by Scott Zesch
On September 3, 1877, Gottlieb Fischer’s friend Engelbert Krauskopf received a letter from Jonathan Richards, a Quaker agent who had served at the Wichita agency. Richards reported that he had talked with Rudolph several times about returning to his people, but had not been able to obtain his consent. The letter suggested that Rudolph was not entirely opposed to traveling to Fredericksburg for a visit. Either his feelings about seeing the Fischer family were mixed or else he was placating the agent while dragging his feet. According to Richards, Rudolph
states that he would like to see his people very much, but does not know enough about white people’s ways to make a living with them. He has become accustomed to the Indian life, and is well contented, being well treated by them. He would like to remain and go with them on their usual buffalo hunt this winter. I have thought it would be as well not to press the matter further for a while.19
Gottlieb Fischer had waited on the Indian agents long enough. Immediately, he left Fredericksburg to retrieve his son, arriving at Fort Sill on September 12, 1877. According to a telegram sent to several Texas newspapers, he recognized his grown son instantly and was overcome with joy. Rudolph was less enthralled to see Gottlieb:
His embraces and caresses were received by the son with stoic indifference and imbecile smiles, and nothing would induce him to recognize his father or consent to go home with him, until General McKenzie [sic] interfered and authoritatively told him he had to go. Profuse promises of horses, guns, etc., dear to the Indian’s heart, made no impression on him, and he seems to feel the parting from the Indians very keenly.20
Indian agent Haworth confirmed this account, reporting: “The young man could not be prevailed upon to go before the arrival of his father, and only then by compulsion.”
Meanwhile, as word of Fischer’s imminent return spread through out Texas, newspapers followed the story closely. Several years had passed since journalists had had an occasion to write about an Indian captive, and they made the most of the opportunity. The headlines announced: “A Redeemed Captive: He Spends Twelve Years with the Savages, and Learns to be Like Them.” “Rudolf Fisher the Indian Captive: He refuses to Return to His Parents.” “A Frontier Romance—Recovery of Young Fisher After Thirteen Years with the Indians—Meeting Of Father and Son.”
People in Fredericksburg were anxious to see the young man whom the newspapers said “had grown wild and savage from his long intercourse with the blood-thirsty reds.” One day a rumor broke out that Rudolph had arrived at Engelbert Krauskopf’s gunsmith shop. The locals rushed there to get a glimpse of “the boy who had been with the savage reds.” As it turned out, Krauskopf had only received a package of photographs from Fort Sill. The San Antonio Daily Express reported that in the portraits, Rudolph was dressed as a white man, except that a blanket was tied around his waist. His hair was “long and parted in the middle like an Indian’s.”
Gottlieb Fischer left Fort Sill with Rudolph on September 16, 1877. Ranald Mackenzie arranged transport for father and son as far as Fort Griffin in a military ambulance “sent especially for their benefit.” Colonel Mackenzie also provided them with food for the trip. He noted that Gottlieb Fischer was “a very worthy man,” but that he spoke “very little English.” Mackenzie asked the commander of Fort Griffin, Phillip L. Lee, to “give them transportation to help them along beyond that post” if he could. The Indian Office’s appropriation of $100 for the Fischers’ trip home turned out to be an empty gesture; agent Haworth was not allowed to pay the transportation costs until after their travel was completed and the receipts were presented.
Rudolph clearly wasn’t pleased to be going back to Fredericksburg with his white father. Still, Ranald Mackenzie must not have been too concerned that he would try to escape, for he didn’t order a guard to accompany the Fischers. It appears that the young man grudgingly agreed to go with his father and not cause any problems. His close friends Quanah and Black Crow may have convinced him this was necessary. Or perhaps he had already made up his mind that his journey to Fredericksburg wouldn’t be a one-way trip.
On December 17, 1877, in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, Ranald Mackenzie left Fort Sill on an overland march to Texas with six companies of the Fourth Cavalry. Once again the colonel was being sent to put an end to Indian depredations along the Texas-Mexico border. He and his men traveled south by way of Fort Griffin and Camp Colorado. They stayed overnight in Mason in January 1878. When Auguste Buchmeier’s friends learned that he was nearby, they sent word to her that the colonel would pass through Loyal Valley the next day on his way to Fredericksburg. She had heard rumors about a white boy living with the Indians near Fort Sill and wanted to find out more about him.
