Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 73 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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INDIAN WITARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
65
sible in their then condition, over which the heroic
and ever lamented Col. Henry W. Karnes presided.
They also furnished supplies to meet our
wants until we reached our respective encampments."
On the way out Caldwell passed at different
points wounded horses abandoned by Cordova.
One such, in the mountains, severely wounded,
attracted the experienced eye of Ben McCulloch as
a valuable horse, if he could be restored to soundness.
On leaving San Antonio for home by permission
of Capt. Caldwell, with a single companion,
he went in search of the horse. He found him,
and by slow marches took him home, where, under
good treatment, he entirely recovered, to become
famous as "Old Pike," IcCulloch's pet and
favorite as long as he lived
a fast racer of rich
chestnut color, sixteen hands high, faultless
in disposition and one of the most sagacious
horses ever known in the country. The tips
of his ears had been split for about an inch,
proving his former ownership by one of the Indian
tribes. Another coincidence may be stated, viz.,
that returning from a brief campaign in June,
1841, when at a farm house (that of Mrs. Sophia
Jones), eight miles from Gonzales, the rifle of an
old man named Triplett, lying across his lap on
horseback, with the rod in the barrel, accidentally
fired, driving the ramrod into Old Pike's shoulder
blade, not over four feet distant. McCulloch was
on him at the time and the writer of this, just dismounted,
stood within ten feet. The venerable
Mrs. Jones (mother of the four brothers, William
E., Augustus H., Russell and Isham G. Jones),
wept over the scene as she gazed upon the noble
animal in his agonizing pain, and strong men wept
at what they supposed to be the death scene of
Old Pike. But it was not so. He was taken in
charge by Mrs. Jones; the fragments of the shattered
ramrod, one by one, extracted, healthy suppuration
brought about; and, after about three
months' careful nursing, everyone in that section
rejoiced to know that Old Pike " was himself
again." In a chase after two Mexican scouts,
between the Nueces and Laredo, in the Somervell
expedition, in December, 1842, in a field of perhaps
twenty-five horses, Flacco, the Lipan chief,
slightly led, closely followed by Hays on the horse
presented him by Leonard W. Grace, and Ben
McCulloch, on Old Pike. Both Mexicans were
captured.
PURSUIT AND DEATH OF MANUEL FLORES.
Bearing in mind what has been said of Cordova's
correspondence with Manuel Flores, the Mexican
5Indian agent in Matamoros, and his desire to have
a conference with that personage, it remains, in
the regular order of events, to say that Flores,
ignorant of the calamitous defeat of Cordova (on
the 29th of March, 1839), set forth from Matamoros
probably in the last days of April, to meet
Cordova and the Indian tribes wherever they might
be found, on the upper Brazos, Trinity or east of
the latter. He had an escort of about thirty
Indians and Mexicans, supplies of ammunition
for his allies and all his official papers
from Filisola and Canalizo, to which reference
has been made, empowering him to treat with
the Indians so as to secure their united friendship
for Mexico and combined hostility to Texas.
His march was necessarily slow. On the 14th of
May, he crossed the road between Seguin and San
Antonio, having committed several depredations on
and near the route, and on the 15th crossed the
Guadalupe at the old Nacogdoches ford. He was
discovered near the Colorado not far above where
Austin was laid out later in the same year.
Lieut. James 0. Rice, a gallant young ranger,
in command of seventeen men, fell upon his trail,
pursued, overhauled and assailed him on Brushy
creek (not the San Gabriel as stated by Yoakum),
in the edge of Williamson County. Flores endeavored
to make a stand, but Rice rushed forward
with such impetuosity as to throw the enemy
into confusion and flight. Flores and two others
were left dead upon the ground, and fully half of
those who escaped were wounded. Rice captured
and carried in one hundred horses and mules,
three hundred pounds of powder, a large amount
of shot, balls, lead, etc., and all the correspondence
in possession of Flores, which revealed the
whole plot for the destruction of the frontier
people of Texas, to be followed up by the devastation
of the whole country. The destruction of
the whole demoniacal scheme, it will be seen, was
accomplished by a train of what must be esteemed
providential occurrences.
THE FATE OF VICENTE CORDOVA.
Cordova, after these admonitions, never returned
to East or North Texas, but remained on the Rio
Grande. In September, 1842, in command of a
small band of his renegade Mexicans and Indians,
he accompanied the Mexican General, Adrian Woll,
in his expedition against San Antonio, and was in
the battle of Salado, on Sunday the 18th of that
month. While Woll fought in front, Cordova led
his band below the Texian position on the creek and
reached a dry ravine where it entered the timbered
bottom, at right angles with the corner of the creek.
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/73/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.