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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