USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 16
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The command followed up the valley of the Colorado, without encountering an enemy, till it reached a point now supposed to be in the region of Colorado City. The Lipan scouts were constantly in advance, and on the alert. Hastily returning, while in the vicinity mentioned, they reported the discovery of a Comanche encampment fifteen or twenty miles distant, on the east bank and in a small horseshoe bend of the Colorado, with a high and somewhat steep bluff on the opposite bank.
Col. Moore traveled by night to within a mile or two of the camp, and then halted. It was a clear, cold night in October, and the earth white with frost, probably two thousand feet above the sea level. The men shivered with cold, while the un- suspecting savages slept warmly under buffalo- robes in their skin-covered tepees. In the mean- time Moore detached Lieut. Owen, with thirty men, to cross the river below, move up and at dawn occupy the bluff. This movement was success- fully effected, and all awaited the dawn for sufficient light to guide their movements.
The stalwart and gallant old leader, mounted on his favorite steed, with a few whispered words summoned every man to his saddle. Slowly, cautiously they moved till within three hundred yards of the camp, when the rumbling sound of moving horses struck the ear of a warrior on watch. His shrill yell sounded the alarm, and ere Moore, under a charge instantly ordered, could be in their - midst, every warrior and many of the squaws had their bows strung and ready for figlit. But peli- mell the volunteers rushed upon and among them. The rifles, shot-guns and pistols of the white man, in a contest largely hand-to-hand, with fearful rapidity struck the red man to the earth. Sur- prised and at close quarters, the wild man, though fighting with desperation, shot too rapidly and wildly to be effective. Seeing their fate a consid- erable number swam the narrow river and essayed to escape by climbing the bluff. Some were shot in their asceut by Moore's men from across the stream and tumbled backwards. Every one who made the ascent to the summit of the bluff was confronted and slain by Owen's men. At the onset two horses were tied in the camp. On these two warriors escaped. Besides them, so far as could be ascertained, every warrior was killed, excepting a few old men and one or two young men, who sur- rendered and were spared.
لادنـ
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Many of the Indian women, for a little while, fouglit as stoutly as the men and some were killed, despite every effort to save them. In the charge Isaac Mitchell's bridle bit parted asunder and his mule rushed ahead into the midst of the Indians - then halted and " sulked "- refused to move. A. squaw seized a large billet of wood and by a blow on his head tumbled him to the ground; but he sprang to his feet, a little bewildered, and just as his comrades came by, seeing the squaw springing at him knife in hand, they sang out, "Kill her,
Mitchell !" With a smile, not untinged with pain, he replied : " Oh, no, boys, I can't kill a woman !" But to prevent her killing himself, he knocked her down and wrenched the weapon from her hands.
A hundred and thirty Indians were left dead on the field. Thirty-four squaws and children and several hundred horses were brought in, besides such camp equipage as the men chose to carry with them, among which were goods plundered at Linnville the previous August.
A Raid into Gonzales and Pursuit of the Indians in May, 1841 - Ben McCulloch in the Lead.
Late in April, or early in May, 1841, a party of twenty-two Indians made a night raid into and around Gonzales, captured a considerable number of horses and, ere daylight came, were in rapid flight to their mountain home. It was but one of oft-recurring inroads, the majority of which will never be known in history. In this case, however, as in many others, I am enabled to narrate every material fact, and render justice to the handful of gallant, men who pursued and chastised the free- booters.
Ben McCulloch called for volunteers ; but not, as was most usual, to hurry off in pursuit. He knew the difficulty and uncertainty of overhauling retreating savages, with abundant horses for frequent change, and preferred waiting a few days, thereby inducing the red men, who always kept seouts in the rear, to believe no pursuit would be made, and in this he was successful.
When ready, McCulloch set forth with the fol- lowing sixteen companions, every one of whom was personally well known to the writer as a brave and useful frontiersman, viz. : Arthur Swift, James HI. Callahan (himself often a captain), Wilson Randle, Green McCoy (the Gonzales boy who was in Erath's fight in Milam County in 1837, when his uncle, David Clark, and Frank Childress, were killed), Eli T. Hankins, Clement Hinds, Archibald Gipson (a daring soldier in many fights, from 1836 to 1851,) W. A. Hall, Henry E. McCulloch, James Roberts, Jeremiah Roberts, Thomas R.
