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Jacob "Doc" Sturm.



Perhaps originally a Texas German missionary type?

Born 1825, by age twenty-two a doctor and agriculturalist among the Comanches on the Brazos Reservation. Twenty years later he's still with them, even after the hellish Civil War years.

No word on wife or children until 1877 when he was fifty two years old.

At that time his eighteen year-old Caddo wife bore him the first of at least five children, two sons and three daughters, four of whom in turn lived into their eighties.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=72550145

31 May 1907

Doc Sturm Dead

Dr. J.J. Sturm who lived for many years on Cobb creek, north of the present town of Fort Cobb, died last week as the result of a wound in the arm caused by the accidental discharge of a shotgun.

Doctor Sturm had lived longer among the Indians in this section than any other white man, and in the early days his place on the lakes at Cobb creek was known far and wide.

He was a most interesting conversationalist, and a kind hearted generous man.


I'm guessing there's a real story somewhere in all of this.

Birdwatcher

Spend the next twenty years diging it out and publishing it. You'd have they royalties to live on in your old age.

Although an AD is always bad, I figure if you've survived 82 years on this earth, let alone a good portion of those around wild Injuns, you've earned the right to eff up and shoot yourself in the arm to check out.

Probably true to some extent, BCR, but the degree of lawlessness in Texas up until the mustering of the great Ranger companies in 1874 by Governor Coke was well-documented.

One has to consider the highly unusual events and circumstances that occurred in what we now call Texas in a span of less than 50 years. Steven Austin led his first group of American colonists into Texas in 1821. In the next 25 years there was a revolution, establishment of a republic, and then unprecedented levels of immigration of Americans into the region that established a low-density population over millions of square miles of agrarian paradise. This was largely a very peaceful process throughout most of the state, although there was plenty of Indian extermination that the settlers apparently regarded as nothing much to write about, the only exceptions being the depredations of the more warlike tribes like the Comanche on the western frontier. Government functions were primarily civil. Crime was not a big problem because in a subsistence farming/ranching economy, there isn't much to steal.

Just about the time the towns were growing prosperous, the Civil War broke out. Most of the strength of Texas, its able-bodied working men, went east and got slaughtered. In the absence of strength, weak men moved in. They were able to operate with impunity. Then, when the war ended and the men returned to re-establish order, the Reconstructionists blocked this process. Local law enforcement was negligible, the Army cared little for enforcing the law. More and more bad actors came to Texas and found it was a land of opportunity for the unscrupulous. Gov. Ed Davis's State Police made matters worse, often actively participating in criminal conspiracies. Lawlessness didn't just happen all at once, it evolved over time. By 1870, lawlessness and vigilantism had led to effective states of war involving entire counties: the Sutton-Taylor Feud in DeWitt County and the Horrell-Higgins Feud in Lampasas were two well-known examples. The Sutton-Taylor Feud resulted in the deaths of more men than some Civil War engagements. By 1875, 10 years after the war, when Gov. Coke's election ended the reign of the the Reconstructionists, the state was in a shambles.

At that point in time, depending on where you were, folks might have enjoyed a peaceful, almost idyllic existence in some parts of Texas, while in others it was a matter of taking your life in your hands to go to town once a year to sell your surplus crop.

I am grateful to all you guys, especially Birdwatcher, for bringing forward the historical information that has been posted in this thread so far. I am particularly interested in getting hold of Rip Ford's and Hamlainen's (sp?) stuff. When I posted the first review of "Empire of the Summer Moon" at the beginning of this thread, I had no idea what kind of can of worms I was opening!! My hat is off to you more diligent historians.

My own readings have been focused elsewhere. Since I moved here into the trans-Pecos last autumn, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on dealing with the Rangers' time period (1874-1885 or so), particularly first-person accounts by James Gillett, George Durham, and others. Then, taking a page from Birdy's book, so to speak, I've been getting on the road and driving to the places I've been reading about. It's fascinating stuff.

Carry on, gentlemen.

Long day and I'm weary....

...but just to keep the thread moving, Stephen Moore's (the modern author of "Savage Frontier") description of John Henry Moore's (the Ranger Captain) advance on the Comanche camp...

