USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 20
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The Indians sorely perplexed these exposed peo- ple. In the rear of one of their first immigrating parties, the Indians, forty miles below San Antonio, attacked and burnt a wagon. The driver, an American, rifle in hand, reached a thicket and killed several of them; but they killed a boy of
nineteen - a Frenchman - cut off his head and nailed it to a tree. In the burnt wagon was a trunk containing a considerable amount of gold and silver. In the ashes the silver was found melted - the gold only blackened. This was one of the first parties following the advance settlers.
In this enterprise Henry Castro expended of his personal means over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Ile fed his colonists for a year - furnished them milch cows, farming implements, seeds, medi- cines and whatever they needed. He was a father, dispensing blessings hitherto unknown in the col- onization of Texas. He was a learned, wisc and humane man, unappreciated by many, because he was modest and in nowise self-asserting, and his tastes were literary. . He was a devoted friend of Presidents Lamar, Houston and Jones, all of whom were his friends and did all in their power, each during his term, to advance his great and patriotic idea of planting permanent civilization in South- west Texas. He was a devout believer in the capacity of intelligent men for self-government, and abhorred despotism as illustrated in the kingly gov- ernments of Europe -the rule of nations by suc- cession in particular families regardless of sense, honor or capacity. He believed with Jefferson, in the God-given right of every association of men, whether in commonwealth, nations or empires, to select their own officers, and, by chosen represent- atives, to make their own laws. Hence he was, in every sense, a valuable accession to the infant Republic of Texas.
When war raged and our ports were closed, Mr. Castro sought to visit the land of his birth, and, to that end, reached Monterey in Mexico. There he sickened and died, and there, at the base of the Sierra Madre, his remains repose. '
The "Chihuahua-El Paso" Pioneer Expedition in 1848.
When the Mexican war closed and the last of the Texian troops returned home in the spring of 1848, the business men of San Antonio and other places became deeply interested in opening a road and establishing commercial intercourse with El Paso and Chihuahua. The U. S. Government also desired such a road. Meetings were held and the plan of an expedition outlined. A volunteer party of abont thirty-five business men and citizens was
formed, among whom were Col. John C. Hays, Mr. Peacock, Maj. Mike Chevalier, Capt. George T. Howard, Maj. John Caperton, Samuel A. Maverick, Quartermaster Ralston, Dr .-- a German from Fredericksburg, and a young friend of his, Lorenzo, a Mexican, who went as a guide and who had been many years a prisoner among the Comanches.
At that time Capt. Samuel Highsmith was in command of a company of Texas rangers, stationed
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opposite the little German settlement of Castell, on the Llano river. In response to a request from the citizens interested, Capt. Highsmith was directed to detail thirty-five of his company and escort the expedition. Col. Hays commanded the com- bined forces. Capt. Highsmith, instead of making an arbitrary detail, called for volunteers. Instantly more men stepped forth than were required, but the matter was amicably arranged. Among those who went were bugler A. II. Barnes, now of Lam- pasas, Calvin Bell, Joseph Collins, Jesse Jerkins, -- Jerkins, John Hughes, - Measbe, Herman I. Raven, still of Travis County, Solomon Ramsey, James Sims, Thomas Smith, John Warren and John Conner, a noted Delaware Indian who was the regular guide of the company. My informant, Herman L. Raven, can ouly recall these names.
The San Antonio party arrived at Highsmith's camp about the 1st of August, 1848. The troops were given a pack mule to each mess of four men and carried rations for thirty days. The com- mand, seventy in all, moved up the valley of the Llano to the source of the South or Paint Rock fork. They then crossed the divide and reached the upper Nueces river. The route then pursued passed the Arroyo Las Moras, a tributary of the Rio Grande (on which Beales' unfortunate party essayed the establishment of an English-American colony in 1834, as will be seen in the remarkable narrative of Mrs. Horn, one of the victims, else- where in this work), and thence to Devil's river, near its confluence with the Rio Grande. This stream had previously acquired the name of San Pedro; but after occupying three days in getting across and away from it, accompanied by several accidents, the expedition voted that it should ever more bear the name of El Rio del Diablo, or the Devil's river. It required three days to pass from this to the Pecos river, the water found on the way being reddish and brackish. Thenceforward no man in the expedition knew the country. Having crossed the Pecos they found themselves in the rough, broken and noknown region lying between that stream and the Rio Grande. To men whose rations, as at this time, were about exhausted, it was a dismal succession of barrenness in hill, vale and barranca. Lorenzo, the guide, failed to recognize the landmarks and became bewildered. In a day or two their supplies gave out. There was no game in the country, and, as many had been driven to do before, they re- sorted to their pack mules, the flesh of which was their only food for ten or twelve days. Fortun- ately a party of Mescalero Indians discovered them amil. as Col. Ilays, from prudential motives with
reference to Indians in that region, always had a white flag flying, came close enough to invite a talk, for which purpose three of their number met three of the Texians. After mutual explanations, easily understood on both sides through the Spanish lan- guage, and a liberal distribution of presents, with which the San Antonians were well supplied, they gaye the party careful directions how to reach and cross the Rio Grande, and get to the Rancho San Carlos, on the Mexican side. Before reaching the river a doctor of the San Antonio party became de- ranged and wandered off. Five days after leaving the Mescaleros they arrived at San Carlos in a pitia- ble condition, where they procured a supply of food.
