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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