Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922

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Again, in the early summer of 1836, when a second and much more formidable invasion of Texas seemed imminent, it became known that Mexican emissaries were again among these In- dians, and great apprehensions were felt of their rising in arms as the Mexicans advanced. Presi- dent David G. Burnet, on the 28th of June, at the suggestion of Stephen F. Austin, who had arrived at Velasco on the 26th from the United States, addressed a letter to Gen. Gaines, asking him for the time being, to station a force at Nacogdoches, to overawe the Indians. Austin also wrote him of the emergency. That noble and humane old soldier and patriot assumed the responsibility and dis- patehed Col. Whistler with a regiment of dragoons to take post at Nacogdoches. This had the desired effect on the Indians. The Mexican invasion did not occur, and the crisis passed.

But the seeds of suspicion and discord between the whites and Indians stillexisted. Isolated mur- ders and lesser outrages began to show themselves soon afterwards. The Pearce family, the numer- ous family of the Killoughs and numerous others were ruthlessly murdered.

Gen. Houston, who had great influence with the Cherokees, interposed his potential voice to allay the excitement and preserve the peace. In - -, 1838, Vicente Cordova headed an insur- rection of the Mexicans of Nacogdoches and took position in the Cherokee country, - and sustained more or less by that tribe, and joined by a few of them, greatly incensed the whites against them.

In November, 1838, Gen. Rusk fought and defeated a strong force of Kickapoo and other Indians. Gen. Houston retired from his first presidential term in December, and was succeeded by Gen. Mirabeau B. Lamar, who was in deep

sympathy with the people, and had probably brought with him from Georgia a measure of prejudice against those who had fought and slain his kindred and fellow-citizens in that State.

President Lamar resolved on the removal of these people from the heart of East Texas, and their return to their kindred west of Arkansas - by force if necessary. He desired to pay them for their improvements and other losses. He ap- pointed Vice-president David G. Burnet, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War, Hugh McLeod, Adjutant-general, and Gen. Thomas J. Rusk to meet and treat with them for their peace- ful removal; but if that failed then they were to be expelled by force. To be prepared for the latter contingency, he ordered Col. Edward Burleson, then in command of the regular army, to march from Austin to the appointed rendezvous in the Cherokee country, with two companies of regulars and the volunteer companies of Capts. James Ownsby and Mark B. Lewis, about two hundred strong, and commanded by Maj. William J. Jones, still living at Virginia Point, opposite Gal- veston. On the ground they found the com- missioners and about the same time Gen. Kelsey H. Douglas arrived with several hundred East Texas militia and took chief command. Burleson took with him also Capt. Placido, with forty Toncalua warriors.

After three days' negotiation terms were verbally agreed upon. The Indians were to leave the country for a consideration. The second day fol- lowing was fixed for signing the treaty. But the Indians did not appear. The rendezvous was ten miles from their settlements. Scouts sent out returned reporting the Indians in force moving off. It turned out that Bowles, the principal chief, had been finessing for time to assemble all his warriors and surprise the whites by a superior force. His reinforcements not arriving in time, he had begun falling back to meet them. Col. Burleson was ordered to lead the pursuit. He pressed forward rapidly and late in the afternoon (it being July 16th, 1839), came up with them and had a severe engagement, partly in a small prairie and partly in heavy timber, into which Burleson drove them; when night came on aud our troops eneamped. I now quote from the narrative of Maj. Win. J. Jones, who was under Burleson in the first as well as the last engagement on the 17th of July. Hle says : ---

" It soon became apparent that the reinforce- ments looked for by Bowles had not reached him and that he was falling back to meet them. This he succeeded in accomplishing next morning (the

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

17th day of July), at the Delaware village, now in Cherokee County, occupying an eminence in the open post oaks, with the heavily timbered bottom of the Neelies in their immediate rear. When our forees overtook them the main body of the enemy were in full sight occupying the eminence where the village was located, while a detachment was posted in a ravine, tortuous in its course, and was intended to conceal their movements towards our rear, with a view to throw themselves between our men and their horses. But the wateliful eye of Col. Burleson, who well understood the Indian tactics, discovered this movement in good time, when he ordered his entire force of three hundred men to charge and drive the Indians from their place of eoneealment. Although the weather was extremely hot and the men all famished for water, this order was executed with promptness, routing the Indians and driving them back towards the village, surrounded by fences and. eornfields. Gen. Rusk, with all the force (about 400) of East Texas under his immediate command, had in the meantime advanced upon the enemy's front and kept them so hotly engaged in defense of their women and children that no reinforcement eould be spared from that quarter for the support of those who had been driven from the ravine. When they retreated upon the main body, their entire force was terrorized and fell baek in great disorder upon the cornfields, then in full bearing, and the dense timber of the river bottom. It was here that Bowles evineed the most desperate intrepidity, and made several unavailing efforts to rally his trusted warriors. * * * It was in his third and last effort to restore his broken and disordered ranks, that he met his death, mounted upon a very fine sorrel horse, with blaze faec and four white feet. He was shot in the back, near the spine, with a innsket ball and three buckshot. He breathed a short while only after his fall. * *