After resting one day they continued their march about forty miles further up the country, recross- ing the Rio Grande to Fort Leaton, on the east side and niue miles below Presidio del' Norte, on the west side, where they arrived on the forty- seventh day from the initial point on the Llano. Fort Leaton (pronounced "Layton ") was a sort of fortified trading house kept by two or three brothers of that name, the senior of whom, Ben- jamin Leaton, a Tennesseean and an old Apache trader, was personally known to the writer of this. The expedition remained there sixteen days recruit- ing their animals and providing supplies, during which time the proprietors gave them a barbecue, the chief elements being meat, tortillas (Mexican corn pancakes), and that most cherished of all beverages among old Texians -coffee! The Bishop of Chihuahua sent them also some supplies.
For reasons deemed sufficient it was determined to prosecute the enterprise no farther. Winter was close by. They had left to be absent only sixty days. At the expiration of that time they were not yet recruited at Lcaton's. The troops, having started in August, had only summer clothing. The result showed the wisdom of their determination to return.
About the first of November the return march was begun. The men had thirty days' rations of meat, beeves to be driven on foot, and more or less " Pinola " or parched corn meal. Their route was by Lost Springs, where they arrived after a fast of two and a half days without water. They struck the Pecos at the Horsehead crossing, and followed that stream down to Live Oak creek, where Fort Lancaster was afterwards established. It was in this locality that the command separated. Twenty-eight of the San Antonio party started in a direct route for that city and safely arrived at their destination. Col. Ilays, with six men, returned by way of the Las Moras and also got in safely, but both parties suffered much.
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From Live Oak creek Capt. Highsmith bore across the country towards the sources of the South Concho. On the way, on one occasion, some of the men fell in the rear on account of their failing horses, and at night camped in a thicket of small bushes. While asleep at night a party of Indians furiously rode over them, seizing a saddle and some other articles and successfully stampeded their horses. On foot they overhauled the company at · camp next morning. On the head of South Concho they encamped for the night. One of the sentinels fell asleep and at daylight it was found that the Indians had quietly taken off thirteen of their horses. Thenceforward about half the men traveled on foot.
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At the head of Brady's creek, these men, clad ouly in their now tattered and torn summer gar- ments, encountered a violent snow storm. Capt. Highsmith, with a few men, pushed forward to his quarters on the Llano, to relieve the anxiety of the country as to their safety, correctly eonjecturing that intense anxiety among the people must exist on account of their prolonged absence. The other men remained shivering in an open eamp for five days. The sufferings of both parties were terrible. Their beef was exhausted and wild game was their only food, but it was abundant in deer, antelope
and turkey. On the forty-seventh day from Fort Leaton the last party reached the eamp on the Llano. Thus with forty-seven days each on the outward and inward trip and eighteen days at the Fort, they had been absent 112 instead of 60 days. The re-united company was marched to Austin, and on the 26th day of December, dis- charged, their term of service having expired. From the sufferings of this trip, in less than a month, Capt. Sam Highsmith died. From 1826 to 1848 he had justly borne the character of a noble pioneer - warm-hearted, generous, brave; yet, most tender in nature and ever considerate of the rights of others, he never had personal difficult- ies. I knew him well, and as he had been a long- time friend and comrade of my then long deceased father, his friendship was prized as priceless.
Col. Hays brought in a little son of Mr. Leaton, to be sent to school.
