The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923 Page: 230
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
was also on a wild horse, too eager for the fray. The officers
shouted to us to come back into line, but our efforts to obey were
in vain. Our steeds had determined to give us a reputation for
bravery which we did not deserve."
A few days of marching to no purpose, of waiting for swollen
streams to run down, and for bogs to become passable brought
us to the conclusion that the Texas Indian could always keep out
of sight of a large party. He could go ahead, keep ahead and be
continually out of the way. But Colonel Moore was averse to
turning back, and at last a division among us resulted. The men
from the Brazos, including Coleman, Ed Burleson and others, re-
turned. I went back with them.
This was my first experience of war in Texas; it was quite dif-
ferent from my ideas of the art as derived from boyhood sources;
drills I had participated in at the Polytechnic, from accounts of
battles around Vienna, and from such spectacles as the passing
of masses of soldiery, martial music, with the dragging of cannon,
and other echoes of military glory. But I fancied the campaign
life here, at least the camp life, and while on this expedition I
made an engagement to go out again with a surveyor to the heads
of the San Gabriel and Brushy creeks. He expected to run two
compasses from one camp, and to have half a dozen or more land
locaters with him.
I set out from Bastrop with the surveyor, Thomas A. Graves,
about the last of September. There were seventeen of us in the
party, including four land speculators. We reached our destina-
tion in three days and commenced work, each compass running
out a league of land a day. We intended to go farther east after
surveying ten leagues, but on the last day of our stay the Indians
attacked one of the parties and killed Lang, an Irishman, who ran
the compass. Such occurrences were not uncommon, especially
near the Colorado, and even occurred in the midst of a settlement.
A party of Indians always lurked around, waiting to find a soli-
tary man to scalp, and would then put off immediately. As they
generally did put off immediately after the killing, it seemed to
'Later this incident gave rise to the sobriquet "The Flying Dutchman."-
L. A. E.
His companions, not exactly understanding the cause of this feat and
always delighting in anything that savored of courage, immediately pro-
moted him.-DE CORDOVA.830
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, July 1922 - April, 1923, periodical, 1923; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101084/m1/236/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.