The Comanches paraded across the prairie, flushed with the knowledge they had conducted
the greatest raid in Nurmernuh history. Each measured gait brought them closer to Plum
Creek, an unremarkable stream like many they had already crossed.
Yet, this one was different; hidden enemies crouched under its banks. Soldiers of the
Texas Republic watched their adversaries approach. Even Texians who were there that day could
not agree on the exact number of the enemy. They were too many to count. During the morning
of August 12, 1840, Texian soldiers viewed the approaching antagonists with both anxiety
and admiration. One of them, Ranger Robert Hall, recalled: “It was one of the prettiest
sights I ever saw in my life. The warriors flourished their white shields, and the young
chiefs galloped about the field with the long tails streaming from their hats and hundreds
of vari-colored ribbons floating in the air, exhibiting great bravado. Some of them dashed
courageously very close to us, and two or three of them lost their lives in this foolhardy
display of valor.” Regular Army General Felix Huston commanded
the disparate Texian force of about two hundred men. He elected to assume a defensive posture,
stand his ground, and receive the Comanche attack.
Comanche braves obliged, swarming forward to assail the Texian line—but just as quickly
to dart away. Most of Huston’s troopers remained dismounted, but about thirty mounted
rangers pursued the Indians and broke up their attack. One witness testified that they performed
“personal heroism worthy of all praise.” Even so, rangers could not provide protection
for the grounded regulars and militiamen, several of whom fell wounded. The mounts of
the men on the firing line proved easy targets and racing bowmen brought them down like tethered
cattle. This one-sided skirmish lasted thirty minutes when Texas Ranger captains Ben McCulloch,
Edward Burleson, and Mathew “Old Paint” Caldwell implored Huston to allow the rest
of the Texians to mount and countercharge. They explained that while their men remained
on foot, the enemy was free to exploit his superior mobility. Still, Huston insisted
on maintaining a defensive posture. Comanche arrows found their mark, but so too
did Texian bullets. When a chief wearing a “tremendous headdress” fell to the accurate
rifle fire, his mourning followers “set up a peculiar howl.” With their adversaries’
sudden demoralization, ranger captains recognized an opportunity. Almost apoplectic with anger,
Caldwell shouted into Huston’s face: “Now, General, is your time to charge them! They
are whipped!” The sputtering Huston made no reply; indecisiveness had unmanned him.
Without waiting for orders, the captains directed their troops to mount and led them in a spirited
rush. Astride their mustangs, they could match Comanche mobility and bring deadlier firepower
to bear. In a sprawling gunfight the official chain of command became less important than
the proven leadership of each troop captain. Giving full vent to their frenzy, the rangers
charged “howling like wolves.” The herd of captured horses, as many as two thousand
head, stampeded and raised dust “so thick that the parties could see each other but
a short distance.” Checked by their mass and encumbered with plunder, the Comanches
could not maneuver. As Hall told it: “Our boys charged with a yell, and did not fire
until they got close to the enemy.” Wielding single-shot, flintlock pistols, it was vital
that they made each round count. Cramped warriors were unable to break free from the throng;
rangers darted along the perimeter. Only then, where they could not miss, did they open fire.
They brought down about fifteen amid the press of warriors and ponies.
Captain Caldwell had been right. The Comanches would not stand against a determined charge
and close-quarters fire power. General Huston reported: “The Indians scattered, mostly
abandoning their horses and taking to the thickets.” A running fifteen-mile pursuit
ensued as rangers chased fleeing Indians as far as the Balcones Escarpment. Once there,
the surviving tribesmen reached the hilly region of the Edwards Plateau and vanished
into the Texas Hill Country. Toward sundown, ranger detachments returned
to the site of the initial engagement near Plum Creek and found the rest of the Texian
army sifting through the discarded Comanche loot. These included items of almost every
description: bags of silver, bolts of fabric, kegs of liquor, cases of books, full suits
of clothing, pouches of tobacco—even a number of live baby alligators that warriors stashed
in saddlebags to convince folks back in the Comanchería that they had raided all the
way to the coast. Hall recollected: “We hardly knew what to do with all this stuff,
and we finally concluded to divide it among ourselves.”
As the Comanches broke and fled, they killed many of their captives. Among the hostages
was the youthful widow of Linnville customs officer, Major Hugh Oran Watts. Juliet Constance
Ewing Watts had been married only twenty-one days before she witnessed her husband’s
murder and found herself a prisoner. As was their custom, Comanche braves attempted to
rape the young woman but were unable to decipher the intricacies of her whalebone corset. Finally,
they gave up and left her virtue intact. When Mrs. Watts had become an encumbrance, a warrior
fired an arrow into her torso. But the same corset that had earlier preserved her modesty
now saved her life. The projectile careened off a bone stay inflicting a painful, but
not mortal, flesh wound. The clash at Plum Creek transformed a Comanche
triumph into a bitter defeat. Avarice proved their undoing. Texian soldiers could never
have intercepted them had warriors not been driving a vast herd of captured livestock.
White veterans swore that they had killed at least eighty tribesmen but produced only
twelve enemy bodies. One should recall, however, that the Nurmernuh carried their dead off
the field for ritual burial. The “Lords of the South Plains” continued their attacks
against isolated homesteads, but never again did they attack in such large numbers or penetrate
so far into areas of Texas settlement. General Huston dispatched a fulsome post-battle
report to President Lamar. He claimed victory but those present on August 12 knew how little
he had done to achieve it. Indeed, if the ranger captains not taken tactical command,
Buffalo Hump’s warriors would have likely annihilated the entire Texian force a little
at a time. The general’s military prospects dimmed following the Plum Creek fight. Too
many veterans had witnessed his melt down for it to remain a secret. He became a laughing
stock and his pride would not abide it. During the autumn of 1840, he resigned his Texas
Army commission and became a partner in a New Orleans law firm. But Texas was never
far from his thoughts; four years later he was a staunch advocate of annexation. He remained
a rebel in search of a cause. In 1851, for example, he addressed a New Orleans assembly
where he espoused Cuba’s independence from Spain. As the states grew further apart,
he emerged as a fire-eating secessionist. A civil war might have fulfilled his martial
ambitions, but he never found out. In 1857, he passed away in Natchez, Mississippi.
General Felix Huston died as he had lived—a flouncing dilatant out of his depth. Texian
officials were about to deal with another flouncing dilatant—this time, of the French
variety.