What is known for certain is that on August 5th, 1840 a sizeable force of Comanches came down from the Texas Hill Country and crossed above San Antonio heading Southeast towards the Gulf.
Moore (Savage Frontier) who devotes the four books in his series to just ten years of Texas history (1835-1845) and so has the luxury of details, puts the number at over 600, including some women and children, and many Kiowas in the mix. The Kiowas lived north of the Comanches, in Western Oklahoma and the High Plains, so indeed at least some of this war party could have come down direct from the large treaty gathering up at Bent's Fort on the Arkansas.
Moore also states that there were a small number of Mexicans accompanying the war party. Coulda happened, in popular Texas history we generally overlook the fact that Mexicans had been wandering those plains for more'n a hundred years before Texas was independent.
There seems little question that the Cherokees, prior to their forcible expulsion from East Texas the year before this raid, had been in independent communication with Mexico. Wasn't mere chance either that Kickapoos, Seminoles and Black Seminoles while living in Oklahoma more than a decade later, were able to enter into contractual agreements with Mexico independent of any involvement by or knowledge of Americans.
Moore does a better job of pointing out too than most how indefinite the prospects of Texas really were in 1840. Though probably unexpellable by that time by Mexican forces, there weren't yet the critical mass of Anglos in the State to render the point moot. Indeed, IIRC, hostile Mexican forces would occupy San Antonio twice (??) more in the next few years.
Earlier in 1840, before the Comanche raid, defeated forces of a Federalist Mexican faction under General Antonio Canales had retreated into Texas as far north as the Medina River just south of San Antonio. These troops were allowed sactuary and Canales himself travelled to Austin and Houston to purchase supplies. Arrangements were made such that if an invasion from Mexico by the opposing Centralist faction was attempted, the Texan Frontier Regiment in San Antonio was to ally themselves with these Mexican Federalist troops to oppose the invasion.
The Commander of the Frontier Regiment, Lt. Col. William Fisher, the same guy who had presided over the Council House Fight, was removed from his post in early August (coincidentally concurrent with the Comanche Raid), when it was learned that he has raised a force of 200 Texan adventurers and entered into the service of Mexico on the Federalist side. This absence of an established chain of command perhaps accounting for the fact that few San Antonians appear to have been present at Plum Creek, where the invading Comanche raiders and their allies would be scattered.
Birdwatcher
