soles of his feet and made him walk within earshot of Ponton, having Foley beg Ponton to come out while they tortured him to death.

Ponton waited until the Indians were long gone... and made his way back to the Lavaca settlements that night... [At the Lavaca Settlements] Adam Zumwalt organized thirty-six men and they set out towards Gonzales the next morning.

That same day (August 6th), a Reverend Morril was en route eastbound from his place upriver from Victoria with a wagon drawn by a brace of oxen. The Reverend Morril wrote...

..between the Guadalupe and Lavaca rivers, I saw clouds of smoke rise up and suddenly pass away, answered by corresponding signs in other directions. We passed in the wagons just in the rear and across the tracks of the Indians as they went down. from their trail I thought, and afterwards found I was correct, that there were four or five hundred... I trembled for the settlements below, for I knew this meant war on a larger scale than usual.


Meanwhile, Moore writes...

The mail carrier from Austin to Gonzales happened upon a large, fresh Indian trail crossing the road in the vicinity of Plum Creek [on the map about mid way between San Antonio and Bastrop]. The Indians appeared to be bearing down toward the coast... This courier brought word to Gonzales on Thursday August 6th.

I'll bet being a mailman was an iffy propostion during those years

Ben McCulloch [arm still impaired from the duel with Ross the previous year] organized a twenty-four man volunteer party to investigate the tracks. Captain McCulloch's rode out east from Gonzales about 4pm [with maybe 4 hours of daylight remaining, they made sixteen miles that day before making camp][/b].

Meanwhile, while McCulloch was just starting out and while Zumwalt's force were finishing up burying the unfortunate Tucker Foley, the Comanches were 50 miles further South already, just arriving at Victoria....

About 4:00pm, on August 6th, the 500-plus Comanche party arrived on the outskirts of Victoria. They first killed four black servants above Victoria. The townspeople were completely oblivious to the danger as the Indians approached...

As the panic set in, the Victorians fled for their lives... A small party of the men, numbering thirtten, hurried to confront the attacking Indians. Although too small in number to stop such a massive attack, the men hoped to at least buy time for their wives and children to flee to safety. The citizen party had no chance..

[A Victoria resident later wrote of the raid] "Some Mexican traders were in Victoria at the time with about 500 head of horses on the prairie in the vicinity of town. All these the Comanches captured, besides a great many belonging to citizens of the place."

The victorious Indians retired from town and camped for the night three miles further south on Spring Creek. There they killed a settler and two black men, and they captured a black girl. They had secured about fifteen hundred horses and mules on the prairie in front of Victoria, a large portion of which had just arrived en route east.

During the night, a group of men from Victoria who still had horses left town in search of reinforcements... to the Cuero Settlement where Captain Tumlinson's volunteer company was raised [NNW of Victoria about 30 miles, just west of the direction the Comanches had appeared from and more or less mid-way between Victoria and Gonzales].

Thus the Comanches came rapidly down from the north, passing east of and undetected by the citizens of Gonzales and Cuero, those same communties escaping depredations or killings that we know of. Cuero must have been a sizeable community by the standards of the day, sixty five men were raised there by morning, notwithstanding the necessarily late-night arrival (early hours of the morning?) of the messengers from Victoria.

Fehrenbach ("The Comanches") notes how the Comanches were reluctant to fight inside the town of Victoria itself, else the death toll could have been far higher.

Birdwatcher

Early on the morning of August 7th, Ben Mc Culloch and his party located the Comanche trail...

Early this morning we came upon the trailwhich appears large and well-trodden from which it is estmatated there must be several hundred Indians. At this juncture a party of thirty-six men from the upper La Vaca, and in the lead of Captain A. Zumwalt, joined us.

The joint part of sixty began heading south, following the trail towards Victoria. Around noon, they encountered Captain John Jack Tumlinson in company with sixty-five Cuero men, Tumlinson assuming command of the whole.