The Lipans reported a large Comanche encampment about fifteen or twent miles distant... up the Red Fork of the Colorado. It was located on the east bank and in a small horseshoe bend... This bend had a high and somewhat steep bluff on the opposite side of the river

From a tactical standpoint this meant that an attacking force could bottle up the camp inside the horseshoe bend, while the bluff across the river offered an advantageous position for firing down upon those who should attempt to cross the river, both factors contributing to the subsequent death toll.

The Lipans' news was enough to warm the spirits of the cold frontiersmen. After eating supper, Moore's men packed up camp and prepared to assault the Indian camp. They rode about ten miles to the Colorado and then four miles up the river.

At this location, a hollow along the river a few miles from the Comanche camp, Moore paused, this being the location where they would leave tbe cattle and excess baggage before closing on the Indian camp. Hard to imagine herding cattle on an errand like this, expecially at night, but there it is.

..Moore sent two Lipan spies ahead to the Comanche camp to scout it out. It was clear and cold and the ground was white with frost....

the Lipans were better prepared for such weather. They wore heavy bufallo robes.... the Texans wore only what they had brought along two weeks prior and most were shivering from the cold. No fires were allowed this night....

The Lipans returned about 3am... The spies estimated by counting tipis that there were approximately 60 families and 125 warriors. Colonel Moore and his men advanced silently towards the Comanche Village...

Surprise would be nearly complete, Moore's approach not being detected until the Texans were withing 200 yards of camp.

Birdwatcher

I was wondering if you were going to keep going Birdy. Glad you did. Good story.

"At this location, a hollow along the river a few miles from the Comanche camp, Moore paused, this being the location where they would leave tbe cattle and excess baggage before closing on the Indian camp. Hard to imagine herding cattle on an errand like this, expecially at night, but there it is."

Just an aside for you since you are not wise in the ways of cattle.

By this time (2 weeks) the bunch of cattle he had, any meniton of how many?, would be well trail broke. That is to say the bunch would have selected a leader early on. There is always a leader in any bunch of cattle. The others just naturally follow the leader. You don't really have to herd the whole bunch all you have to do is control one, the leader.
When you do that the rest will just follow along. Only if you try to chouse or hooraw the whole bunch will they try to break by and scatter. If you just keep the leader moving at a decent clip the rest will follow. It takes a good eye to know how fast you can push but I suspect those old boys knew how to do it.
I've never fooled with longhorns much at all but what I have said applies to all other cattle that I have ever fooled with and I doubt longhorns are all that much different.

This is gonna be good...

Hey Birdy, (and any others of the many knowledgeable folks here)

Without meaning to interrupt the flow this very well told story...

Don't know as much on Texas history as I should...

But a couple of quick questions on the firearms used by the various Texas Indian Raid 'First Responders' being discussed here.

Were the firearms issued or privately owned? If they were privately owned, how much ammunition did the owner bring with him? What about resupply while on the expedition? How long would that ammunition last? What did that ammunition cost to the owner?

Just remembering that one of the many problems the Patriot militia faced at Minisink was that a bunch of them ran out of ammunition during the battle.

And of course, after some number of rounds, a black powder muzzle loading rifle may start to show reloading problems due to fouling. (Don't know if that is an issue with a smoothbore. Any experts know?)

Of course, that leads to the question, How often did each side stick around long enough to actually worry about running out of ammunition?

Longhorns are just wilder than most of the other breeds, Brahmas and their offshoots being an exception. With a big herd you'd have to have guys on all sides to keep 'em bunched or else the stragglers would go off. That's why you see all those guys in movies like Red River.

Likely had a supply wagon and a couple of milk cows tailing it.Milk for making biscuits.

Cole you're right but dollar to a donut this wasn't a big herd. I'd be surprised if it was more than a dozen.

May be like curdog says. If you got a fresh cow and put her calf in the wagon she'll follow it all day long. I've done that in a pickup more than a few times. Also hoisted a few up in front of me on horseback to make mama follow. The calf will sure foul your nest but you will bring mama home.

Well, inside of an hour, more than 150 Comanches from that camp are gonna be sorted out by God, as the saying goes about "Killing 'em all".

But pardon me while I wax all Birdwatcheresque for a moment.....

See, I'm wondering what people do, when all of a sudden you're there, after weeks of arduous travel, and after perhaps years of thirsting for revenge. Suddenly there you are; warriors to be sure, but also old folk, screaming women... and terrified children running everywhere.

