USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 17
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Very soon he placed the young mother and babe on his horse and, by the light of the stars, started
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on foot, through the wilderness, for the house of Andrew Lockhart, reaching it before daylight, where warm hearts bestowed all possible care and kindness on those so ruthlessly stricken in the wilderness and so remote from all kindred ties.
Mrs. McSherry, for a considerable time, found a home and friends with the Lockharts; but a few years later married John Hibbins, a worthy man, who settled on the east side of the Guadalupe, in the vicinity of where the town of Conerete now ยท stands, in De Witt County.
In the summer of 1835, with her little boy, John MeSherry, and an infant by Mr. Hibbins, she re- visited her kindred in Illinois. She returned via New Orleans in the winter of 1835-6, accompanied by her brother, George Creath, a single man, and landed at Columbia, on the Brazos, where early in February, 1836, Mr. Hibbins met them with an ox cart, on which they began the journey hoine. They erossed the Colorado at Beason's and fell into the ancient La Bahia road on the upper Navidad. In due time they arrived at and were about encamping on Rocky creek, six miles above the subsequent village of Sweet Home, in Lavaca County and within fifteen or sixteen miles of their home, when they were suddenly attacked by thirteen Indian warriors who immediately killed Hibbins and Creath, made captives Mrs. Hibbins and her two children, took possession of all the effects and at leisure mnoved off up the country with perfect unconcern. They traveled slowly up through the timbered country, the Peach creek region between the Guadalupe and the Colorado, securely tying Mrs Hibbins at night and lying encircled around her. About the second day, at one of their camps, the baby cried with pain for some time, when one of the Indians seized it by the feet and mashed its brains against a tree, all in the presence of its helpless mother. For two or three days at this time Mrs. Hibbins distinctly heard the guns in the siege of the Alamo, at least sixty iniles to the west. That she did so was made cer- tain a little later by her imparting the news to others till then unaware of that now work- renowned struggle.
In due time her captors crossed the Colorado at the mouth of Shoal creek, now in the city of Austin. They moved ou three or four miles and encamped on the south edge of a cedar brake, where a severe norther came up and eaused them to remain three nights and two days. On the third night the Indians were engaged in a game till late ninh then slept soundly. Mrs. Hibbins determined, if possible, to escape. Cautiously, she freed her- self of the cords about her wrists and ankles and
stepping over the bodies of her unconscious guards, stole away, not daring even to imprint a kiss on her only and first-born child, then a little over six years of age.
Daylight found her but a short distance from camp, not over a mile or two, and she secreted herself in a thicket from which she soon saw and heard the Indians in pursuit. The savages eom- pelled the little boy to call aloud, " Mama! Ma- ma!" But she knew that her only hope for her- self and child was in escape, and remained silent. After a considerable time the Indians disappeared. But she remained concealed still longer, till satisfied her captors had left. She then followed the creek to the Colorado and, as rapidly as possible, traveled down the river, shielded by the timber along its banks.
The crow of a chicken late in the afternoon sent a thrill through her agonizing heart. The welcome sound was soon repeated several times and thither she hastened with a zeal born of her desperate eon- dition, for she did not certainly know she was in a hundred miles of a habitation. In about two miles she reached the outer cabin on the Colorado, or rather one of the two outer ones -Jacob Harrell occupying the one she entered and Reuben Horns- by the other. She was so torn with thorns and briars, so nearly without raiment, and so bruised about the face, that her condition was pitiable. Providentially (as every old pioneer untainted with heathenism believed), eighteen rangers, the first ever raised under the revolutionary government of Texas, and commanded by Capt. John J. Tum- linson, had arrived two days before and were encamped at the cabin of Hornsby. To this warm- hearted and gallant offieer Mrs. Hibbins was per- sonally known and to him she hastily narrated her sad story.