Indian raids were ordinarily rather like a nineteenth century drive-by in that the Indians hit hard and got out fast, and the combined militia moved cautiously, expecting to encounter some of the large party they were following at any time. In addition they were under the necessity sending scouts out to screen the settlements along the Guadalupe in case the Indians returned north by that route.

So it was that the combined party of 125 men did not reach Victoria until the late afternoon of the next day (August 8th) finding no Indians duirng that time.

Meanwhile the Reverend Morrel and his ox cart arrived at the Lavaca Settlements on the morning of the 7th, where he learned of the attack on Ponton and Foley. Anxious to warn the residents of his place of residence at LaGrange (thirty miles below Bastrop on the Colorado), he immediately pressed on.

Details written easily now, but doubtless an occasion for much stress at the time. Further south the combined party of 125 volunteers under Tumlinson were cautiously feeling their way towards Victoria. Meanwhile the intrepid Reverend Morrel, doubtless calling upon Divine providence, set out alone across the grasslands in an ox cart....

My oxen were in fine condition. I drove thirty miles in twelve hours

Rev. Morrel reached LaGrange around midnight, and immediately began to prepare to ride upriver to Colonel Edward Burleson's place on the river below Bastrop...

In view of the long race before me, I tried to sleep some, while a horse was being secured, At four oclock in the morning I was in my saddle, intending to reach Colonel Ed. Burleson at daylight, twelve miles off, on a borrowed horse, as I had no horse in a condition for the trip.

Morrel is one of the unsung heroes of Plum Creek, the forces gathered by Burleson would be critical in the victory there five days later.

On the morning of the 7th, while McCulloch and Zumwalt joined forces along the Comanche trail, those same Comanches were still forty or fifty miles away, renewing their assault against Victoria. A few houses were pillaged and burned, but this second attack was driven off by intense rifle fire.

Compared to their Herculean accomplishment of moving so many so fast and with such stealth deep into the settlements, the Comanches covered only ten miles on the 7th, setting up camp twelve miles away from the mercantile port at Linneville, killing one man as they rode, and kidnapping a woman and her infant.

Birdwatcher

Legend has it that the 1824 Mexican Federalist flag flew over the Alamo during that seige. Sources have it that this was unlikely. Although the Texians were divided over whether they were fighting to defend the Mexican Federal 1824 Constitution or were fighting for Texan independence, by the time of the Alamo the sentiment of most was for independence.

Indeed in January of 1836, just two months before the Alamo, most of the pro-Federalist Texans had presumably left, some 200 of them leaving San Antonio and advancing down into Mexico taking their flags with them. What else they took were the supplies stockpiled in that mission, such that it was bare when Santa Anna moved north the next month. Probably Santa Anna would have come north anyway, but the presence of Texans taking sides in intercine conflicts in Mexico likely did nothing to retard that process.

Tejano Federalists under Juan Seguin covered the subsequent retreat of Houston's army before Santa Anna's forces and also fought at San Jacinto, and Seguin himself went on to hold several offices under the Texas Republic.

But the Federalist movement didn't just go away after Texas Independence. Turns out that in 1839, the year before the events in this narrative, the Texas government had dispatched (or maybe dispatched, the early Texas government was a somewhat chaotic entity) more than 100 men from the Frontier Regiment to fight alongside Federalist Forces in Northern Mexico, on at least some occasions these men fighting South of the Rio Grande under a Texas flag.

That being the precursor to the fact that, at the time of the Great Comanche raid in 1840, the erstwhile commander of the Frontier Regiment was 100 miles east of his nominal command, raising a party of adventurers to fight alongside the Mexican Federalists while the leaders of that movement were themselves given sanctuary in Texas.

How this relates to the Great Comanche Raid is this: With the consent and cooperation of the Texas Government, the Mexican Federalist faction maintained an arms depot at Linnville.

Moore in "Savage Frontier" states that Mexican agents allied to the Centralist Faction accompanied the Comanches on the raid. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the Plum Creek fight wherein the Comanches returning from the raid were intercepted, the spoils left scattered on the field were divided among the victors. Moore writes...