The doctor who became deranged and wandered off, fell into the hands of a party of Indians, by whom his hunger was appeased and he was kindly treated, as is the habit of those wild tribes towards insane persons. He gradually recovered and, after he had been mourned by his wife as dead for over a year, suddenly presented himself to her, sound in mind and body.
The Bloody Days of Bastrop.
Before and immediately after the Texas revolu- the Crafts, Taylor, the Bartons, Pace, Jobn W. tion of 1835-6, Gonzales, on the Guadalupe, and Bunton, Martin Wolner, Geren Brown, Logan Van- deveer, George Green, Godwin, Garwood, Halde- man, Miller, Holder, Curtis, Bain, Hood, MeLean, Graves, Allen, Henry Jones, Thomas Nicholson, Vaughan, Hugh Childers, Hancock and John Walters. Bastrop, on the Colorado, with the upper settlements on the Brazos, were more exposed to Indian depre- . dations than any other distinct localities in Texas. These sketches have more fully done justice to Gon- zales and the Brazos, than to Bastrop, the home of the Burlesons, Coleman, Billingsley, Wallace, Aside from many important battles, in which a large per ceut of those men and others not named, participated, as at and around San Antonio in 1835. at San Jacinto in 1836 (in which fifty of them fought under Col. Burleson in Capt. Jesse Billingsley's company, and in which Lemuel Blakey was killed, and Capt. Billingsley, Logan Vandeveer, Washing- ton Anderson, Calvin Page and Martin Walter were wounded), at Plum ercek in 1840, in which a hun- dred of them and thirteen Toncahua Indians fought under Burleson, and other important contests, for fifteen years they were exposed to Indian forays and Thomas II. Mays, Wm. H. Magill, the brothers Wiley, Middleton and Thomas B. J. Hill, Washing- ton and John D. Anderson, Dr. Thomas J. Gasley, L. C. Cunningham, Wm. A. Clopton, Bartlett Sims, Cieero Rufus Perry, the Wilbargers, Dr. J. W. Robertson, John Caldwell, Hurch Reed, John II. Jenkins, Hon. William Pinkney Hill, for a time Robert M. Williamson, the eloquent orator and patriot, Highsmith, Eblin, Carter Anderson, Dal- rymple, Eggleston, Gilleland, Blakey, Page, Pres- ton Conley, the Hardemans, the Andrews brothers,
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had numberless encounters and also fruitless pur- suits after those ever active and cunning enemies. Some of these sanguinary incidents have been de- scribed ; but, many have not and some, from the death of the participants and failing memories, never will be. But enough has been preserved to shed a halo of honor on those pioneers, by this writer many years ago styled - " The brave men of Bastrop."
In this chapter, availing myself somewhat of the recollections of Mr. John H. Jenkins, I will briefly summarize some of the incidents not heretofore given.
By a false alarm of Mexican invasion in 1837, as in 1836, the people of Bastrop fled from their homes, but the alarm passed and they soon returned from near the Brazos.
Near where Austin is, later in 1837, Lieut. Wrenn, of Coleman's Company, surprised a body of warriors, killed several, had one man shot in the mouth and killed, defeated the Indians and captured all their horses.
In the same fall the Indians attacked the home of Mr. Goeher (or Gotier) east of Bastrop, killed him, his wife and two sons, and carried off Mrs. Craw- ford, his widowed daughter, one of his little sons and a little son and daughter of Mrs. Crawford. This tragedy was discovered by Col. Burleson some days later, when too late to pursue the mur- derers. Mrs. Crawford and the children, after several years of captivity, were bought by Mr. Spaulding, a trader, who married the widow and brought them all back to live in Bastrop County.
Not far from this time a party of Indians robbed a house below Bastrop. Burleson drove them into a cedar brake on Piney creek, above town, and sent back for more men. While waiting, the Indians slipped out and retreated east toward the
headwaters of the Yeguas. Reinforced, Burleson followed their trail at half speed, overtaking them late in the afternoon, and drove them headlong, after quite a chase, into a ravine, from which they escaped unhurt and soon reached their camp, but most of thein only to die. They had gorged them- selves on fat pork, killed in the woods, and soon after arriving among their people nearly all of them died, proving that stomachs overcharged with fat and fresh hog meat were not prepared for rapid foot races, the deceased sons of the forest having been on foot. Mrs. Crawford was then a prisoner in the eamp and verified these facts.