" After this defeat and the loss of their great and trusted chief," the Indians disappeared, in the jungles of the Neches and, as best they eould, in squads, retreated up the country, the larger por- tion finally joining their countrymen west of Arkansas ; but as will be seen a band of them led by John Bowles (son of the deceased chief) and Egg, en route to Mexico, were defeated, these two leaders killed and twenty-seven women and children captured, near the mouth of the San Saba, on Christmas day, 1839, by Col. Burleson. These eap- tives were afterwards sent to the Cherokee Nation.

The victory at the Delaware village freed East Texas of those Indians. It had become an imper- ative necessity to the safety and population of the

country. Yet let it not be understood that all of RIGHT was with the whites and all of WRONG with the Indians - for that would be false and unjust, and neither should stain our history. From their standpoint the Cherokees believed they had a moral, an equitable, and, at least, a quasi-legal right to the country, and sueh is truth. But be- tween Mexican emissaries on the one hand, mis- chievous Indians on the other and the grasping desire of the unprincipled land grabbers for their territory, one wrong produced a counter wrong until blood flowed and women and children were sacrificed by the more lawless of the Indians, and we have seen the result. All the Indians were not bad, nor were all the whites good. Their expul- sion, thus resolved into the necessity of self-preser- Vation, is not without shades of sorrow. But it has been ever thus where advancing civilization and its opposite have been brought into juxtaposition for the mastery.

But to return to the battle-field of Delaware vil- lage. Many heroic aetious were performed. Viee- president Burnet, Gen. Johnston and Adjt .- Gen. McLeod were each wounded, but not dangerously so. Maj. David S. Kaufman, of the militia (afterwards the distinguished congressman), was shot in the cheek. Capt. S. W. Jordan, of the regulars (afterwards, by his retreat in October, 1840, from Saltillo, styled the Xenophon of his age), was severely wounded when Bowles was killed, and one of his privates, with " buek and ball," says Maj. Jones, " had the credit of killing Bowles."

[In a letter dated Nacogdoches, July 27, 1885. Mr. C. N. Bell, who was in the fight under Capt. Robert Smith, and is vouched for as a man of in- tegrity, says: " Chief Bowles was wounded in the battle, and after this Capt. Smith and I found him. He was sitting in the edge of a little prairie on the Neches river. The chief asked for no quarter. He had a holster of pistols, a sword and a bowie knife. Under the circumstances the captain was compelled to shoot him, as the chief did not surren- der nor ask for quarter. Smith put his pistol right to his head and shot him dead, and of course had no use for the sword." So says Mr. Bell, but the in- quisitive mind will fail to see the compulsive neces- sity of killing the disabled chief when his slayer was enabled "to put his pistol right to his head and shoot bim dead." I well remember in those days, however, that the names of half a dozen men were paraded as the champions, who, under as many different circumstances, had killed Bowles. ]

Inthis battle young Wirt Adams was the Adjutant of Maj. Jones' battalion. He was the distinguished

INDLIN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

Mississippi Confederate General who was killed in somne sort of personal difficulty a year or two years ago. Michael Chavallier, subsequently distinguished as a Texas ranger, drew his maiden sword in this fight. Maj. Henry W. Augustine, of San Augustine, was severely wounded in it. Charles A. Ogsbury, now of Cuero, was a gallant member of Capt. Owns- by's Company. John H. Reagan, * then a youth, recently arrived in the country, was in the hottest of the engagement, and now sits in the Senate of the United States. David Rusk, standing six feet six

in his stocking feet, was there, as valiant as on San Jacinto's field. The ever true, ever cool and ever fearless Burleson covered himself with glory and by his side rode the stately and never faltering chief, Capt. Placido, who would have faced " devils and demons dire" rather than forsake his friend and beau ideal of warriors, "Col. Woorleson," as he always pronounced the name.