Nichols, William Tumlinson, William P. Kincannon, Alsey S. Miller, and William Morrison.
They struck the Indian trail where it crossed the San Marcos at the mouth of Mule creek and fol- lowed it northwestwardly up and to the head of York's creek ; thence through the mountains to the Guadalupe, and up that stream to what is now known as " Johnson's Fork," which is the principal mountain tributary to the Guadalupe on the north side. The trail was followed along this fork to its source, and thence northwestwardly to the head of what is now known as "Johnson's Fork" of the Llano, and down this to its junction with the Llano.
Before reaching the latter point McCulloch halted in a secluded locality, satisfied that he was near the enemy, and in person made a reconnoisance of their position, and with such accuracy that he was enabled to move on foot so near to the encamp- ment as, at daylight, to completely surprise the Indians. The conflict was short. Five warriors lay dead upon the ground. Half of the remainder escaped wounded, so that of twenty-two only about eight escaped unhurt ; but their number had prob- ably been increased after reaching that section.
The Indians lost everything excepting their arms. Their horses, saddles, equipages, blankets, robes, and even their moccasins, were captured. It was not only a surprise to them, but a significant warn- ing, as they had no dread of being hunted down and punished in that distant and remarkably
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secluded locality. In March and April, 1865, in command of 183 men, the writer, as a Confederate officer, made a campaign through and above tliat country, following the identical route from the mouth of Johnson's Fork of the Guadalupe to the
spot where this confliet took place twenty-four years before, and found it still a wild mountain region - still a hiding-place for savage red men, and at that particular period, for lawless and dis- reputable white men.
Red River and Trinity Events in 1841 - The Yeary and Ripley Families - Skirmish on Village Creek and Death of Denton - Expeditions of Gens. Smith and Tarrant.
For a great many years I have had notes on the expedition in which John B. Denton was killed, furnished at different times by four different per- sons who were participants, viz., Cols. James Bour- land and Wm. C. Young, Dr. Lemuel M. Cochran and David Williams, then a boy; but there has appeared from time to time in former years such a variety of fiction on the subject that I determined to publish nothing until thoroughly convinced of the accuracy of the statements thus obtained - all the while hoping for a personal interview with my venerable friend of yore, Henry Stout, of Wood County -- who, besides Denton, was the only man hurt in the trip. This I now have together with a written statement from Dr. Coehran, dated Gon- zales, September 26, 1886, and the personal recol- lections of John M. Watson, Alex W. Webb and Col. Jas. G. Stevens, then a youth.
As a prelude to the expedition it is proper to say that late in 1840, the house of Capt. John Yeary, living on Sulphur, in the southeast part of Fannin County, was attacked by a party of ten Indians while he and a negro man were at work in his field three hundred yards from the house. Mrs. Yeary, gun in hand, stood on the defensive, inside of the closed door. Yeary and the negro man, armed with a hoe cach, rushed towards the house and across the yard fence, fought the assailants hand to band, in which Yeary received an arrow just above the eye, which glanced around the skull without Jwnetrating. Mrs. Yeary, with a gun, ran out to her husband, but in doing so was shot in the hip. Thus strengthened in the means of defense, the Indians were driven off, without further casualty to the family.
Early in April, 1841, a part of the Ripley family
on the old Cherokee trace, on Ripley creek, in Titus County, were murdered by Indians. Ripley was absent. Mrs. Ripley was at home with a son scarcely twenty years old, a daughter about six- teen, two daughters from twelve to fifteen, and several smaller children, living some distance from any other habitation. The Indians suddenly ap- peared in daylight, shot and killed the son as he was plowing in the field, and rushed upon the house, from which the mother and children fled towards a canebrake, two hundred yards distant. The elder daughter was shot dead on the way. The second and third daughters eseaped into the eane; the mother and the other children were killed with clubs; one child in the house, probably asleep. The Indians then plundered the house and set it on fire, the child inside being consumed in the flames.