The next raid was made in daylight. A party of Comanches came in sight of town and drove off fifteen horses. They were hastily followed by a few citizens, who overhauled them eight miles out. A running fight ensued - the Indians abandoned their own and the stolen horses and found security in thiekets. No one was killed on either.side, but the citizens returned with their own and the Indian horses. Richard Vaughan's horse, however, was killed under him.
Early in 1838 the Indians entered the town at night, killed Messrs. Hart and Weaver and es- caped.
Soon afterwards, about three miles east of town, Messrs. Robinson and Dollar were making boards. Fifteen Indians charged upon them. Each sprang . upon his horse, near by, but Robinson was killed at the same moment, while Dollar was pursued and hemmed on a high bank of the river; but, leaving his horse, he leaped down the bank about twenty feet, swam the Colorado and then hastened to town. Soon afterwards he started to leave the country and was never again beard of. No doubt was enter- tained, however, of his having been killed by Indians.
Raid into Gonzales and De Witt Counties in 1848 - Death of Dr. Barnett, Capt. John York and Others - Death of Maj. Charles G. Bryant in 1850.
For several years prior to 1848 the country between the Guadalupe and San Antonio rivers escaped annoyance from the Indians, though their slepredations beyond were frequent. The people in the section referred to had ceased to regard themselves as exposed to danger, and were there-
fore unprepared for it. Early in October, 1848, they realized, however, that they were open to savage fury. A party of Indians descended from the mountains along the valley of the Cibolo, and thenee southeasterly to the "Sandies," a set of small streams in the western part of Gonzales
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
County. On the Sandies they came across and killed Dr. George W. Barnett, also a recent settler in that locality -- the same gentleman mentioned in my chapter on the events in 1833 and 1835, as a Captain in '35, a signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, a soldier at San Jacinto and a senator of the Republic. Another party of Indians, presumed to be of the same band, and acting in concert with them, erossed from the west to the east side of the San Antonio, and formed a junction with the first named party, the two bands numbering thirty-five or forty warriors, including, it was believed, some outlawed Mexicans, the Indians being Lipans, then living in the border Mexican State of Coahuila, be- yond the Rio Grande. Before their junction, about the 5th of October, the second named or lower gang had killed a Mr. Lockard (or Lockhart) and a young man of Goliad County, son of Mr. Thacker Vivian, at the Goliad and San Antonio crossing of the Ecleto creek.
These events alarmed the settlers on the west side of the Guadalupe, the remainder of the district mentioned being still a wilderness, and a company of thirty-two men and boys from the west side of the river in De Witt County, assembled to meet and repel the raiders. John York, a brave old soldier who commanded a company in the storming of San Antonio in 1835, was made Captain ; Richard H. Chisholm, another veteran, Lieutenant, with II. B. McB. Pridgen and Newton Porter, Sergeants, and Joseph Tumlinson, guide.
On the night of October 10th, these hastily col- lected volunteers eneamped on the head waters of the Cabesa, twenty-five miles above Goliad. On the morning of the 11th they traveled some miles up the country, and then struck the trail of the Indians, which bore soutberly towards the mouth of the Escondida, a tributary of the San Antonio from the southwest side. It became evident the enemy bad secured a considerable number of horses, were leaving the country, and the pursuit was quickened. Passing the San Antonio, on its west bank they found the recently abandoned camp of the savages, with a letter and some trifling articles proving they were the murderers of Lockard and Vivian. The letter found was from George W. Smyth, Connmissioner of the General Land Oflice, to a citizen of Robertson County, on official busi- ness, and sent by Lockard. Young Vivian was the son of a neighbor of my parents when I was a child in Missouri, and a kinsman of Mrs. Dr. A. A. Jolinston, of Dallas. Believing that they had been discovered, and that the Indians were hastily
retreating, Capt. York pressed forward rapidly till, on reaching the brushy banks of the Escondida, about five miles beyond the abandoned camp, and while a portion of the pursuers were a little behind, those in front received a heavy fire from ambush, accompanied by yells of defiance and impreeations in broken English, which threw some of the inex- perienced into confusion, cansing a recoil, and this disconcerted those in the rear, but the brave old leader ordered the men to dismount in a grove of trees, and was obeyed by a portion of his followers, who returned and kept up the fire. Lieut. Chis- holm (Unele Dick, who cast the first cannon ball in the Texas revolution) tried to rally the halting, but the panic was on them and he tried in vain. James HI. Sykes, a stalwart man of reckless daring, dashed up to the dense chaparral in which the Indians were sheltered, and was killed. James Bell, a son-in-law of Capt. York, and a man of ap- proved nerve, was shot down between the contend- ing parties, when Capt. York ran to him and while stooping to raise him up was shot through the kidneys. The brave couple expired in the embraee of each other. Joseph Tumlinson and Hugh R. Young were severely wounded, and James York, son of the dead captain, one of the handsomest boys I ever knew, was shot centrally through the cheeks from side to side, supposed at the time to be fatally, but he rode home and finally recovered, though greatly disfigured. The contest was kept up about an hour, when both parties retired, ours only a little down the creek to get water for the wounded. It was believed the Indians lost six or seven in killed, but of this there was no certainty. Besides those already named among those who stood to their colors to the last were William R. Taylor (Goliad), Johnson, A. Berry, and others whose names cannot be recalled. Some men of unquestioned courage were among the victims of the panic, and others were inexperienced boys who had never been under fire.