I cannot give a list of casualties, but the number of wounded was large - of killed small.

Col. Burleson's Christmas Fight in 1839 - Death of Chiefs John Bowles and the "Egg."

After the double defeat of the Cherokees in East Texas, in the battle. of July 16th and 17th, the whereabouts of those Indians was unknown for a considerable time. Doubtless a considerable por- tion of them sought and found refuge among their kindred on the north side of the Arkansas, where Texas had long desired them to be. The death of their great chief, Col. Bowles, or " The Bowl," as his people designated him -- the man who had been their Moses for many years - had divided their connsels and scattered them. But a considerable body remained intact under the lead of the younger chiefs, John Bowles, son of the deceased, and. "The Egg." In the autumn of 1839, these, with their followers, undertook to pass across the coun- try, above the settlements, into Mexico, from which they could harass our Northwestern frontier with impunity and find both refuge and protection beyond the Rio Grande and among our national foes.

At that time it happened that Col. Edward Bur- leson, then of the regular army, with a body of regulars, a few volunteers and Lipan and Toncabua Indians as sconts, was on a winter campaign against the hostile tribes in the upper country, between the Brazos and the Colorado rivers.

On the evening of December 23d, 1839, when about twenty-five miles (easterly) from Pecan bayou, the scouts reported the discovery of a large trail of horses and cattle, bearing south towards

the Colorado river. On the following day Col. Bur- leson changed his course and followed the trail. On the morning of the 25th, Christmas day, the scouts returned and reported an encampment of Indians about twelve miles distant, on the west bank of the Colorado and about three miles below the mouth of the San Saba. (This was presumably the identical spot from which Capts. Kuykendall and Henry S. Brown drove the Indians ten years before in 1829.)

Fearing discovery if he waited for a night attack, Col. Burleson determined to move forward as rapidly as possible, starting at 9 a. m. By great caution and the cunning of his Indian guides he succeeded in crossing the river a short distance above the encampment without being discovered.

When discovered within a few hundred yards of the camp, a messenger met them and proposed a parley. Col. Burleson did not wish to fire if they would surrender; bat perceiving their messenger was being detained, the Indians opened a brisk fire from a ravine in rear of their camp, which was promptly returned by Company B. under Capt. Clendenin, which formed under cover of some trees and fallen timber ; while the remainder of the command moved to the right in order to flank their left or surround them; but before this could be executed, our advance charged and the enemy gave way, and a running fight took place for two miles, our whole force pursuing. Favored by a rocky precipitous ravine, and a dense cedar brake, the warriors chiefly escaped, but their loss was great. Among the seven warriors left dead on the field were the Chiefs John Bowles and " The

" Since above was written, resigned from United States Senate, and is now a member of the Texas State Hillroad Commission.

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

Egg." The whole of their camp equipage, horses and cattle, one man, five women and nineteen children fell into the hands of the vietors. Among the prisoners were the mother, three children and two sisters of Jolin Bowles.

Our loss was one Toncahua wounded and the brave Capt. Lynch of the volunteers killed - shot dead while charging among the foremost of the advance.

The prisoners were sent under a guard com- manded by Lieut. Moran to Austin, together with · important papers found in the camp.

Col. Burleson made his official report next day to Gen. Albert. Sydney Johnston, Secretary of War, from which these details are derived. He

then continued his original march, seouring the country up Peean bayou, thenee across to the Leon and down the country. Several bodies of Indians were diseovered by the seouts - one being large - but they fled and avoided the troops. Two soldiers deserted on the trip, and both were killed by the hostiles. Among others in this expedition were Col. Wm. S. Fisher, Maj. Wyatt, the gallant Capt. Matthew Caldwell, Lieut. Lewis, Dr. Booker and Dr. (then Capt. ) J. P. B. Jan- uary, who died in Victoria, Texas, a worthy sur- vivor of the men of '36.

A few months later, after an amicable under- standing, the prisoners were sent to their kindred in the Cherokee Nation, west of Arkansas.

Bird's Victory and Death in 1839.

In 1839 the savages, flushed with many trophies, beeame exceedingly bold, and were constantly committing depredations. The settlers on the upper Brazos, Colorado and Trinity ealled upon the government for some measure of relief and protection. Under an Aet of the Congress in the beginning of that year several companies of three months' rangers were called out.

