The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 350
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
350
battlefield they met several friends and neighbors from Stafford's
Point. Among them was a neighbor, Leo Roark, who told Mrs.
Rose (the mother of Mrs. Harris) that her brother had been sent
to Stafford's Point on scout duty. "Roark says the burning of
Vince's bridge prevented several of the scouts from getting back."22
All of the Texan scouts undoubtedly were mounted and were
thoroughly familiar with the territory in which they were scout-
ing. To such men, the burning of a bridge over the bayou where
the marker was placed would not have delayed them fifteen
minutes. They would have galloped upstream a few hundred
yards and then waded or jumped across.
That same day Mrs. Harris recalled:
We left the battlefield late in the evening. We had to pass among the
dead Mexicans, and father pulled one out of the road so we could
get by without driving over the body, since we could not go, around
it. The prairie was very boggy, it was getting dark, and there were
now twenty or thirty families with us. We were glad to leave the
battle field, for its was a grewsome [sic] sight. We camped that night
on the prairie, and could hear the wolves howl and bark as they
devoured the dead. . Early the next morning we were on the move.
We had to take a roundabout road, for the burning of Vince's bridge
prevented us from going directly home.23
In other words, the destruction of Vince's Bridge prevented them
from returning by the route taken in their flight from Harrisburg
to Lynch's Ferry. If the destroyed bridge had been over what is
currently referred to as Vince's Bayou, all that the Rose family
would have needed to do was to follow the bayou upstream ap-
proximately one-half mile, ford the bayou, cross Sims Bayou at
the regular crossing, and then continue home by the customary
road. It must be remembered that in crossing Vince's Bayou, the
Rose family would have had plenty of aid since there were twenty
to thirty families in the party travelling with them. These were
all hardy, pioneer people, used to the problems of road travel,
and the crossing of a shallow stream only eight or ten feet wide
could easily have been negotiated.
Therefore, it was not the crossing of Vince's Bayou that pro-
vided the difficulty to these hardy Texans returning home. The
22Ibid., 171.
28Ibid., 171-172.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/421/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.