James N. Smith received a beaded shot bag with Roman cross designs on it. Inside the bag, Smith found a letter written by a Mexican to one of the Indian chiefs. The Mexican stated that he would "meet the chief at Corpus Christi or Linvil."

Neither Moore, Gwynne ("Empire of the Summer Moon") nor Fehrenbach ("Comanches") mention the capture of armaments during the looting and burning of the trade warehouses at Lynnville. However the presence of firearms there was apparently known to at least one Texan fighting at Plum Creek, of that fight he wrote...

Lying flat on the side of their horse with nothing to be seen but a foot and a hand, they would shoot their arrows under the horse's neck, run to one end of the space, straighten up, wheel their horses, and reverse themselves, always keeping to the opposite side from us.

The line of warriors just behind those chiefs kept up a continuous firing with their escopetos [Spanish smoothbore carbines], doing no damage. But they had some fine rifles taken at Linnville, and these done all the damage.

All of this could still be mere supposition I suppose, but a line of supposition backed by the Texas State Historical Association...

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvl58



So the largest force of Comanches ever to strike the Texas Republic comes down and slips by several settlements, striking Victoria direct on August 6th and 7th, and then lingers in the area, perhaps anticipating a supporting Centralist presence, before moving on to sack Linnville on the early morning of the 8th.

All of this is doubtless old news to TRUE historians, but still, in the context of Texas history this is huge.

Taken in context, the Great Comanche Raid was a result of a short-lived alliance between the Comanches and the Centralist faction in Mexico, working against the Federalist-Texan alliance.

And the Comanches once again emerge as something other than your stereotypical Plains Indians.

Birdwatcher

During the night hours of August 7th a travelling merchant had an even closer escape than Reverend Morrel had with his oxcart when he first witnessed those smoke signals. Turns out the travelling merchant even passed the wagon of the only Comanche victim that day, another merchant like himself.

And interesting to me in that it shows nighttime travel was not all that unusual back then, maybe even common, this being August on the Texas Coastal Plain after all.

Merchant William G. Ewing was travelling from Linnville to Victoria that night. He noticed a great number of campfires along Placido Creek and spotted Stephen's empty wagon. Ewing moved on to Victoria, guessing that the camp was that of Mexican traders bound for Linnville.

The Comanches broke camp early and descended upon Linnville shortly after first light on August 8th. Must be that large-scale trade with Mexico and/or Mexicans was a common thing in that era, Moore has it that when the townspeople of Linnville first saw the Comanches and their large livestock herd approaching, like Ewing had done they just assumed they were Mexican traders.

The Comanche party thoroughly looted and burned Linnville in a leisurely fashion all during the day of August 8th while the helpless residents famously watched from boats in the bay. Actual casualties were few; a late-alerted couple intercepted in the surf while trying to escape to the boats, the husband shot down and the young wife, a recent immigrant fromm Ireland, captured.

North of Victoria, the only posse yet in the field were at that time still cautiously feeling their way down the Guadalupe. Meanwhile, more than 100 miles to the north, the intrepid Reverend Morril arrived at Ed, Burleson's place on his borrowed horse at sunrise. Colonel Burleson immediately saddled up and the two rode on to Bastrop.

I dunno the activities of Col. Burleson over the next two days, it is reported that he contacted superiors in Austin for orders, which he later disregarded when responding to the raid. It should be considered that he was reacting to reports from two days earlier and at least forty miles away pertaining to a Comanche raid, and like Tumlinson's force moving down the Guadalupe, he would have had every expectation that the Comanches would strike hard and justt as quickly withdraw.

It is reported that the intrepid Reverend Morril was sent on yet again on the 8th to bring word to Austin, likely with an official dispatch from Burleson.

Whatever the sequence of events were in Bastrop over the next three days, Burleson and eighty-five volunteers, plus thirteen Tonkawa scouts, left there on August 11th, travelling most of the night to make the rendevous on Plum Creek on the 12th. Reverend Morril was among them.

