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