This second outrage led to a retaliatory expedi- tion, which required some time for organization, in the thinly populated district. By prior agreement the volunteer citizens, numbering eighty ( as stated by Dr. Cochran, who was Orderly Sergeant; but, seventy, according to Henry Stout's statement ), met in a body on Choctaw bayou, eight miles west of the place sinee known as Old Warren, on the 4th of May, 1841. as shown by the notes of John M. Watson, yet (1886) living in Fannin County. On the next morning they organized into a company by electing James Bourland, Captain, William C. Young, Lieutenant, and Lemuel M. Cochran, Orderly Ser- geant. John B. Denton and Ilenry Stout were each placed in charge of a few men as scouts. Edward H. Tarrant, General of militia, was of the party without command, but was consulted and respected as a senior officer. On the same day the company moved west to the vacant barracks,
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erected during the previous winter by Col. William G. Cooke, senior offieer in command of the regular troops of Texas. At the barracks, which stood in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Denison, the company remained two or three days for a portion of the volunteers, who had been de- tained. On their arrival the command moved west on the old Chihuahua trail, leading to Natchitoches, Jack Ivey, a man of mixed Indian and African blood, was pilot. At that time Holland Coffee, who was one of the party, lived eight miles above the barracks. At some point on the trip, but exactly when or where, I. have been unable to learn, he, with a man named Wm. A. (Big Foot) Wallace, Colvill, and seven others, left the company and returned to his post or trading house. This doubtless accounts for the disparity in numbers given by Cochran and Stout.
It was believed that the depredating Indians were encamped on a creck which enters the west fork of Trinity from the northeast side, where the town of Bridgeport now stands, in Wise County, the reputed village being at a broken, rocky spot, four or five miles up the stream, which now bears the name of " Village " creek. The expeditiou moved uuder that belief, passing where Gainesville now is, and thence southwesterly to the supposed Kecchi village, but found it abandoned, without any evi- dence of very recent occupancy, beyond some fresh horse tracks, not far away.
The next day they crossed to the west side of the Trinity, and for two days traveled south obliquely in the direction of the Brazos. Find- ing no indication of Indians, they turned north- easterly, and on the afternoon of the second day recrossed the Trinity to the north and tray- eled down its valley, camping in the forks of that stream and Fossil creek. On the next day, near their camp, they found an old buffalo trail, leading down and diagonally across theriver, and on to an Indian encampment on Village creek, a short distance above, but south from where the Texas and Pacific Railroad crosses that creek, which runs from south to northeast, and is some miles east of Fort Worth. On this trail they found fresh horse tracks, and followed them. Henry Stout then, as through- out the expedition, led an advance scont of six men. Nearing the camp referred to, they dis- covered an Indian woman cooking in a copper ket- tle, in a little glade on the bank of the creek. See- ing he was not observed, and being veiled by a brush-covered rise iu the ground, Stout halted and sent the information back to Tarrant. While thus waiting, a second woman rose the bank and joined the first, one of them having a child. As Tarrant came up the squawsdiscovered them, gave
a loud scream, and plunged down into the bed of the creek. The men charged, supposing the war- riors were under the bank. A man named Alsey Fuller killed one of the squaws, not knowing her to be a womau, as she ascended the opposite bank. The other woman and child were captured.
Here the men scattered into several different parties in quest of the unseen enemy. Bourland, with about twenty men, including Denton, Coch- ran and Lindley Johnson, crossed the creek and found a road along its valley. They galloped along it down the creek a little over a mile, when they came upon a large camp, when Bourland, with about half of the men, bore to the right, and Coch- ran, with the others, to the left, in order to flank the position, but the Indians retreated into the thickets on the opposite side. Cochran and Elbert Early both attempted to fire at a retreating Indian, but their guns snapped. On reaching the creek the Indian fired at Early but missed. The whole command became badly scattered and con- fused. Eight men again crossed the creek and in a short distance came upon a third camp just deserted: Tarrant ordered them to fall back to the second camp. When they did so about forty were pres- ent. While waiting for the others to come up, Den- ton asked and obtained Tarrant's reluctant consent to take ten men and go down the creek, promising to avoid an ambuscade by extreme caution. After Denton left, Bourland took ten men and started in a different direetion; but about a mile below they came together, andsafter moving together a short distance Bourland and Calvin Sullivan crossed a boggy branch to capture some horses, one of which wore a bell. The others bore farther down the branch into a corn-field, crossed it and found a road leading into the bottom. At the edge of the bottom thicket they halted, Denton to fulfill his promise of care in avoiding an ambush. Henry Stout then rode to the front saying, " If you are afraid to go in there, I am not." Denton brusquely answered that he would follow him to the infernal regions and said " Move on !" In about three hun- dred yards they came to and descended the creek bank. Stout led, followed by Denton, Capt. Griffin and the others in single file. When the three foremost bad traveled up the creek bed about thirty paces from a thicket on the west bluff they were fired upon. Stout was in front, but partly protected by a small tree, but was shot through his left arm. Hc wheeled to the right, and in raising his gun to fire, a ball passed through its butt, cans- ing the barrel to strike him violently on the head, and five bullets pierced his clothing around his neck aud shoulders. Denton, immediately behind
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Stout, was shot at the same instant, wheeled to the right-about, rode back np the bank, and fell dead, pierced by three balls, one in bis arm, one in his shoulder and one through his right breast. The other men, being in single file, did not get in range, being sereened by a projection in the bank, and some had not quite reached the creek bed. Those firing upon Stout and Denton fled in the brush after a single volley, and in a little time the savages were securely hidden in the surrounding thickets. Griffin was grazed by a ball on his cheek, and several passed through his clothes.