Birdwatcher

I apologize to all for not reading the whole thread but am just finishing up Empire of the Summer Moon this weekend, saw the thread title and chimed in. Great book DocR and all.

Dont apologize for not reading the whole thread, most of it is me flapping my gums anyhow. Heck I ain't even sure if anyone's still reading...

Anyhoo...

The same time the Comanches were finishing up at Linnville, Tumlinson's 125 men were finally arriving at Victoria. That evening 25 men of the party were replaced with a like number of new volunteers on the basis of their horses. Tumlinson's force was essentially a scratch force summoned at short notice two days and more than fifty miles previously. The condition of their horseflesh would play a major role in determining Tumlinson's activities over the next three days.

That evening, Tumlinson's party tarried but briefly at Victoria and before heading out eastward towards Linnville, stopping to rest along the road around around midnight.

On the part of the Comanches, the usual practice was to bring multiple mounts, plus they had all those other horses they had lifted.

Much has been made of the Comanche's lack of caution during this raid, boldly lingering around the settlements as they did and then heading back north in a sort of grand processional, livestock and loot in tow.

But from a Comanche perspective, they had at least 500 warriors on hand, presumably all loaded for bear by their lights. Also, one is hard pressed to find occasions prior to Plum Creek (which wouldn't occur for another three days) where Texans had drawn significant Comanche blood in open battle.

I can recall reading of only two, not including the Council House Fight which hardly counts:

In February of '39, one Captain Moore and a party of rangers and Lipan Apaches had killed perhaps fifty Comanches when they succeeded in surprising a camp on the San Saba, but on that occasion after the first bloodletting Moore's force was quickly placed on the defensive and the Comanches ran away with all the rangers' horses. (Smithwick was along on that fight http://www.lsjunction.com/olbooks/smithwic/otd16.htm ).

Only other occasion I can think of was when Captain John Bird and thirty men chased a party of Comanches out onto the prairie in May of '39 and found themselves facing about three hundred. This is the fight usually given as the "gee-if'n-they-only-had-revolvers" example. Not often mentioned is the fact that in the ensuing fight Bird's force killed more than thirty Comanches with their rifles for a loss of only five of their own.

So, other than those two examples, the Comanches probably felt justified in their confidence. The LAST time they had faced large numbers of White soldiers, four months previously outside the walls of Mission San Juan after the Council House fight, the soldiers had refused to come out and fight.

The actions of the Texans opposing them on their jaded horses over the next three days would do little to change that impression.

Birdwatcher

I'm still reading, Birdie.

A lot of Dead Man's Walk is about how ineffectual the early whites were against the Comanch.

Yep, reading, stop in nightly for my dose... keep going.

Seems to me the biggest problem in fighting Comanches was catching them.

One constant in Native warfare everywhere throughout the Frontier was that incredible feats of human endurance on their part were almost routine. When it came to Texas, fighting Comanches usually meant pushing man and beast beyond what Europeans were comfortable with.

Jack Hays knew that and we are given to understand that he learned it from his Delaware and Lipan Apache allies. RIP Ford mentions it too. People like those guys prevailed in combat regularly but they were few and far between, hence their widespread fame. My contention has been that relative to that, breech loading rifles and revolving handguns made little difference.

Heck, even flintlocks worked, another factor throughout our history being the fact that Americans commonly went armed. On this raid 500 skilled and deadly Native warriors killed maybe twenty people. Just one victim per every 25 warriors in the field. By way of contrast Moore recounts how similarly large Comanche raids into Mexico at about this same time killed as many as 700 in a single raid.

Turns out Americans maybe weren't that hard to raid, but closing in and actually killing them often cost more blood than the Comanches were willing to bear. At least it did on this raid.

The other factor limiting our guys seems to have been fieldcraft; hard to accept but compared to Natives, it seems like most Euros were blind out on the Prairie. Most every success was guided by Natives, and in a few epic failures Native guides were conspicuously absent.

Anyways, back to the narrative, and the map...