By the time Auguste got the message the following day, Mackenzie had already left Loyal Valley and was well on his way to Fredericksburg. Auguste and her husband, Phillip, hitched a team of fresh horses to their carriage and tried to overtake him. They found his camp three miles north of Fredericksburg. The soldiers led Auguste to the colonel’s tent. She described her son to him, mentioning that he would be eighteen by then.
Mackenzie replied, “There is one white boy there. But from the description you give, I don’t think he is your son, for he is not that old.”
Auguste wasn’t able to hide her disappointment. Mackenzie studied her for a moment and then said, “Madam, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go on to Fredericksburg and telegraph the soldiers to bring him down, and if he is your boy I will be very glad. But if he should prove not to be your son, I will have him taken to San Antonio and place him where he can learn a trade. He has no business with the Indians.”
When Colonel Mackenzie got to Fredericksburg the next day, he sent a telegram to Fort Sill asking about the white boy who stayed with Quanah’s family. The answer that came back on January 28, 1878, brought Herman’s mother both elation and frustration: “Buckiers [sic] boy out on the hunt with the Indians, Agent has been informed, matter to be attended to on boys return.” A young man that they thought might be Herman was living there, but he was off hunting. After more than seven years without seeing her son, Auguste Buchmeier would have to wait a little longer. She recalled, “These were the longest three months I ever spent.”
In the eyes of the federal government, Herman Lehmann was still a prisoner of war, even though he considered himself a Comanche by choice and by adoption. As a captive, his recovery was primarily the responsibility of the Indian agent who dealt with the tribe holding him. Yet when Herman got back to the reservation after hunting with the Comanches, the Kiowa-Comanche agent, James M. Haworth, apparently took no steps to send him to Texas. Haworth’s indifference in this matter would put him at odds with Lt. Col. John W. “Black Jack” Davidson, the blustery, hot-tempered officer who had replaced Ranald Mackenzie as commander at Fort Sill.
Davidson finally took the initiative in returning Herman to Texas. In the early part of 1878, he got Quanah to bring Herman to Fort Sill. When they arrived at the post, the soldiers surrounded Herman and tried to prevent him from leaving. Davidson told Quanah that Herman’s people were still living in Texas and that he should be sent to them.
Quanah said to Herman, “Your mother and folks are still alive. Do you want to go to them?”
Herman replied, “No. The Indians are my people. I will not go with the whites.”
Quanah saw no easy solution. Finally, he told Herman, “I am going to leave you here at the post with the soldiers.”
Herman became angry, thinking Quanah had deceived him. He said, “You are no man at all to bring me here when you knew these soldiers would try to keep me.”
Quanah protested, “I did not know it. Besides, I often go into Texas to see my people, and always have a pretty good time.”
Herman grew petulant. He said, “If you are getting tired of me, I am of you, too. I will leave you.”
Quanah decided to take Herman to talk with Horace Jones, the veteran interpreter at Fort Sill. Jones, perhaps more than any other white
man, could understand what Herman was going through. An adopted Comanche himself, Horace Jones had spent a great deal of time among the tribe and had a deep affinity for their culture. Jones also realized the trauma Herman would face once he was separated from his Comanche family. The interpreter had been present when Quanah’s mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was recaptured by Texas Rangers in 1860. Over the years, he had dealt with several bewildered captives shortly after their release, including Dot and Banc Babb.
Jones told Herman, as gently as he could, “You will have to go to your people.”
Herman said, “I will never consent to go.”
Jones replied, “They will have to take you anyhow.”
In one swift motion, Herman drew his bow, fitted an arrow, and aimed it at the interpreter. Jones ducked under a table.
Quanah stopped Herman. He said, “I will see that they do not take you. I am going back to my tepee with you.”
Herman turned around, intending to kill Jones anyway. He had slipped out of the room. Herman said, “I never got another chance at Jones, or he would have been a goner.” He didn’t explain why he chose to vent his rage on the well-liked interpreter. Maybe he just needed to kill someone, and he thought a nonmilitary man was an easy target. Herman went home with Quanah. That night they discussed his situation a long time. Quanah finally persuaded Herman that he couldn’t fight the whites any longer.
