Battle of Pease River.--Cynthia Ann Parker.
For some time after Ross’ victory at the Wichita Mountains the
Comanches were less hostile, seldom penetrating far down into the
settlements. But in 1859-’60 the condition of the frontier was again
truly deplorable. The people were obliged to stand in a continued
posture of defense, and were in continual alarm and hazard of their
lives, never daring to stir abroad unarmed, for small bodies of
savages, quick-sighted and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness,
hovered on the outskirts, and springing from behind bush or rock,
surprised his enemy before he was aware of danger, and sent tidings
of his presence in the fatal blow, and after execution of the bloody
work, by superior knowledge of the country and rapid movements, safely
retired to their inaccessable deserts.
In the Autumn of 1860 the indomitable and fearless Peta Nocona led a
raiding party of Comanches through Parker county, so named in honor
of the family of his wife, Cynthia Ann, committing great depredations
as they passed through. The venerable Isaac Parker was at the time a
resident of the town of Weatherford, the county seat; and little did he
imagine that the chief of the ruthless savages who spread desolation
and death on every side as far as their arms could reach, was the
husband of his long lost niece; and that the comingled blood of the
murdered Parkers and the atrocious Comanche now coursed in the veins
of a second generation--bound equally by the ties of consanguinity to
murderer and murdered; that the son of Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann
Parker would become the chief of the proud Comanches, whose boast it
is that their constitutional settlement of government is the purest
democracy ever originated and administered among men. It certainly
conserved the object of its institution--the protection and happiness
of the people--for a longer period, and much more satisfactorily than
has that of any other Indian tribe. The Comanches claimed a superiority
over the other Texian tribes; and they unquestionably were more
intelligent and courageous. The “Reservation Policy,”--necesessary
though it be--brings them all to an object level,--the plane of lazy
beggars and thieves. The Comanche is the most qualified by nature
for receiving education and for adapting himself to the requirements
of civilization, of all the southern tribes, not excepting even the
Cherokees, with their churches, school-houses and farms. The Comanches
after waging an unceasing war for nearly fifty years against the United
States, Texas and Mexico, still number 16,000 souls; a far better
showing than any other tribe can make, though not one but has enjoyed
privileges to which the Comanche was a stranger. It is a shame to the
civilization of the age that a people so susceptible of a high degree
of development should be allowed to grovel in the depths of heathenism
and savagery. But we are digressing.
The loud and clamorous cries of the settlers along the frontier for
protection, induced the Government to organize and send out a regiment
under Col. M. T. Johnson to take the field for public defense. But
these efforts proved of small service. The expedition, though at great
expense to the state, failed to find an Indian until returning, the
command was followed by the wily Comanches, their horses “stampeded” at
night and most of the men compelled to reach the settlements on foot,
under great suffering and exposure.
Captain “Sul” Ross, who had just graduated from Florence Wesleyan
University, of Alabama, and returned to Texas, was commissioned a
captain of rangers, by Governor Sam Houston, and directed to organize
a company of sixty men, with orders to repair to Fort Belknap, receive
from Col. Johnson all government property, as his regiment was
disbanded, and take the field against the redoubtable Peta Nocona,
and afford the frontier such protection as was possible to this small
force. The necessity of vigorous measures soon became so pressing
that Capt. Ross determined to attempt to curb the insolence of these
implacable enemies of Texas by following them into their fastnesses and
carry the war into their own homes. In his graphic narration of this
campaign Gen. L. S. Ross says: “As I could take but forty of my men
from my post, I requested Capt. N. G. Evans, in command of the United
States troops, at Camp Cooper, to send me a detachment of the Second
Cavalry. We had been intimately connected on the Van Dorn campaign,
during which I was the recipient of much kindness from Capt. Evans
while I was suffering from a severe wound received from an Indian in
the battle of the ‘Wichita.’ He promptly sent me a sergeant and twenty
well mounted men. My force was still further augmented by some seventy
volunteer citizens under command of the brave old frontiersman, Capt.