That Texans were often more than willing to spare non-combatants is reflected in the number of captives they took, and orphaned children adopted. But women and children did get shot in these episodes...

Smithwick in that situation on Moore's (the Ranger) '39 expedition didn't kill anyone. He doesn't say so but we can infer as much from his statements elsewhere. In fact at least one Historian has noted that Moore omits mention of Smithwick at all, though he was generous with praise of others in on that fight. This despite the fact that Smithwick must have been prominent; he was the Spanish-speaking liason with the Lipan Scouts.

Elsewhere in "Savage Frontier" Moore (the modern author) writes of a Texan in North Texas who relates his disblief that he didn't actually kill an Indian woman and child, but took them prisoner instead, despite his recollection of neighbors butchered.

At this point I'm gonna digress a little.

In 1840, while Moore was putting a sneak on the Comanches, the Seminoles of whom I will shortly speak, and their Black Seminole slaves, were still in Florida. "Slaves" in quotes really, more like "allies".

The lifetime partnership between Wildcat and John Horse is gist for another thread. In brief, in 1842 the US Government allowed 500 Blacks who had just rfecently been engaged in active combat against the forces of the United States to remove to the Indian Territory while bearing arms. Simply unheard of.

Ten years later, when edicts were passed making it illegal to for slaves to bear arms, and suffering from the incessant threat of slave raids, John Horse, whose own wife and daughter were taken by Creek slave catchers, cut a deal for the Black Seminoles to obtain land in Mexico in return for fighting Comanche, Kiowa and Apache raiders.

In the 1870's these Black Seminoles in Mexico were recruited to scout for the US Army in Texas.

Just outside of Fort Clark, (Brackettsville TX) lies their Cemetery, one of the most storied five acres of ground anywhere in America.




For those familiar with the story, the names on these modest stones evoke a wide sweep of history; storied frontiersmen, skilled scouts, and combat veterans all.



A few here were already older when they returned to Texas, survivors of the whole saga...





Four Medal of Honor winners are buried here, including Adam Paine; who stood more than 6ft tall plus his horned Comanche headdress, awarded his medal by Ranald MacKenzie himself for "habitual boldness".

Adam Paine doubtless had problems with the whole deference thing expected of Blacks in that era, and he killed a White cavalryman in a brawl in a Brownsville bar. Too dangerous to apprehend face to face, he was shot in the back while unarmed, both barrels of a shotgun close enough to set his clothes on fire, on New Years Eve by the same Uvalde Sheriff he had previously faced down, despite being outnumbered.





The Uvalde Sheriff was a US Cavalry veteran, and Paine became the only Medal of Honor winner ever killed by another.

Ain't just old guys buried there, some Black Seminoles died in more recent wars....





How this is all relevant to attacking Indian camps and killing or not killing is this...

On April 1st 1873, Colonel Ranald Makenzie (the "anti-Custer") was ordered by Sheridan to make a covert strike into Mexico against the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches who at that time were raiding across the Border.

The Apache camp was eighty miles south of the river, the camp was to be struck and the cavalry back across the river in twenty-four hours. Six companies of the Fourth Cavalry, more than three hundred fifty Troopers, were gathered at Fort Clark, to be guided by forty Black Seminole Scouts under Major John Lapham Bullis.

Here I'll quote from Thomas Porter's fine book "The Black Seminoles"....

After a forced march of approximately eighty miles, travelling all night at a "killing pace", the four hundred or so men struck the Lipan, Mescalero, and Kickapoo settlements near Remolino, Mexico early the next morning...

When MacKenzie ordered the charge, the raiders poured into the village in successive waves. Later, a descendant of one of the Kickapoo survivors said that the villagers "ran together like ants"....

The orders were to spare women and children. As the battle raged about him, Seminole scout Tony Wilson had a Lipan in his sights. Just as he squeezed the trigger, his target threw up an arm and revealed that she was female. But her gesture came too late.

The black's carbine cracked, and the woman fell dead. Wilson was reportedly haunted for the rest of his life by this error in judgement. It eventually made him insane.





I'll fess up, I dont get out to Fort Clark that often, but I've paused a time or two and said a prayer over this guy's grave.

Birdwatcher

Privately owned on these early expeditions. Ford a decade or more later on his ranging patrols in South Texas would be using State-issue Mississippi rifles (in the original .54 slow twist round-ball configuration) as well as old single-shot "horse-pistols" at one point, their revolvers for the most part having become unserviceable.

