Birdy there is no way for us to second guess why Huston dismounted but the above gives me a clue. I suspect he wanted the Comanche to charge into accurate fire delivered from the ground instead of horseback. He was trying to tempt them into a charge.
Sources are less kind. This is what the Texas State historical association has to say...
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhu46 Huston arrived at Plum Creek on the evening of August 11, 1840, and took command of the gathering troops. The following day he formed his troops for battle, dismounted his men, and began firing at random. As the Comanches fled with their plunder, Huston, at the urging of Benjamin McCulloch and other old Indian fighters, ordered a charge....
Historian Eugene C. Barker characterized Huston as "a typical military adventurer" whose "actual personal service in Texas was more obstreperous than effective(Obstreperous = "noisy and difficult to control", I hadda look it up
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And two sources on the field that day, both given in Moore's book. The first, Hamilton Bee of La Grange, was among the approximately 200 men hurrying to Plum Creek that day but who arrived after the fight was over.
General Felix Huston of course makes it out to sound like a second Waterloo. I am glad that he was in it. being the first fight he has been in, although it was general opinion that if Burleson had been in command much more execution would have been made. Turns out as per the link given earlier, Huston never did command again, and had not commanded a force in battle before. He HAD been removed from command a couple of years earlier.
John Harvey, one of of Burleson's Batrop men who was in on the fighting at Plum Creek had this to say....
We had two old Indian fighters along, viz., Ed Burleson and Paint Caldwell, and I thing if either one had commanded, we would have done more execution. But Huston was commander of the Texan forces in that battle, and hearing of their vast numbers supposed that the Indians would halt and give us battle in a regular way and made his arrangements accordingly.
But the Indians were too smart for us, and made their own arrangement as to fight. They out-generalled us, but we whipped the red man. With his hollow square against cavalry, I'm guessing Huston WAS channelling Napoleon, or at least Waterloo (where IIRC, it was the Brits who formed hollow squares). EVERYBODY looked to the French in those days, including our own Jefferson Davis. Fifteen years later the archtypical western cavalry unit, the 2nd US Cavalry (AKA "Jeff Davis's Own") would be formed on the model of the French experience in North Africa, Davis even brung camels over. Then tbere's the whole minie technology thing.
Even so, I believe we can give Huston a pass. He did hit the Comanches hard enough that they never came back like that again and, more to the point, almost nobody on the Texan side got killed for the loss of, at minimum, forty Comanches dead. If it had been a closer fight, the toll on our side would have doubtless been higher.
Only about twenty dead Comanches were found on the field, them placing a very high value on recovering bodies, especially when Tonkawas were present one might suppose. But ballparking off of Huston's and Hall's estimates of forty dead, perhaps we can guess another forty Comanches wounded.
Hard to know, seems like people under the stress of combat tend to over-estimate their own success (the Battle of Britain imeidately comes to mind). On the Washita for example, after conferring with his officers Custer estimated more than 100 Cheyennes dead. Different groups of Indians that were present in that camp that morning afterwards estimated the number of Indian dead as less than twenty.
For the most part, at Plum Creek the Comanches hovered at the far end of effective rifle range. The rate of fire among the Texans weren't recorded. Nobody mentions running out of bullets but, OTOH, it would presumably have been difficult to stand there and NOT take potshots at the swirling foe.
IMHO the effect on combat of the time required to reload muzzleloaders, even rifles, has been somewhat exaggerated. This especially true where the fighting involves aimed fire at a distance rather than close combat. Recently I've been shooting frontloaders fairly regular, and if I could do it in my sleep like these guy undoubtedly could, I could have a rifle reloaded right quick. The consensus seems to be that people used less tight-fitting loads in their rifles back then. IIRC the "bullet-starter", a short rod used to start a tight-fitting ball, is entirely a modern implement.
If we ballpark one aimed shot every two minutes overall (which is considerably less than what a muzzleloading rifle can do and which would seem like a conservative estimate for hyped-up guys under stress looking to kill Comanches), in thirty minutes 200 Texans could have easily sent 3,000 rifle balls downrange.
Whatever the actual figure, I believe the Texans must have flung a lot of lead, as Felix Huston hisself wrote "a handsome fire".
Eighty Comanches actually getting hit seems like a reasonably conservative estimate. The surprising thing is there ain't that much mention of wounded or dead horses. Just one in fact, where a Comanche was killed when, in one of them Indian machisimo things, he made a point of theatrically pausing to retreive his bridle from his fallen mount.
Birdwatcher