The men hastily countermarched to the field, where Capt .. Bourland met them. They were con- siderably demoralized. Pretty soon all were rallied at the first point of attack. Bourland took twenty-four men, went back and carried off the body of Denton. Eighty horses, a consid- erable number of copper kettles, many buffalo robes and other stuff were carried away. Our men retraced their steps to the Fossil creek eamp of the previous night, arriving there about midnight, after losing much of the spoil. Next morning, crossing Fossil creek bottom to its north side, they buried Denton under the bank of a ravine, at the point of a rocky ridge, and not far from where Birdville stands. Ten or twelve feet from the grave stood a large post oak tree, at the roots of which two stones were partly set in the ground. This duty performed they traveled up the country on the west side of the Cross Timbers and Elm Fork, until they struck their trail outward at the site of Gainesville, and then followed it back to the barracks, where they disbanded, after a division of the captured property. The Indian woman escaped on the way in. Gen. Tarrant kept the child, but it was restored to its mother some two years later, at a council in the Indian Territory.
The expedition was nusuccessful in its chief objects and, from some cause, probably a division of responsibility, the men, or a portion of them, at the critical moment, were thrown into a degree of confusion borderiug on panic.
On returning home from this fruitless, indeed unfortunate, expedition, measures were set on foot for a larger one, of which Gen. Tarrant was again to be the ranking officer.
At that time Gen. James Smith, of Nacogdoches, was commander of the militia in that district. He led an expedition at the same time to the same section of country, there being an understanding that he and Tarrant would, if practicable, meet somewhere in the Cross Timbers.
The volunteers of Red river, between 400 and 500 in number, assembled from the 15th to the
20th of July, 1841, at Fort English, as the home of Bailey English was called, and there organized as a regiment by electing William C. Young as Colonel and James Bourland as Lieutenant-Colonel. John Smither was made Adjutant, and among the captains were William Lane, David Key and Robert S. Hamilton.
Gen. Tarrant assumed command and controlled the expedition. Simultaneously with this assem- bling of the people two little boys on the Bois d'Arc, lower down, were captured and carried off by Indians, to be recovered about two years later.
The expedition moved southwest and encamped on the west bank of the Trinity, probably in Wise County, and sent out a scouting party, who made no discoveries ; yet, as will be seen, the Indians dis- covered Tarrant's movements in time to be unseen by him and to narrowly escape a well-planned attack by Gen. Smith. Without discovering any enemy, after being out several weeks, Tarrant's command returned home and disbanded.
In the meantime Gen. Smith, with a regiment of militia and volunteers, moved up northwesterly in the general direction of the present eity of Dallas. On arriving at the block houses, known as King's Fort, at the present town of Kaufman, he found that the place had been assaulted by Indians during the previous evening and a considerable fight had occurred, in which the assailants had been gallantly repulsed and had retired, more or less damaged.
