Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 95 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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INDIA1N WVARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
85
secluded locality. In Marcll and April, 1865, in
command of 183 men, the writer, as a Confederate
officer, made a campaign through and above that
country, following the identical route from the
mouth of Johnson's Fork of the Guadalupe to thespot where this conflict took place twenty-four
years before, and found it still a wild mountain
region -still a hiding-place for savage red men,
and at that particular period, for lawless and disreputable
white men.Red River and Trinity Events in 1841
The Yeary and Ripley
Families
Skirmish on Village Creek and Death
of Denton
Expeditions of Gens. Smith
and Tarrant.For a great many years I have had notes on the
expedition in which John B. Denton was killed,
furnished at different times by four different persons
who were participants, viz., Cols. James Bourland
and Wim. C. Young, Dr. Lemuel M. Cochran
and David Williams, then a boy; but there lias
appeared from time to time in former )years such a
variety of fiction on the subject that I determined
to publish nothing until thoroughly convinced of
the accuracy of the statements thus obtained
all
the while hoping for a personal interview with my
venerable friend of yore, Henry Stout, of Wood
County -who, besides Denton, was the only man
hurt in the trip. This I now have together with a
written statement fronm Dr. Cochran, (lated Gonzales,
September 26, 1886, and the personal recollections
of Jolin M. Watson, Alex W. Webb and
Col. Jas. G. Stevens, then a youth.
As a prelude to the expedition it is proper to say
that late in 1840, the house of Capt. John Yearv,
living on Sulphur, in the soutlleast part of Fannin
County, was attacked by a party of ten Indians
while lie and a negro man were at work in his field
three hundred yards from tile house. Mrs. Yeary,
gun in' hand, stood on tlie defensive, inside of the
closed door. Yeary and the negro man, armed
with a hoe each, ruslied towards tle house and
across the yard fence, foughalt tile assailants hand to
hand, in which Yeary received an arrow just above
the eye, which glanced around the skull without
penetrating. Mrs. Yeary, with a gun, ran out to
lier husband, but in doing so was shot in the hip.
Thus strengthened in the means of defense, the
Indians were driven off, without further casualty
to the family.
Early in April, 1841, a part of the Ripley familyon the old Cherokee trace, on Ripley creek, in Titus
County, were murdered by Indians. Ripley was
absent. Mrs. Ripley was at home with a son
scarcely twenty years old, a daughter about sixteen,
two daughters from twelve to fifteen, and
several smaller children, living some distance from
any other habitation. The Indians suddenly appeared
in daylight, shot and killed the son as he
was plowing in the field, and rushed upon the house,
from which the mother and children fled towards a
canebrake, two hundred yards distant. The elder
daughter was shot dead on the way. Tile second
and third daughters escaped into the cane; the
mother and the other children were killed with
clubs; one child in thle ihouse, probably asleep.
The Indians then plundered thle liouse and set it on
fire, the cliild inside being consumed in the flames.
This setoni) outrage led to a retaliatory expedition,
whiichl required some time for organization, in
tlhe thinly populated district. By l)ior agreement
the volunteer citizens, numbering eighty (as stated
by I)r. Cochran, who was Orderly Sergeant; but,
seventy, according to Ienry Stout's statement), met
in a body on Choctaw bayou, eight miles west of the
place since known as Old Warren, on the 4th of May,
1841, as shown by tlhe notes of John M. Watson,
yet (1886) living in Fannin County. On the next
morning they organized into a company by electing
James Bourland, Captain, William C. Young,
Lieutenant, and Lemuel M. Cochran, Orderly Sergeant.
John B. Denton and Henry Stout were
eachl placed in charge of a few men as scouts.
Edward H. Tarrant, General of militia, was of the
party without command, but was consulted and
respected as a senior officer. On the same day the
company moved west to the vacant barracks,
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/95/?rotate=180: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.