Tomlinson knew the country somewhat and felt sure he could find the Indians at a given point further up the country. He traveled nearly all night, halting only a short while before day to rest his horses and resuming the march at sunrise, and about 9 o'clock came upon the Indians, encamped, but on the eve of departure. I have the privilege, as to what followed, of quoting the exact language of Capt. Tumlinson, written for me forty years ago, as follows :-
" The Indiaus discovered us just as we discov- ered them, but had not time to get their horses, so they commenced running on foot towards the mountain thiekets. I threw Lieut. Joseph Rogers, with eight nien, below them - and with the others I dashed past and took possession of their route above them. The Indians saw that the route
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above and below them was in our possession, and struck off for the mountain thicket nearest the side of the trail. I ordered Lieut. Rogers to charge, and fell upon them simultaneously. I saw an Indian aiming his rifle at me, but knew that he must be a better marksman than I had seen among them to hit me going at my horse's speed, and did not heed him till I got among them. Then I sprang from my horse quick as lightning, and turned towards him ; at the same instant he fired ; the ball passed through the bosom of my shirt and struck my horse in the neck, killing him immedi- ately. I aimed deliberately and fired. The Indian sprang a few feet into the air, gave one whoop and fell dead within twenty-five feet of me. The fight now became general. Pell-mell we fell together. The Indians, thirteen in number, armed with bows and rifles, were endeavoring to make good their retreat towards the thicket. Several of them fell, and two of my men were wounded; when finally they effected an entrance into the thicket, which was so dense that it would have been madness to have attempted to penetrate it, and we were forced to cease the pursuit. I dispatched Rogers after the ehild, the horses and mules of the Indians, whilst I remained watching the thicket to guard against surprise. He found the child in the Indian camp tied on the back of a wild mule, with his robe and equipments about him fixed on for the day's march, and had to shoot the mule in order to get the child. He also suceceded in getting hold of all the animals of the Indians, and those they had stolen. My men immediately selected the best horse in the lot, which they presented to me in place of the one that was killed.
"We watched for the Indians a while longer ; and in the meantime sent a runner for the doctor to see to the wounded. I sent a portion of the men under the command of Rogers with the child, and the wounded men and I brought up the rear. The wounded were Elijah Ingram, shot in the arm, the ball ranging upwards to the shoulder; also Hugh M. Childers, shot through the leg. Of the Indians, four were killed. We arrived that night at Mr. Harrell's, where we found Mrs. Hibbins, the mother of the child. Lieut. Rogers presented the child to its mother, and the scene which here ensued beggars description. A mother meeting with her child released from Indian captivity, re- covered as it were from the very jaws of death! Not an eye was dry. She called us brothers, and every other endearing name, and would have fallen on her knees to worship us. She hugged her child to her bosom as if fearful that she would again lose him. And - but 'tis useless to say more."
Lieut. Joseph Rogers was a brother of Mrs. Gen. Burleson, and was killed in a battle with the Indians a few years later. Thus the mother and child, bereft of husband and father, and left without a relative nearer than Southern Illinois, found them- selves in the families of Messrs. Harrell and Hornsby, the outside settlers on the then feeble . frontier of the Colorado - large-hearted and sym- pathizing avant-couriers in the advancing eivili- zation of Texas. The coincident fall of the Alamo came to them as a summons to pack up their effects and hasten eastward, as their fellow-citizens below were already doing.
The mother and child accompanied these two families in their flight from the advancing Mexi- cans, till they halted east of the Trinity, where, in a few weeks, couriers bore the glorious news of vie- tory and redemption from the field of San Jacinto. Soon they resumed their weary march, but this time for their homes. In Washington County Mrs. Hibbins halted, under the friendly roof of a sym- pathizing pioneer. There she also met a. former neighbor, in the person of Mr. Claiborne Stinnett, an intelligent and estimable man, who, with Capt. Henry S. Brown (father of the writer of this) represented De Witt's Colony in the first delibera- tive body ever assembled in Texas - the able and patriotic convention assembled at San Felipe, October 1, 1832.
After a widowhood of twelve months, Mrs. Hib- bins married Mr. Stinnett and they at once (in the spring of 1837) returned to their former home on the Guadalupe. In the organization of Gonzales County, a little later, Mr. Stinnett was elected Sheriff. Late in the fall, with a packhorse, he went to Linnville, on the bay, to buy needed supplies. Loading this extra horse with sugar, coffee, etc., and with seven hundred dollars in eash, he started home. But instead of following the road by Vic- toria, he traveled a more' direct route through the prairie. When, about night, he was near the Arenosa creek, about twenty miles northeast of Victoria, he discovered a camp fire in a grove of timber and, supposing it to be a camp of hunters, went toit. Instead, it was the camp of two " run- away" negro men, seeking their way to Mexico. They murdered Mr. Stinnett, took his horses, pro- visions and money, and, undiscovered, reached Mexico. The fate of the murdered man remained a mystery. No trace of him was found for five years, until, in the fall of 1842, one of the negroes revealed all the facts to an American prisoner in Mexico (the late Col. Andrew Neill), and so de- scribed the locality that the remains of Mr. Stinnett were found and interred.