Jack Cureton, of Bosque county. These self-sacrificing patriots,
without the hope of pay or reward, left their dedefenseless homes
and families to avenge the sufferings of the frontier people. With
pack-mules laden down with necessary supplies the expedition marched
for the Indian country.
“On the 18th of December, 1860, while marching up Pease river, I had
some suspicions that Indians were in the vicinity, by reason of the
buffalo that came running in great numbers from the north towards us,
and while my command moved in the low ground I visited all neighboring
high points to make discoveries. On one of these sand hills I found
four fresh pony tracks, and being satisfied that Indian videtts had
just gone, I galloped forward about a mile to a higher point, and
riding to the top, to my inexpressable surprise, found myself within
200 yards of a Comanche village, located on a small stream winding
around the base of the hill. It was a most happy circumstance that a
piercing north wind was blowing, bearing with it clouds of sand, and
my presence was unobserved and the surprise complete. By signaling my
men as I stood concealed, they reached me without being discovered by
the Indians, who were busy packing up preparatory to a move. By this
time the Indians mounted and moved off north across the level plain. My
command, with the detachment of the Second Cavalry, had out-marched and
become separated from the citizen command, which left me about sixty
men. In making disposition for attack, the sergeant and his twenty
men were sent at a gallop, behind a chain of sand hills, to encompass
them in and cut off their retreat, while with forty men I charged. The
attack was so sudden that a considerable number were killed before
they could prepare for defense. They fled precipitately right into
the presence of the sergeant and his men. Here they met with a warm
reception, and finding themselves completely encompassed, every one
fled his own way, and was hotly pursued and hard pressed.
“The chief of the party, Peta Nocona, a noted warrior of great repute,
with a young girl about fifteen years of age mounted on his horse
behind him, and Cynthia Ann Parker, with a girl child about two years
of age in her arms and mounted on a fleet pony, fled together, while
Lieut. Tom. Kelliheir and I pursued them. After running about a mile
Killiheir ran up by the side of Cynthia’s horse, and I was in the act
of shooting when she held up her child and stopped. I kept on after
the chief and about a half a mile further, when in about twenty yards
of him I fired my pistol, striking the girl (whom I supposed to be a
man, as she rode like one, and only her head was visible above the
buffalo robe with which she was wrapped) near the heart, killing her
instantly, and the same ball would have killed both but for the shield
of the chief, which hung down, covering his back. When the girl fell
from the horse she pulled him off also, but he caught on his feet,
and before steadying himself, my horse, running at full speed, was
very nearly upon top of him, when he was struck with an arrow, which
caused him to fall to pitching or ‘bucking,’ and it was with great
difficulty that I kept my saddle, and in the meantime, narrowly escaped
several arrows coming in quick succession from the chief’s bow. Being
at such disadvantage he would have killed me in a few minutes but for
a random shot from my pistol (while I was clinging with my left hand
to the pommel of my saddle) which broke his right arm at the elbow,
completely disabling him. My horse then became quiet, and I shot the
chief twice through the body, whereupon he deliberately walked to a
small tree, the only one in sight, and leaning against it, began to
sing a wild, wierd song. At this time my Mexican servant, who had once
been a captive with the Comanches and spoke their language as fluently
as his mother tongue, came up, in company with two of my men. I then
summoned the chief to surrender, but he promptly treated every overture
with contempt, and signalized this declaration with a savage attempt
to thrust me with the lance which he held in his left hand. I could
only look upon him with pity and admiration. For, deplorable as was his
situation, with no chance of escape, his party utterly destroyed, his
wife and child captured in his sight, he was undaunted by the fate that
awaited him, and as he seemed to prefer death to life, I directed the
Mexican to end his misery by a charge of buck-shot from the gun which
he carried. Taking up his accouterments, which I subsequently sent Gov.