The fraction of a eompany, thirty-four men, reeruited in Houston, and under the command of Lient. William G. Evans, marched from that city and reached Fort Milam the 3d of April, 1839. This fort, situated two miles from the present town of Marlin, had been built by Capt. Joseph Daniels, with the Milam Guards, a volunteer company, also from Houston. William Il. Weaver was Orderly Sergeant of Evans' Company. Evans was directed to afford all the protection in his power to the settlers.

A company of fifty- nine men from Fort Bend and Austin counties, was mustered into the ser- viee for three months, on the 21st of April, 1839, under the command of Capt. John Bird, and reached Fort Milam on the 6th of May. Capt. Bird, as senior officer, took command of both eom- panies, but leaving Evans in the fort, he quartered in some deserted houses on the spot where Marlin now stands.

Nothing special transpired for some little time, but their provisions gave ont, and the men were compelled to subsist on wild meat alone. This

oeeasioned some murmurs and seven men beeame mutinous, insomueh, as, in the opinion of Bird, to demand a court-martial; but. there were not officers enough to constitute sueh a tribunal, and after their arrest he determined to send them under guard to Col. Burleson, at Bastrop. For this pur- pose twelve men were detailed under First-Lieut. James Irvine. At the same time Bird detailed twelve men, ineluding Sergt. Weaver, from Evans' command, to strengthen his own company, and determined to bear company with the prisoners on a portion of the route towards Bastrop.

They reached the deserted fort on Little river on the night of the 25th of June and eamped. Next morning, leaving Lieut. Wm. R. Allen in charge, Bird .and Nathan Brookshire accompanied the guard and prisoners for a few miles on their route and then retraced their steps towards the fort. On the way, they came upon three Indians, skin- ning a buffalo, routed them and captured a horse loaded with meat.

About 9 o'clock a. m., and during Bird's ab- sence, a small party of Indians, on the chase, ran a gang of buffaloes very near the fort, but so soon as they discovered the Americans they retreated north over the rolling prairie. Sergt. Weaver was anxious to pursue them, but Allen refused, lest by so doing they should expose Bird and Brookshire. So soon as the latter arrived, and were informed of what had been seen, Bird directed an examination into the condition of their arms,

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

and ordered "To horse," and a rapid march in the direction the Indians had gone, leaving two men in the fort as guard. In about four miles they came in view of fifteen or twenty Indians and chased without overhauling them. The enemy were well mounted and could easily elude them, but seemed only to avoid gun-shot distance, and continued at a moderate speed on the same course, through the broken prairie. Now and then, a sin- gle Indian would dart off in advance of his com- rades and disappear, and after pursuing them some four or five miles small parties of well mounted Indians would frequently appear and join the first body; but still the retreat and the pursuit were continued.

After traveling some twelve miles in this way, through the prairie, the Indian force had been ma- terially augmented, and they halted and formed on the summit of a high ridge. Bird immediately ordered a charge, which was firmly met by the enemy and they came into close quarters and hot work. As they mingled with the Indians on the elevated ridge, one of Bird's men, pointing to the next ridge beyond, sang out: "Look yonder, boys! What a crowd of Indians! " and the little band of forty-five men beheld several hundred mounted warriors advancing at full speed. They immediately surrounded our men and poured a heavy fire among them. The intrepid Weaver directed Capt. Bird's attention to a ravine two hun- dred yards distant and at the base of the hill, as an advantageous position. Bird, preserving the ut- most composure amid the shower of bullets and arrows, ordered his men to dismount, and leading their horses in solid column, to cut their way down to the position named.

Cutting their way as best they could, they reached the head of the little ravine and made a lodgment for both men and horses, but a man named II. M. C. Hall, who had persisted in remaining on his horse, was mortally wounded in dismounting on the bank. This ravine was in the open prairie with a ridge gradually ascending from its head and on either side, reaching the principal elevations at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred yards. For about eighty yards the ravine had washed out into a channel, and then expanded into a flat surface. Such localities are com- mon in the rolling prairies of Texas. The party having thus secured this, the only defensible point within their reach, the enemy collected to the number of about six hundred on the ridge, stripped for battle and hoisted a beautiful flag of blue and red, perhaps the trophy of some precious victory. Sounding a whistle they mounted and at a gentle