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Thus this estimable lady lost her third husband - two by red savages and one by black --- and was again alone, without the ties of kinship, excepting her ehild, in all the land. Yet she was still young, attractive in person and pure of heart, so that, two years later, she was wooed and won by Mr. Philip Howard. Unwisely, in June, 1840, soon after their marriage, they abandoned their home on the Guad- alupe and removed to the ancient Mission of San Juan, eight miles below San Antonio. It was a hundred miles through a wilderness often traversed by hostile savages. Hence they were escorted by seven young men of the vicinity, consisting of Byrd Lockhart, Jr. (of that well-known pioneer family), young MeGary, two brothers named Powers (one of whom was a boy of thirteen and both the sons of a widow), and three others whose names are for- gotten. On arriving at the mission in the fore- noon their horses were hobbled out near by and little John McSherry (the child of Mrs. How- ard, recovered from the Indians in 1836, and at this time in his eleventh year) was left on a pony to watch them; but within half an hour a body of Indians suddenly charged upon them, captured some of the horses, and little John barely escaped by dashing into the camp, a vivid reminder to the mother that her eup of affliction was not yet full. In a day or two the seven young men started on their return home. About noon .. next day, a heavy shower fell, wetting their guns ; bnt was soon followed by sunshine, when they all fired off their guns to clean and dry them. Most imprudently they all did so at the same time, leav- ing no loaded piece. This volley attraeted the keen ear of seventy hostile Comanches who other- wise would not have discovered them. In a moment or two they appeared and cried out that
they were friendly Toncahuas. The ruse succeeded and they were allowed to approach and encircle the now helpless young men. Six of them were in- stantly slain, scalped and their horses and effects, with the boy Powers, earried off. During the second night afterwards, in passing through a eedar brake at the foot of the Cibolo mountains, he slid quietly off his horse and escaped. In three or four days he reached the upper settlements on the Guadalupe, and gave the first information of these harrowing facts.
Thus again admonished, Mr. and Mrs. Howard removed low down on the San Antonio river, below the ancient ranch of Don Carlos de la Garza, in the lower edge of Goliad County, confident that no hos- tile savage would ever visit that secluded locality. But they were mistaken. Early in the spring of 1842, the hostiles made a night raid all around them, stole a number of their horses, murdered two of their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Gilleland, and earried off their little son and daughter ; but a party of volunteers, among whom were the late Maj. Alfred S. Thurmond, of Aransas, and the late Col. Andrew Neill, of Anstin, overhauled and defeated the Indians and recaptured the children. The boy is now Win. M. Gilleland, long of Austin, and the little girl is the widow of the late Rev. Orseneth Fisher, a distinguished Methodist preacher.
-44 Following this sixth admonition, Mr. and Mrs. Howard at once removed to the present vieinity of Hallettsville, in Lavaca County, and thencefoward her life encountered no repetition of the horrors which had so terribly followed her footsteps through the previous thirteen years. Peace and a fair share of prosperity succeeded. In 1848 Mr. Howard was made County Judge, and some years later they located in Bosque Connty.
The Snively Expedition Against the Mexican Santa Fe Traders in 1843.
The year 1843 was one of the gloomiest, at least during its first half, ever experienced in Texas. The perfidious and barbarous treatment given the "Texian Santa Fe " prisoners of 1841, after they hal capitulated as prisoners of war, preceded by the treason of one of their number, a wretel named William P. Lewis, had ercated throughout Texas a
desire for retaliation. The expedition so surren- dered to the overwhelming foree of Armijo, the Governor of New Mexico, was both commercial and peaceful, but of necessity accompanied by a large armed escort to protect it against the hostile Indians, covering the entire distance. The wisdom and the legality of the measure, authorized by
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President Lamar, on his own responsibility, were severely criticised by many ; but Texas was a nnit in indignation at the treacherous, dastardly and brutal treatment bestowed upon their brave and chivalrous citizens after honorable surrender, ainong whom were many well-known soldiers and gentlemen, including Hugh McLeod, the com- mander, Jose Antonio Navarro, William G. Cooke and Dr. Richard F. Brenham as Peace Commis- missioners, Capt. Matthew Caldwell, Geo. W. Kendall of New Orleans, young Frank Coombes of Kentucky, Capt. Houghton and an array of first-class privates, the choice spirits of the coun- try, of whom my friend of forty-eight years, Thomas W. Hunt, now of Bosque County, is still an honorable sample.