This, so far as is remembered, was the last raid in that section of country below the Seguin and San Antonio road ; but above that line the pioneers of the frontier, till some years after the Civil War, were the victims of a predatory and brutal war, in which the most remorseless cruelties were more or less practiced.
The facts as herein narrated were communicated to me by a number of the participants on the 20th of October, only nine days after the fight, and have been so preserved ever since. I personally knew every one named in connection with the engagement.
أخطنا
HENRY McCULLOCH.
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
Death of Maj. Charles G. Bryant.
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The isolated murder of this estimable gentleman, by the Indians, oceurred about fourteen months after the events herein described, but being in the same section of the State, the facts are added to this chapter, with some other matters of interest in relation to him and his family.
Charles G. Bryant was born in 1803 at Thomas- ton, Maine, and was long captain of a company in Bangor, being of an ardent military temperament. Being also a warm sympathizer with the rebellion in Canada in 1837-8, he crossed the border in the latter year and joined his fortunes with those in arms against the British power. In their final de- feat he was captured, tried and senteneed to death. By the intervention of friends, at great hazard to themselves, on the night before his appointed exe- cution, he eseaped from prison, and by relays of horses previously provided, rode in a gallop from Montreal to Bangor. A large reward was offered for him, dead or alive, and to escape extradition lie chartered a small vessel, on which, with his elder son, Andrew Jackson Bryant, leaving the remainder of his family behind, he sailed for Galveston, arriv- ing there in January, 1839. His son entered the Texas navy, as midshipman, won esteem as such, and in the naval battle off Campeechy in the spring of 1843, was fearfully wounded, displaying the highest order of heroism. He sailed from Galves- ton for New York a few months later for medical treatment and .to bring out his mother and the other children, but the vessel went down at sea. No tid- ings of it or any of its human freight were ever received. In January, 1845, Mrs. Bryant arrived in Galveston, accompanied by their sons, Charles
C. (now an employee on Texas Farm and Ranch ), Martin, Clinton and Wolfred N. (now of Dallas).
During the Mexican war, probably in 1846 or 18.17, Maj. Bryant removed his family from Gal- veston to Corpus Christi. It had been reinforced at Galveston by the birth of a son named Edwin, and a daughter, now of Dallas, and known through- out the State from her brilliant and patriotie poet- ical effusions, as Mrs. Welthea Bryant Leachman, a favorite pet of the Texas Veteran Association, to whom she is endeared by ties honorable to her mind, her genius and her heart.
Maj. Bryant was a prominent and valued eitizen of Corpus Christi. He was mustering officer of the three companies of Texas rangers, commanded respectively by Capts. John S. Ford, John G. Grumbles and Charles M. Blackwell. On the 11th of January, 1850, he left Corpus Christi on horse- back for Austin, on business growing out of this official position, crossing the reef at the head of Corpus Christi bay. Early on the next day, about nine miles from Black Point, and in plain view of several persons who had fortunately discovered the danger and concealed themselves in some chaparral, he was completely surprised, murdered and robbed by a party of nine Indians. He had on his person several hundred dollars in gold, and a large amount in bank bills. In that locality he had no reason to apprehend danger, but though surprised, he fought with desperation, till overwhelmed by the odds against him. The concealed and unarmed speeta- tors, though being unseen by the Indians, and see- ing their approach in time to save themselves, could give no warning to him whose life was at hazard.
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