Gen. Smith fell upon and followed the trail of the discomfited savages, crossing Cedar creek (of Kaufman County ), the " East Fork," White Rock and the Trinity where Dallas stands, this being a few months before John Neely Bryan pitched his lonely camp on the same spot. On the spring branch, a mile or so on the west side of the river, the command halted, enjoying limpid spring water and an abundance of honey, from which one of the springs derived the name it still retains - Honey spring. From this camp Gen. Smith dispatched a scout of twelve men, under Capt. John L. Hall, to seek and report the location of the Indian village. Besides Capt. Hall there were in this scout John H. Reagan (then a buckskin attired surveyor -- years later United States senator, having first entered the lower House of Congress in 1857), Samuel Bean, Isaae Bean, John I. Burton (of race-horse fame), Hughes Burton, George Lacey, Warren A. Ferris, a Creek Indian named Charty, and three others whose names have not been obtained. They crossed Mountain creek above or south of the Texas and Pacific railroad of to-day, thence passed over the prairie into the Cross Timbers and to within a short distance of Village creek. From the number of
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fresh trails, apparently converging to a common center, it became evident they were in the vicinity of an Indian town. Secreting his party in a low and well hidden spot, Capt. Hall sent Judge Reagan and Isaac Bean on foot, to discover the exact location of the village and the best means of approaching and surprising it. These brave but cautious men, well-skilled in woodcraft, spent over half a day in " spying out the lay of the land," finding the Indians in quiet possession of their camp and that it was approachable at both the . upper and lower ends of the village. Thus informed they lost no time in reporting to Capt. Hall, who, as soon as night came, cautiously emerged from his hiding-place with his party, and hastened with the information to Gen. Smith, who, by the way, was a gallant old soldier in the Creek war under Gen. Jackson. Camping at night on Mountain creek, after starting as soon as possible after the arrival of Hall, Gen. Smith reached the village about noon
next day. The command was divided into two battalions, respectively commanded by Gen. Smith and Lieut. - Col. Elliott.
Judge Reagan acted as guide in conducting Smith to the upper end of the village, while Bean per- formed the same service in guiding Elliott to the lower. Both inoves were successfully made ; but, when the crisis came and the enthusiasm of the mon was at fever heat, it was found that the enemy had already precipitately fled, leaving some supplies and camp fixtures.
The simple explanation was that the Indians had discovered Tarrant's force and fled barely in time to elude Smith. Pursuit, under such circumstances, would be useless.
Without meeting, each command, in its own way, returned homeward; but, though bloodless, the invasion of the Indian country, in such force, had a salutary effect in preparing all the smaller hostile tribes for the treaty entered into in September, 1843.
Death of McSherry and Stinnett - Killing of Hibbins and Creath and the Capture of Mrs. Hibbins and Children - 1828 to 1842.
In 1828, there arrived on the Guadalupe river a young married couple from the vicinity of Browns- ville, Jackson County, Illinois - John McSherry and his wife, Sarah, whose maiden name was Creath. They settled on the west side of the Guadalupe, near a little creek, which, with a spring, was some two lnindred yards in front of the cabin they erected. This was in the lower edge of De Witt's Colony, as it is now in the lower edge of DeWitt County. Their nearest neighbor was Andrew Lockhart, ten miles up the river, and one of a large family of sterling pioneers on the Guadalupe, bearing that name. Mrs. McSherry was a beautiful blonde, an excellent type of the country girls of the West in that day, very handsome in person, graceful iu manner and pure of heart. Mr. McSherry was an honest, industrious man of nerve and will. They were happily devoted to each other.
Early in 1829, their first child, John, was born in that isolated cabin, in one of the most lovely spots of the Southwest.
Later in the same year, about noon on a pleasant day, Mr. McSherry went to the spring for a bucket
of water. As he arose from the bank, bucket in hand, a party of Indians with a wild yell, sprang from the bushes and in a moment he was a lifeless and sealped corpse. His wife hearing the yell, sprang to the door, saw him plainly and realized the peril of herself and infant. In the twinkling of an eye, she barred the door, seized the gun and resolved to defend herself and baby unto death. The savages surveyed the situation and manœuvered to and fro, but failed to attack the cabin and soon disappeared. Thus she was left alone, ten miles from the nearest habitation, and without a road to that or any other place. But truly, in the belief of every honest person of long frontier experi- ence, the ways of providence are inscrutable. About dark Jolin MeCrabb, a fearless and excel- lent man, well armed and mounted, but wholly unaware of the sad condition of matters, rode up to the cabin to pass the night. Hearing the recital his strong nerves became stronger, and his heart pul- sated as became that of a whole-souled Irishman.
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