One thing the Texans did right during the raid was their willingness to drop everything and assemble, and their routine acts of heroism for the common good. Tumlinson's men themselves had spontaneously come together in a single morning from three separate communities each thirty miles apart. This is what Ben McCulloch had to say about the reception this posse met in Victoria on the evening of the 8th.

We find the inhabitants in much agitation, and under apprehension of further molestation by Indians. Many families are assembled in houses centrally situated, and eligible for defense; the nine pounder is mounted at an angle of the square, and every preparation is made for the worst....

Our men are cordially received and handsomely treated by the citizens of Victoria, which inspires us with increased good feeling towards them as a community, and with a lively regard for their protection and safety.

I shoulda mentioned that when Tumlinson's party stopped for the night, one man, George Kerr, continued on alone through the night (another one of those acts of selfless heroism) to contact settlements further east, both to spread the word and to coordinate with other parties that might be in the field.

The next morning he encountered forty five men under Captain Clark Owen coming west. Kerr also sent on a letter to La Grange, again perhaps forty or fity miles to the north (the long range communication once again amazes here), a message aimed at Burleson, thirty miles further north yet again.

The snippet of this letter Moore includes in "Savage Frontier" (where most of this info is coming from) is notable in that it is the first in ink to mention the vicinity of Plum Creek. Seems like it was almost ESP the way the common perception among these disparate parties was that mid-way between Bastrop and Austin was where the Comanches were to be met, if they were to be stopped at all.

Tumlinson himself was to send a handful of his men ahead to Plum Creek to get ahead of the Comanche host while he brought up the rear. This from Kerr's letter, dispatched on the 9th, presumably relating the size and location of the Comanche force, the attack on Victoria and the sacking of Linnville....

"Let Burleson be informed of this and move on to intercept the Indians between the Guadalupe and La Baca...

Might be the concept originated with Tumlinson himself. That message was dispatched on the 9th, presumably it was in Burleson's hands the next day, the day before he set out from Bastrop towards Plum Creek with his force.

Birdwatcher

Another thing that contributed to success was going on the offensive. When the Texans or Norte Americanos were responding to a raid, they were on the defensive. When they started scalphunting (as repulsive as that practice is and was) they were on the offensive and started being successful. Of course, many times those scalps actually came from Mexicans or friendly Indians but...

I too am still reading. I enjoy your posts and thanks for the effort and suggestions on further readings.

Good points.

Meanwhile, maybe fifteen miles east of Victoria on the morning of the 9th, the Comanche force passed between Tumlinson and Owen going north. One can only imagine the sentiments of those who had been two and three days on the trail when finally catching sight of the enormous Comanche host. Captain Owen had sent three men forward as scouts, one was killed and one outran his pursuers, the third received some hard-won mementos.

John Menefree, a San Jacinto veteran and Texas Congressman, was struck in the body with seven arrows piercing him. He somehow managed to escape and hide in some drift brush along the creek bank until the Comanches passed on. Menefree walked and crawled to a nearby ranch the following day.

He had managed to pull the seven arrows from his own body. Although suffering from serious blood loss, he survived, and would keep the seven arrows in his Jackson County home for years.

Mostly I'm impressed that he had the foresight to hang onto them arrows and bring them along even in his extremity, musta been a born optimist...

As for Tumlinson's party...

...they finally came in sight of their adversary about 10am. They were located about five miles south of DeLeon's ranch and were issuing from the woods onto the verge of the prairie.

One wonders what it was like to finally come upon the enormous host they had been trailing for days.

Gonzales volunteer Washington Miller found the Comanches to be "hideously bedaubed after their own savage taste". Some wore feathers. Others were "sporting huge helmets of buffalo or elk horns - armed with glistening shields, with bows and quivers with guns and lances, and mounted on their chargers, dashing about with streamers" flying behind them. He estimated the Comanche force to be "from 400 to 500"

Tumlinson advanced and dismounted to attack. Actually dismounting to inflict accurate rifle fire has been a much-maligned tactic in print, but it seems to have been a standard one among the Eastern Tribes when out on the plains, and was used by the aforementioned Captain Bird when inflicting casualties at a rate of six to one in 1839. The trick being to reserve your fire such that some members of the group are alsways loaded. Worth noting that those Comanches on this raid who were armed with rifles did the very same thing.