and beautifully regular gallop in single file, they commenced encircling Bird and his little band, using their shields with great dexterity. Passing round the head of the ravine then turning in front of the Texian line, at about thirty yards - a trial always the most critical to men attacked by supe- rior numbers, and one, too, that created among Bird's inen a death-like silence and doubtless tested every nerve - the leading chief saluted them with : " How do you do? How do you do?" repeated by a number of his followers. At that moment, says one of the party, my heart rose to my throat and I felt like I could outrun a race-horse and I thought all the rest felt just as I did. But, just as the chief had repeated the salutation the third time, William Winkler, a Dutchman, presented bis rifle with as much self-composure as if he had been shooting a beef, at the same time responding: "I dosh tolerably well; how dosh you do, God tam you! " He fired, and as the chief fell, he con- tinued: " Now, how dosh you do, you tam red rascal ! " Not another word had been uttered up to that moment, but the dare-devil impromptu of the iron-nerved Winkler operated as an electric battery, and our men opened on the enemy with loud and defiant hurrahs- the spell was broken, and not a man among them but felt himself a hero. Their first fire, however, from the intensity of the ordeal, did little execution, and in the charge, Thomas Gay fell dead in the ditch, from a rifle ball.

Recoiling under the fire, the Indians again formed on the hill and remained about twenty minutes, when a second charge was made in the same order, but in which they made a complete circuit around the Texians dealing a heavy fire among them. But the nerves of the inspirited defenders had now be- come steady and their aim was unerring - they brought a goodly number of their assailants to the ground. They paid bitterly for it, however, in the loss of the fearless Weaver, who received a death ball in the head, and of Jesse E. Nash, who was killed by an arrow, while Lieut. Allen and George W. Hensell were severely wounded and disabled ; and as the enemy fell back a second time, Capt. Bird jumped on to the bank to encourage his men ; but only to close his career on earth. He was shot through the heart with an arrow by an Indian at the extraordinary distance of two hundred yards - the best arrow shot known in the annals of Indian warfare, and one that would seem incredible to those who are not familiar with their skill in shoot- ing by elevation.

They were now left without an officer. Nathan Brookshire, who had served in the Creek war under Jackson, was the oldest man in the company, and

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

at the suggestion of Samuel A. Blain, was unani- mously called upon to assume the command. He assented, and requited the confidence reposed in a most gallant manner.

For the third time, after a brief delay on the ridge, the enemy came down in full force, with ter- rific yells, and an apparent determination to triumph or sacrifice themselves. They advanced with impet- uosity to the very brink of the diteh, and, recoiling under the most telling fire from our brave boys, they would rally again and again with great firmness. Dozens of them fell within twenty or thirty feet of our rifles - almost every shot killed or wounded an Indian. Brookshire's stentorian voice was heard through the lines in words of inspiring counsel. The stand made by the enemy was truly desperate ; but the death-dealing havoc of the white man, fight- ing for vietory or death, was too galling for the red man, battling for his ancient hunting-grounds, and after a prolonged contest, they withdrew with sullen stubbornness to the same position on the ridge, leav- ing many of their comrades on the field. It was now drawing towards night, and our men, wearied with the hard day's work, and not wishing to pro- voke a feeling of desperation among the discom- fited foe, concluded it would be unwise to hurrah any more, as they had done, unless in resisting a charge.

The Indians drew up into a compact mass on the ridge and were vehemently addressed by their prin- cipal chief, mounted on a beautiful horse and wearing on his head a buffalo skin cap, with the. horns attached. It was manifest, from his manner and gesticulations, that he was urging his braves to another and last desperate struggle for victory -- but it would not do. The crowd was defeated. But not so with their heroic chief. Failing to nerve the mass, he resolved to lead the few who might follow him. With not exceeding twelve warriors, as the forloro hope, and proudly waving defiance at his people, he made one of the most daring assaults in our history, charging within a few paces of our lines, fired, and wheeling his horse, threw his shield over his shoulders, leaving his head and neck only exposed. At this moment, the chivalrous young James W. Robinett sent & ball through his neck, causing instant death, ex- claiming, as the chief fell, "Shout boys! I struck bim where his neck and shoulders join! " A tre- mendous hurrah was the response. The Indians on the hill side, spectators of the scene, seeing their great war chief fall within thirty feet of the Amer- icans, seemed instantly possessed by a reckless frenzy to recover his body; and with headlong impetuosity, rushed down and surrounded the

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Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel] Number of Pages: 922

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922