The triplicate Mexican raid of 1812, ending with the glorious but unsuccessful battle of Mier, inten- sified the desire for retaliatory action towards Mexico and especially so towards New Mexico.
As the result of this feeling, on the 28th of January, 1843, Jacob Snively, who had held the staff rank of Colonel in the Texian army, applied to the government for authority to raise men and proceed to the upper boundaries of Texas, and capture a rich train belonging to Armijo and other Santa Fe Mexicans. Permission was issued by George W. Hill, Secretary of War, on the 16th of February, with provisos that half the spoils should go to the government and should only be taken in honorable warfare.
On the 24th of April, near the present town of Denison, the expedition, about 175 strong, was organized, with Snively unanimously chosen as commander. A few others joined a day or two later, making a total of about 190. They followed the old Chihuahua trail west till assured of being west of the hundredth meridian, then bore north, passing along the western base of the Wichita mountains, and on the 27th of May encamped on the southwest bank of the Arkansas. This was said to be about forty miles below the Missouri- Santa Fe crossing, but was only eight or ten miles from the road on the opposite side of the river.
It was known before they started that a Mexican train of great value (for that day) would pass from Independence to Santa Fe, some time in the spring, and as the route for a long distance lay in Texas, it was considered legitimate prey.
They soon learned from some men from Bent's Fort that six hundred Mexiean troops were waiting above to escort the caravan from the American boundary to Santa Fe. Snively kept out seouts and sought to recruit his horses. His scouts in- spected the eamp of the enemy and found their
number as reported, about six hundred. On the 20th of June a portion of the command had a fight with a detachment of the Mexicans, killing seven- teen and capturing eighty prisoners, including eighteen wounded, without losing a man, and securing a fine supply of horses, saddles and arms. Snively held the prisoners in a camp with good water. On the 24th three hundred Indians sud- denly appeared, but, seeing Snively's position and strength, professed friendship. There was no eon- fidence, however, in their profession, exeepting so far as induced by a fear to attack.
The long delay created great discontent and . when scouts came in on the 28th and reported no discovery of the earavan, a separation took place. Seventy of the men, selecting Capt. Eli Chandler as their commander, started home on the 29th. Snively, furnishing his wounded prisoners with horses to ride, the others with a limited number of guns for defense against the Indians and such pro- visions as he could spare, set the whole party at liberty. Whereupon he pitched another camp farther up the river to await the caravan, perfectly confident that he was west of the hundredth meri- dian and (being on the southwest side of the Ar- kansas, the boundary line from that meridian to its souree ), therefore, in Texas. Subsequent sur- veys proved that he was right. By a captured Mexican he learned that the earavan was not far distant escorted by one hundred and ninety-sis United States dragoons, commanded by Capt. Philip St. George Cooke. On June 30th they were discovered by the scouts and found to have also two pieces of artillery. Cooke soon appeared, crossed the river, despite the protest of Snively that he was on Texas soil, and planted his guns so as to rake the camp. He demanded unconditional surrender and there was no other alternative to the outrage. Cooke allowed them to retain ten guns for the one hundred and seven men present, com- pelled to travel at least four hundred miles through a hostile In lian country. without a human habita- tion ; but their situation was not so desperate as he intended, for a majority of the men, before it was too late, buried their rifles and double-barreled shot-guns in the friendly sand mounds, and meekly surrendered to Cooke the short escopetas they had captured from the Mexicans. Cooke immediately
re-crossed the river and slept. He awakened to a partial realization of his harsh and unfeeling act ; and sent a message to Snively that he would escort as many of his men as would accept the invitation into Independence, Missouri. About forty-two of the men went, among whom were Capt. Myers F. Jones of Fayette County, his nephew John Rice
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WAR DANCE.