A large number of their warriors encircled the Texans to keep the Texans at bay while other Indians herded their large drove of horses forward

A tactic attempted again at Plum Creek.

Alfred Kelso, sheriff of Gonzales, drew first blood this day. His target was a daring turkey-plumed Comanche chief with lance and shield. As the Comanche moved tauntingly close, Kelso dropped him from his horse with a well-directed shot.

Washington Miller continues... "They whirl about us, exibiting the most admirable feats of horsemanship and, being continually in motion, were less liable to be struck by our balls, But it was seldom they withdrew from their daring sallies without leaving upon the ground some indubitable evidence of the skilled use of our arms. Discovering the fate of several of their number, they became more wary, and kept at a more respectful distance.

Those among them using escopetas and rifles dismount and play upon us from the grass, at about one hundred and fifty paces."


Moore records that Ben McCulloch for one was agitating for a charge on the Texan's part, but that Tumlinson held back out of regard for the condition of his men and their horses. Indeed, Moore writes that the Texans were suffering excessively from the heat, their first move after this twenty-minute skirmish being to seek water.

Again, ya gotta be on the Texas Coastal Plain in August to fully appreciate their condition.

What followed for the next two days with Tumlinson's force was a sort of prolonged standoff, Tumlinson's group along with thirty-seven men of Owen's force trailing close behind the Comanches, even stopping for the night close on their tail. The Comanches unwilling to face Tumlinson's rifles, most of the rangers on played-out horses.

Meanwhile Ben McCulloch had separated from the group on the evening of the 9th.

Captain McCulloch, seething with anger that he had been unable to bring Tumlinson to force a charge all day, decided that the Texans had missed their golden opportunity. Ben McCulloch turned his GOnzales company over to a lieutentant and departed with three trusted men.... Riding hard for Gonzales throughout the night. He was determined to find more men who would aid him in fighting the Indians.

Hard to second-guess the situation form this distance, but worth noting that even such worthies as Sheriff Kelso stayed with Tumlinson. Also worth noting that McCulloch and his three companions all had horses that would stand the all-night trip.

McCulloch made it to Gonzales on the 10th, and dispatched one of his companions to find Burleson.

He dispatched Gipson with a note to the Colorado River to raise up edward Burleson to join with recruits. McCulloch asked Burleson to designate the crossing at Plaum Creek as the rendevous site for volunteers that could be raised.

No word on how the worthy Gipson managed to endure through his prolonged ordeal but word did get though, most likely reaching Burleson early on the 11th, the same day Burleson departed from Bastrop.

While the weary and saddlesore Gipson was hurring to Burleson, Tumlinson's men did make a charge at some point on the 10th of August, scattering some Comanches and recovering some of the loot, but the Rangers were simply unable to press the advantage. Afterwards, they resumed their position, shadowing the Comanche force, Tumlinson sending a small group of the best-mounted men ahead, to Plum Creek.

So the stage was set....

Birdwatcher

Extremely interesting story. Please continue when you have time.

"Seems to me the biggest problem in fighting Comanches was catching them"

Yep, reading Wilbarger's book time after time after a raid the posse chases the Comanche but can't come up with them.

Lots of great reading here.
I'm sort of flipping between here and the Smithwick stories, he was obviously a very observant man.

Birdwatcher, thank you for sharing so much knowledge with us.

Actually, what I get from all of this is that the Plains Indians were defeated and defanged by the Sharps Buffalo Guns. Pretty grim events took place up until the buff runners waxed the herds. Adobe Walls sure didn't hurt the cause either.

"Commanche Empire," the author of which presently eludes me, is also an insightful history of the Commanches and the economic and political breadth of their society.