Anyhow, a number of sources corroborate that about half the Texans were still using flinters in 1840.



Dunno on this one, but IIRC in 1841 Jack Hayes would specify a good rifle, a pistol, a hundred rounds of ammunition, and at one point three horses per man.

Mary Maverick (a San Antonio resident) wrote of the Rangers....

Each volunteer kept a good horse, saddle, bridle and arms, and a supply of salt, coffee, sugar and other provisions ready to start at any time on fifteen minute's warning in pursuit of the marauding Indians.

At a certain signal given by the Cathedral bell, the men were off, in buckskin clothes and blankets, responding promptly to the call.

On some expeditions the men drew provisions but I have never heard of resupply expeditions. With the possible exception of the militiary road, a trail being cut between San Antonio and the present-day Dallas area. But I dunno that this road has much to do with Comanches and the combat thereof.

They brung everything with 'em, which lasted Howard about six weeks in that other 1840 expedition. Dunno about the cost of ammunition or supplies, but cost likely kept a bunch of otherwise willing guys at home.

No word on rifles fouling out of comission in these fights. The consensus seems to be that loads were looser back then than what we squeeze down rifle barrels today. I suspect too that fouling was quickly swabbed if necessary with a damp rag fragment or such.

Smoothbores are easier to load fouled as you are not trying to spiral a patched ball down rifling, but smoothbores do not seem to have been nearly as prominent out on the Plains as rifles. One gets the impression that accuracy was even more of a requiremnt than it had been in the forests back East a generation or two earlier.

Most of these fights were brief, with a few notable exceptions like Brushy Creek. This Moore fight would be over in about thirty minutes, dunno how many shots were fired, by some more than others one supposes. But if all 100 guys were making hits, if they hit an average of just two Indians each that would give about the death toll that resulted.

Birdwatcher

Thanks Birdie!

Appreciate the response and first hand accounts.

In asking my question, I was also thinking about the Cherokee during the Rutherford Expedition in 1776. The Cherokee would likely have destroyed the Expedition in a well thought out ambush. But they ran out ammunition about 2 hours into the battle and had to withdraw. The result was the Expedition burned most of the Cherokee Middle Towns to the ground and forced the Cherokee to sue for peace.

With regards to musketry effectiveness (in massed battles), Brent Nosworthy in "Bloody Crucible of Courage" gives some statistics. I found the book a bit painful to read, though.

For trained Europeans using the smoothbore in the 1700s and 1800s somewhere between 1 in 200 shots and 1 in 500 shots seems to be consensus. For the period 1861-5 one in 100 shots to one in 200 shots. (One casualty per so many shots)

At the Battle of Churubusco (Mexican War August 1847), a British observer calculated that American Infantry inflicted 1 Mexican casualty for every 125 shots while the Mexican Infantry inflicted one American casualty for every 800 shots. The Americans were supposedly using the Model 1840 Musket (smoothbore flintlock). (Also, assume 3 or so wounded for every killed.)

Knowing that an Infantryman's basic load was usually 40-60 rounds, one can get an idea about the effectiveness of one guy. (Iirc 25 rds for the militia at Minisink.)

Of course, these numbers were for infantry facing infantry in fairly static and dense formations. A guy wildly riding a horseback shooting at another guy wildly riding a horse across broken terrain probably changes the odds.

Add to that if a guy had to buy his own ammunition, and choose between expending it feeding his family (or defending them) versus shooting it in a battle, that also might affect the ammunition expenditure.

Some of the stats in Nosworthy are kind of funny in a sad way. Union General Rosecrans estimated that the 20,000 artillery shells fired by the Union at Murfreesboro/Stones River (Dec 1862) caused 768 Confederate casualties.

I'm gonna float a WAG that the Texans (and rifle-armed Indians) were hitting on at least one in four shots in these Plains skirmishes related here. The difference here being skilled riflemen shooting familiar weapons and loads and calling their own shots ie. firing when THEY wanted to.

With rifles, IIRC one commonly dismounted to aim, a tactic much disparaged in popular history but which indisputably worked, or did for the Eastern tribes out on the Plains. The time required for that process being much overestimated. There are numerous accounts of mounted Plains Indians either hovering outside of rifle range in a sort of standoff, or of attempting to empty the rifles of the opposition by riding across their front.