Houston, to be deposited in the archives at Austin, we rode back to
Cynthia Ann and Killiheir, and found him bitterly cursing himself for
having run his pet horse so hard after an ‘old squaw.’ She was very
dirty, both in her scanty garments and her person. But as soon as I
looked on her face, I said, ‘Why, Tom, this is a white woman, Indians
do not have blue eyes.’ On the way to the village, where my men were
assembling with the spoils, and a large _caballado_ of ‘Indian ponies,’
I discovered an Indian boy about nine years of age, secreted in the
grass. Expecting to be killed, he began crying, but I made him mount
behind me, and carried him along. And when in after years I frequently
proposed to send him to his people, he steadfastly refused to go, and
died in McLennan county last year.
“After camping for the night Cynthia Ann kept crying, and thinking it
was caused from fear of death at our hands, I had the Mexican tell
her that we recognized her as one of our own people, and would not
harm her. She said two of her boys were with her when the fight began,
and she was distressed by the fear that they had been killed. It so
happened, however, both escaped, and one of them, ‘Quanah’ is now
a chief. The other died some years ago on the plains. I then asked
her to give me the history of her life with the Indians, and the
circumstances attending her capture by them, which she promptly did in
a very sensible manner. And as the facts detailed corresponded with
the massacre at Parker’s Fort, I was impressed with the belief that
she was Cynthia Ann Parker. Returning to my post, I sent her and child
to the ladies at Cooper, where she could recieve the attention her
situation demanded, and at the same time dispatched a messenger to Col.
Parker, her uncle, near Weatherford, and as I was called to Waco to
meet Gov. Houston, I left directions for the Mexican to accompany Col.
Parker to Cooper in the capacity of interpreter. When he reached there,
her identity was soon discovered to Col. Parker’s entire satisfaction
and great happiness.”
And thus was fought the battle of “Pease river” between a superior
force of Comanches under the implacable chief, Peta Nocona on one side,
and sixty rangers led by their youthful commander, Capt. L. S. Ross, on
the other. Ross, sword in hand, led the furious rush of the rangers;
and in the desperate encounter of “war to the knife” which ensued,
nearly all the warriors bit the dust.
So signal a victory had never before been gained over the fierce and
war-like Comanches; and never since that fatal December day in 1860
have they made any military demonstrations at all commensurate with
the fame of their proud campaigns in the past. The great Comanche
confederacy was forever broken. The incessant and sanguinary war which
had been waged for more than thirty years was now virtually at an end.
The blow was a most decisive one; as sudden and irresistable as a
thunder-bolt, and as remorseless and crushing as the hand of Fate.
It was a short but desperate conflict. Victory trembled in the balance.
A determined charge, accompanied by a simultaneous fire from the solid
phalanx of yelling rangers and the Comanches beat a hasty retreat,
leaving many dead and wounded upon the field. Espying the chief and
a chosen few riding at full speed, and in a different direction from
the other fugitives, from the ill-starred field, Ross quickly pursued.
Divining his purpose, the watchful Peta Nocona rode at full speed,
but was soon overtaken, when the two chiefs engaged in a personal
encounter, which must result in the death of one or the other. Peta
Nocona fell, and his last sigh was taken up in mournful wailings on the
wings of defeat. Most of the women and children with a few warriors
escaped. Many of these perished on the cold and inhospitable plains,
in an effort to reach their friends on the head-waters of the Arkansas
river.
The immediate fruits of the victory was some four hundred and fifty
horses, and their accumulated winter’s supply of food. But the
incidental fruits are not to be computed on the basis of dollars and
cents. The proud spirit of the Comanche was here broken, and to this
signal defeat is to be attributed the measurably pacific conduct of
these heretofore implacable foes of the white race during the course
of the late civil war in the Union,--a boon of incalculable value to
Texas.
In a letter recognizing the great service rendered the state by Ross in
dealing the Comanches this crushing blow, Governor Houston said:
“Your success in protecting the frontier gives me great satisfaction. I
am satisfied that with the same opportunities, you would rival, if not
excel, the greatest exploits of McCulloch and Hays. Continue to repel,
pursue, and punish every body of Indians coming into the State, and the
people will not withhold their praise.”
Signed: SAM HOUSTON.
[Illustration: QUANAH PARKER.]