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from that same website...

The account of Robert Hall, the same guy who rode all night to turn Matthew Caldwell around, and who scouted out the Comanche position the night before Plum Creek. And note how Caldwell's men "almost left" Plum Creek the evening before on account of they didn't see anyone at first Proving that, in any given historical event, hindsite sure is clearer than it was to the people actually involved at the time.

Here starting with their arrival at Plum Creek. Recall that Robert Hall had left Gonzales the evening of te 9th before before Ben McCulloch arrived from tailing the Comanche host. So the night of the 11th was the first Hall saw of him.

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/plumcreek.htm#halldescrip



We got the news at Gonzales that a strong column of Comanches had passed into the lower country, and we at once got into the saddle and marched to the rescue of our friends. We camped at Isham Good's first, and, not hearing any news, we were about to return home, when Ben McCulloch rode into camp. Goat Jones was with him. They reported that the Indians had plundered the lower country, and were returning on the same trail.

Capt. Caldwell asked me to take a good man and scout to the front and see if I could see anything of the Indians. I took John Baker, and we rode all night. About daylight we came in sight of the Indians, about seven miles from our camp. We rode back and reported...

During my absence Gen. Felix Huston had been elected to the command of the army, and Ed Burleson had joined us with about one hundred men, including some fifteen Tonkaways. Gen. Huston asked me to take five picked men and ride to the front and select a good position to make the attack. I came in sight of them. They were on the prairie, and the column looked to be seven miles long.

Here I witnessed a horrible sight. A captain and one man rode in among the Indians. The captain escaped, but I saw the Indians kill the private. I ordered my men to keep at a safe distance and pick off an Indian as the opportunity presented...

At the first volley the Indians became demoralized, and it was easy to see that we had them beat just as we rode against them I received a bullet in the thigh. It made a terrible wound, and the blood ran until it sloshed out of my boots. I was compelled to dismount, or rather I fell off of my horse. After a moment I felt better and made an effort to rejoin the line of battle...

While on the skirmish fine, an Indian dashed at Mr. Smitzer with a lance. I fired right in the Indian's face and knocked him off his horse, but I did not kill him. However, I got the fine hat he had stolen...

An then one of them truth-stranger-than-fiction episodes, an account of Comanches on that march gathering around in the evening to be read to. Fehrenbach describes Wrs. Watts as an attractive woman, and apparently she was a class act....

A little further on I found Mrs. Watts. They had shot an arrow at her breast, but her steel corset saved her life. It had entered her body, but Isham Good and I fastened a big pocket knife on the arrow and pulled it out.

She possessed great fortitude, for she never flinched, though we could hear the breastbone crack when the arrow came out. She turned over on her side and bled a great deal, but she soon recovered. She was the wife of a custom house officer, and I think her maiden name was Ewing.

She asked for poor Mrs. Crosby and told us that the Indians whipped the poor woman frequently and called her a "peon," because she could not read. They had stolen several books, and when in camp at night they would gather around Mrs. Watts and ask her to explain the pictures and read to them.

And after the battle, the homecoming, Hall having been held up by his leg wound...

After some days my friends got an old buggy and hitched an old horse to it and made an effort to get me home. At the crossing of the San Marcos the old horse balked and refused to pull the vehicle up the hill. That made me mad, and I got out of the buggy and walked on home. I was tired and hungry, and I wanted to see Polly and get something to eat and have her dress my wound.

Polly was glad to see me, for she thought I was dead. Old man King had gone home, and, from some cause, he had carried my shoes. He told Polly I would be home in a few days, but during the evening she found my shoes, full of blood, and she began to scream and upbraid her father. He then had to tell her the truth, but he insisted that I was only slightly wounded.

Polly did not believe him, but when she saw me walking home she ran to meet me and declared that she never intended to let me go to fight Indians any more.

Hall, twenty-six at the time of this fight, would father thirteen children and later serve the Confederacy. For only $35,000 you can even buy some of his dud's online. Not mentioned here is that Hall arrived in Texas in 1835 crewing a sidewheeler steamboat, and later served aboard the famous Yellow Stone.

http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=83437

At the age of 21 Hall moved to Texas and arrived shortly after the Battle of San Jacinto. He formally joined the Republic of Texas Army on June 1, 1836 and served about six months before being discharged.

Along Plum Creek and near the present town of Lockhart, the Texas volunteers surprised the Comanches and completely routed them. Hall sustained a gunshot wound in the thigh that was so severe that witnesses said the blood �sloshed out� of his boot....

After the battle, Sam Houston presented Hall with a magnificent hunting horn for his gallant conduct during the Plum Creek fight. This hunting horn, included in this auction lot, was Hall�s most prized possession. Hall valued the hunting horn so highly because, not only was it given to him by his good friend, Sam Houston, the horn itself had an inspiring provenance. According to Hall�s exceptionally rare biography, the hunting horn was presented in 1820 to Mrs. Jane Long by the buccaneer Jean Lafitte one evening during dinner aboard his flagship off Galveston Island. Mrs. Long, the wife of a Texas colonist, was informed that the horn had been taken from the body of a dead pirate. She later gave the hunting horn to Sam Houston, who then presented it to Hall. It has remained in the possession of family descendants since Hall�s death in 1899.

When Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845, conflict with Mexico was inevitable. Hall voted against joining the Union and stated that he had �voted first, last, and always for the Lone Star.� Nonetheless, when war became imminent, Hall joined a local ranger company and rode south to enlist with Ben McCulloch�s Texas Rangers in Mexico. Hall�s service as a scout with McCulloch�s Rangers was impressive. In 1847 he participated in the pivotal battle of Buena Vista and for years recalled episodes of that battle and its horrific aftermath.

Hall spent the decade of the 1850s farming and ranching in Gonzales County, Texas. Despite his Unionist sentiments, when Texas seceded from the United States, the 48-year-old Hall joined the 36th (Wood�s) Texas Cavalry Regiment. His first year of Confederate service was spent scouting on the western frontier of Texas. He later participated in several combat operations in Louisiana and along the Texas coast.

After the war, Hall moved his family to South Texas where he drove cattle in the brush country along the Nueces River. Later, he settled near the town of Cotulla.

During the 1870s Hall became an active member of the Texas Veterans Association. He savored his role as the venerable old Texas veteran and during the 1870s he made an impressive �frontiersman�s suit� from buckskin and an assortment of animal pelts. He wore the suit on �gala days and at the gathering of the old veterans.� The suit, included in this auction lot, was publicly displayed during the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. Along with Hall�s canteen and hunting horn, the suit has always been in the possession of family descendants.

Robert Hall was still active in his 70s and 80s and he continued to hunt and roam the Texas prairies. One journalist described him as �hale and hearty� at the age of 82. He spent the last years of his life living with his children and grandchildren in Cotulla. He devoted a portion of that time dictating his memoirs. On December 19, 1899, the old warrior died in Cotulla

Little ol' Cotulla down in the brush country has remained basically BFE from that time until just recently, tho' I expect the Eagle Ford oil formation is presently changing all of that.

Birdwatcher