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Well, inside of an hour, more than 150 Comanches from that camp are gonna be sorted out by God, as the saying goes about "Killing 'em all".

But pardon me while I wax all Birdwatcheresque for a moment.....

See, I'm wondering what people do, when all of a sudden you're there, after weeks of arduous travel, and after perhaps years of thirsting for revenge. Suddenly there you are; warriors to be sure, but also old folk, screaming women... and terrified children running everywhere.

That Texans were often more than willing to spare non-combatants is reflected in the number of captives they took, and orphaned children adopted. But women and children did get shot in these episodes...

Smithwick in that situation on Moore's (the Ranger) '39 expedition didn't kill anyone. He doesn't say so but we can infer as much from his statements elsewhere. In fact at least one Historian has noted that Moore omits mention of Smithwick at all, though he was generous with praise of others in on that fight. This despite the fact that Smithwick must have been prominent; he was the Spanish-speaking liason with the Lipan Scouts.

Elsewhere in "Savage Frontier" Moore (the modern author) writes of a Texan in North Texas who relates his disblief that he didn't actually kill an Indian woman and child, but took them prisoner instead, despite his recollection of neighbors butchered.

At this point I'm gonna digress a little.

In 1840, while Moore was putting a sneak on the Comanches, the Seminoles of whom I will shortly speak, and their Black Seminole slaves, were still in Florida. "Slaves" in quotes really, more like "allies".

The lifetime partnership between Wildcat and John Horse is gist for another thread. In brief, in 1842 the US Government allowed 500 Blacks who had just rfecently been engaged in active combat against the forces of the United States to remove to the Indian Territory while bearing arms. Simply unheard of.

Ten years later, when edicts were passed making it illegal to for slaves to bear arms, and suffering from the incessant threat of slave raids, John Horse, whose own wife and daughter were taken by Creek slave catchers, cut a deal for the Black Seminoles to obtain land in Mexico in return for fighting Comanche, Kiowa and Apache raiders.

In the 1870's these Black Seminoles in Mexico were recruited to scout for the US Army in Texas.

Just outside of Fort Clark, (Brackettsville TX) lies their Cemetery, one of the most storied five acres of ground anywhere in America.




For those familiar with the story, the names on these modest stones evoke a wide sweep of history; storied frontiersmen, skilled scouts, and combat veterans all.



A few here were already older when they returned to Texas, survivors of the whole saga...





Four Medal of Honor winners are buried here, including Adam Paine; who stood more than 6ft tall plus his horned Comanche headdress, awarded his medal by Ranald MacKenzie himself for "habitual boldness".

Adam Paine doubtless had problems with the whole deference thing expected of Blacks in that era, and he killed a White cavalryman in a brawl in a Brownsville bar. Too dangerous to apprehend face to face, he was shot in the back while unarmed, both barrels of a shotgun close enough to set his clothes on fire, on New Years Eve by the same Uvalde Sheriff he had previously faced down, despite being outnumbered.





The Uvalde Sheriff was a US Cavalry veteran, and Paine became the only Medal of Honor winner ever killed by another.

Ain't just old guys buried there, some Black Seminoles died in more recent wars....





How this is all relevant to attacking Indian camps and killing or not killing is this...

On April 1st 1873, Colonel Ranald Makenzie (the "anti-Custer") was ordered by Sheridan to make a covert strike into Mexico against the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches who at that time were raiding across the Border.

The Apache camp was eighty miles south of the river, the camp was to be struck and the cavalry back across the river in twenty-four hours. Six companies of the Fourth Cavalry, more than three hundred fifty Troopers, were gathered at Fort Clark, to be guided by forty Black Seminole Scouts under Major John Lapham Bullis.

Here I'll quote from Thomas Porter's fine book "The Black Seminoles"....

After a forced march of approximately eighty miles, travelling all night at a "killing pace", the four hundred or so men struck the Lipan, Mescalero, and Kickapoo settlements near Remolino, Mexico early the next morning...

When MacKenzie ordered the charge, the raiders poured into the village in successive waves. Later, a descendant of one of the Kickapoo survivors said that the villagers "ran together like ants"....

The orders were to spare women and children. As the battle raged about him, Seminole scout Tony Wilson had a Lipan in his sights. Just as he squeezed the trigger, his target threw up an arm and revealed that she was female. But her gesture came too late.

The black's carbine cracked, and the woman fell dead. Wilson was reportedly haunted for the rest of his life by this error in judgement. It eventually made him insane.





I'll fess up, I dont get out to Fort Clark that often, but I've paused a time or two and said a prayer over this guy's grave.

Birdwatcher