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Jones, Jr., formerly of Washington County, Mis- souri, and others whose names cannot be recalled. With Cooke, on a health-seeking trip, was Mr. Joseph S. Pease, a noted hardware merehant of St. Louis, and an old friend of the writer, who bitterly denounced Cooke and defended the cause of the Texians on reaching St. Louis.
Col. Snively hastily dispatched a courier advising Capt. Chandler of these events and asking him to halt: He did so and on the 2d of July the two parties re-united. On the 4th the Indians stam- pedled sixty of their horses, but in the fight lost twelve warriors, while one Texian was killed and one wounded.
On the 6th the scouts reported that the caravan had crossed the Arkansas. Some wanted to pursue and attack it -others opposed. Snively resigned on the 9th. Sixty-five men selected Chas. A. War- field as leader (not the Charles A. Warfield after- wards representative of Hunt County, and more recently of California, but another man of the same name who, it is believed, died before the Civil War. ) Col. Snively adhered to this party. They pursued the caravan till the 13th, when they found the Mexican escort to be too strong and abandoned the enterprise and started home. Warfield resigned and Snively was re-elected. On the 20th they were assaulted by a band of Indians, but repulsed them, and after the usual privations of sneh a trip in mid-summer, they arrived at Bird's Fort, on the West Fork of the Trinity, pending the efforts to negotiate a treaty at that place, as elsewhere set
forth in this work. Chandler and party, including Capt. S. P. Ross, had already gotten in.
Besides those already named as in this expedition was the now venerable and honorable ex-Senator Stewart A. Miller, of Crockett, who kept a daily diary of the trip, which was in my possession for several years and to which Yoakum also had access. The late founder of the flourishing town bearing his name, Robert A. Terrell, was also one of the party, and a number of others who are scattered over the country, but their names cannot be given.
When this news reached St. Louis, the writer was on a visit to that city, the guest of Col. A. B. Chambers, editor of the Republican, in whose family six years of his boyhood had been passed. The press of the country went wild in bitter de- nunciation of the Texians as robbers and pirates. The Republican atone of the St. Louis press seemed willing to hear both sides. Capt. Myers F. Jones and party published a short defensive card, supplemented by a friendly one from Mr. Joseph S. Pease. That was nearly forty-five years ago, when the writer had just graduated from eontests with Mexiean freebooters, rnuning for the ten months next prior to the battle of Mier. He could not submit in silence, and published in the Republican a complete recapitulation of the outrages, robberies and murders committed in 1841 and 1842 by the Mexieaus upon the people of Texas, closing with a denunciation of the conduct of Capt. Philip St. George Cooke.
The Thrilling Mission of Commissioner Joseph C. Eldridge to the Wild Tribes in 1843, by Authority of President Houston - Hamilton P. Bee, Thomas Torrey - The Three Delawares, Jim Shaw, John Connor and Jim Second Eye - The Treaty.
When the year 1813 opened, Gen. Sam. Houston was serving his second term as President of the Republic of Texas, and the seat of government was temporarily at the town of Washington-on-the Brazos. Ile had uniformly favored a peace policy toward the Indians, whenever it might become
practicable to conclude a general treaty with the uumerons wild and generally hostile tribes iuhabit- iug all the western and northwestern territory of the republic. On this poliey the country was divided in opinion, and the question was often discussed with more or less bitterness. Nothing
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could be more natural, respeeting a poliey affecting so deeply the property and lives of the frontier people, who were so greatly exposed to the raids of the hostiles, and had little or no faith in their fidelity to treaty stipulations ; while the President, realizing the sparsity of population and feebleness in resources of the government and the country, hoped to bring about a general eessation of hostili- ties, establish a line of demarcation between the whites and Indians, and by establishing along the same a line of trading houses, to promote friendly traffic, with occasional presents by the government, to control the wild men and preserve the lives of the people.
At this time Joseph C. Eldridge," a man of education, experience, courage, and the highest order of integrity, was appointed by the President as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. About the same time a delegation from several of the smaller tribes visited the President, in order to have a talk. Among them were several Delawares, nearly civilized, and among them were persons who spoke not only our language, but all the tongues of the wild prairie tribes, some speaking one and some another tongue. It occurred to the President, after frequent interviews, that he could utilize these Delawares, or the three chief men among them, Jim Shaw, John Connor and Jim Second Eye, as commissioners in indueing all the wild tribes to meet the President and peace com-
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