I looked around youtube for a couple of good fictional examples. Did you ever see the tremendous "Ulzana's Raid" (1972) where Burt Lancaster as Chief of Scouts attacks two mounted Apaches? Or again in "Geronimo, an American Legend" (1993) where Robert Duvall as Al Sieber performs a very similar attack. In both these incidents repeating rifles (Winchesters) are used but apparently with muzzleloaders the dynamic was similar, the principle there being to reserve fire such that some rifles were loaded at all times.

As for closing with revolvers, RIP Ford, who would know, put the revolver and the bow inside of 50 yards as being approximately equal. We are all familiar today with how hard handguns can be to hit with under stress at any sort of range, Colts back then being deployed at practically powder-burn ranges.

In order for revolvers to be effective first you had to get within range, always a problem even with rifles if the Comanches weren't willing to accept anything approaching "fair" combat (in that respect, they were similar to the successful WWI and WWII fighter pilots).

Jack Hayes famously tangled with Yellow Wolf's Comanches twice, in 1841 and 1844, once with mostly single shot arms and once, famously, with revolvers. In both instances the superior numbers of Comanches present repeatedly engaged in close combat. The outcome in both fights was almost exactly similar; a lopsided toll in numbers much in favor of the Texans. Not much mentioned though is that in both fights the Texans themselves suffered about a 33% casualty rate in terms of dead and seriously wounded. Completely unsustainable if one expected these same guys to go out and do that with any regularity.

Anyhoo, on a different topic... Just this past weekend I found a 2008 book called "The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat" by Earl J. Hess. Ain't had time to read it yet but Hess claims that, based upon the ranges they were actually used, the impact of the rifle musket in that war over smoothbores has been way overblown. Contributing to this was the deeply curving trajectory of the minie ball at the velocities used and the almost complete lack of marksmanship training given to the rank and file, specifically towards the end of estimating range.

According to Hess, while there were a few skilled marksmen on either side who scored some impressive hits, most were using their Springfields and Enfields about like they would have used a musket.

Birdwatcher

I'd think one fella could "drive" a little herd like that real easy.

No word on numbers, all Moore says is that "beef cows were purchased to feed the men".

Being as I am "not wise in the ways of cattle", I have no idea how many cows a hundred guys could eat in a month.

Birdwatcher

First off Birdy I salute you for doing a damn good job on this epic.
A general comment on the killing of indian women and kids. Lots of folks are really blood thirsty until they get to actually doing the deed.

As to the cattle a hundred men would most probaly eat two a week.
I base this on the issue tables for fresh beef in the confederate army at mid war, when it called for one beef per regiment. A regiment nominally being a thousand men but practically about 1/3rd that number if the regiment was very lucky.

Ration was supposed to be 6 oz pork or 8 beef per day per man.

Enough of that before I tell you more than you want to know.

Back to Moore's expedition. @ 100 men figure two head of beef per week X 4 weeks ( not really because they would not start killing cattle right off being they had good stuff from home when they started. Take a while to eat up what they brought with them)

Anyway 2 per week X 4 weeks give 8 head. Figure as they probably did some slippage and double the number and you got 16 head. That ain't far off my guess of around a dozen. Easy for a couple or three guys to handle that many cattle if they know what they are doing as I am pretty sure Moore's boys did.

Also since the cattle were purchased that means they were home cattle not range cattle and used to being around people and being handled. Not longhorns fresh chased out of the bush and wild as deer. That makes a big big difference.

OK now let's get back to slaughtering Comanches.

One of my favorite retellings of an incident like that was told by Teddy Roosevelt while he was in the Dakotas. Obviously, by the time he was there, most of the Indians were "pacified" but there was still plenty of danger to loan travelers if they happened to run into a young Indian buck or two who were out on a lark.

Roosevelt was out looking for some of his cattle when he saw four mounted indians at a distance. They saw him and charged at him with apparent bad intent. Roosevelt dismounted and drew down on them with his big Winchester causing them to draw up instantly.

His quote was something like, "It takes an inordinately brave man to charge another drawing a bead on him with a rifle."

Great stuff guys.

I have a bunch of Birdy's posts from Shooters on this subject save to disk, 51 pages to be exact. He does a Great job.