The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909 Page: 73
332 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Recollections of S. F. Sparks. 73
read of rifles charging soldiers in a ditch with muskets and bayonets,
as the rifle volunteers charged his best troops under Almonte, and
routed them. Almonte was a prisoner at the time, and he said he
believed that they were fools enough to crawl into the mouth of
a cannon, and be shot out, if they thought by so doing they would
kill three Mexicans.
Some time after the battle we were all taken with chills and
fever, and General Rusk discharged me and a man by the name of
Clemmons, who was a volunteer from Georgia. We started home
on our ponies. It had been raining for about forty days, all the
streams were swollen, and we had to swim every stream that had
no boat on it. I had a chill every day. I would have to lie down
until the chill went off, and the fever rose, then I would get on
my horse and ride until I had the next chill.
The first day's travel brought us to Mr. Burnett's house. The
family had now returned to their home, and we asked to stay all
night. They said we might, and we staked our horse, and talked
of the battle.
The next morning we got our horses, and lingered awhile. Mr.
Burnett went out to the cow lot, and I went in where Mrs. Bur-
nett was and asked her what we owed her; she said that we did
not owe her anything.
We traveled all the next day, and camped that night; the next
day we saw some smoke rising just in front of us. There was no
settlement for some distance about there, and we noticed the
smoke, for we were likely to find Indians most anywhere, either
hostile or friendly. We soon discovered that the smoke was a
little to the left of the trail that we were traveling, so I said to
Clemmans that I thought we were near Indians, and we had bet-
ter examine our guns, and see if they were all right, for if they
were hostile Indians we would have to fight them, that flight
would be useless, and that we had better go right to the camp.
So after seeing that our guns were all right, we rode side by side
towards the camp. We had got to within about two hundred yards
of them, when a lad seemingly about sixteen years of age got up
and looked at us, then a tall Indian man got up and looked at us,
and he, too, sat down, then a squaw did the same. I then said
to Clemmans that they were friendly, and we were in no danger.
We rode up to the camp, and the Indian man got up and spoke
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909, periodical, 1909; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101048/m1/81/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.