Meanwhile, Herman’s former friends and neighbors in Texas were eager to see him. On March 12, 1878, Engelbert Krauskopf, the Fredericksburg gunsmith who had helped get Rudolph Fischer home, wrote once more to U.S. Congressman Gustav Schleicher on the Buchmeiers’ behalf, pleading with the legislator to use his “best endeavours to have the child returned to his parents.” According to Krauskopf, the Buchmeiers were “too poor to do anything for him.” Oddly, Krauskopf remarked that “the Agent at Fort Sill would have to be paid for his assistance.” He may have been referring to agent Ha-worth’s offer the previous fall to hire a man to bring Rudolph Fischer home if his family would pay the cost.
Congressman Schleicher forwarded Krauskopf’s letter to the commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington. The acting commissioner, William M. Leeds, immediately wrote to agent Haworth, instructing him to “report the facts in the case, so far as you know them, or can obtain them, and do so at as early a date as practicable.” Still, Ha-worth procrastinated. The following month, Black Jack Davidson, the gruff commander of Fort Sill, finally decided something had to be done. On April 12, 1878, he sent a tersely worded telegram to Freder-icksburg, announcing that he had recovered Herman. He also indicated that he was fed up with agent Haworth:
Bucksheimer [sic] son has been taken by me from the Indians, which the Agent here had failed to do. He is now at my Indian farm, and will be sent, when I get the orders of the Department Commander.21
In later years, Herman recalled that he voluntarily gave himself up at Fort Sill. However, the earlier records indicate otherwise. Quanah and some of his tribesmen gave an affidavit stating that Herman “was taken from us forcibly by the soldiers at Fort Sill.”22 Lieutenant Colonel Davidson also indicated that he had to go get Herman. He wrote to his superiors in the army’s Department of the Missouri:
I have the honor to report that I have taken from Quanah (a Comanche who occupies a prominent position among his people) a captive boy about eighteen years of age, a German by birth and whose parents are living near Fredericksburg Texas, east of Fort McKavett. He was captured some ten [sic] years ago and has been with the Apaches and Comanches ever since. He was taken by Quanah from the Apaches. I write to know if I shall send him via Griffin and McKavett to his people with a safeguard. Two soldiers and a pack mule will be sufficient.23
No guard had been ordered to accompany Rudolph Fischer the previous September, but Herman apparently posed a greater flight risk.
Davidson received a letter from the army’s Department of the Missouri on April 24, ordering him to return the captive boy to his parents in Texas. Before Herman left, Quanah told him how to find the way back to his camp. He promised to take care of Herman’s horses while he was gone to Texas. Quanah said to Herman, “I will be a brother to you. If you do not have any people, you should come back and live with me.” Herman would always remember that invitation.
News spread through the Hill Country that Herman Lehmann was on his way home. The peculiar young man, only a month shy of his nineteenth birthday, was traveling in a military ambulance drawn by four mules, with an escort of five soldiers—three more than Lieutenant Colonel Davidson had originally proposed. After they passed through Mason and crossed the Llano River on May 12, 1878, they started meeting people who had come to get an early glimpse of the celebrated white Indian. Meanwhile, his mother and her friends were preparing a huge feast at the small hotel she’d established in Loyal Valley. Herman and the soldiers didn’t reach the village until after dark. About three hundred people were waiting at Auguste Buchmeier’s hotel to witness the family reunion.
Nothing looked familiar to Herman. He had grown up on Squaw Creek, four miles to the west, and had never lived in Loyal Valley. The soldiers made signs for him to climb down. One of them said, “Get out and kiss your mother!” At first Herman refused to step down from the ambulance. When he finally alighted, Auguste ran up to him, threw her arms around his neck, and started weeping. He didn’t know her and grunted in disdain. To him, “she was no more than a white squaw.” The crowd spoke excitedly in German and English, languages Herman couldn’t understand. Some were laughing, some crying, some shouting praises to God and singing hymns of thanksgiving. Their emotional outbursts irritated him. “Pshaw!” he wrote. “I did not approve of such conduct, so I broke away from them.” He tried to walk off, but the soldiers stopped him.
Someone kept saying, “Herman. Herman.” The name had a familiar sound. All at once he realized, to his horror, that he really was among his own people. “But,” he explained, “I was an Indian, and I did not like them because they were palefaces.” He lay down on a blanket in the yard, drowning out the noise of their church music by singing Indian songs to himself.
His sister insisted that he come eat. Herman finally went inside the hotel. He was about to sit down grudgingly with his family and neighbors when he saw a ham on the table. He flew into a rage, kicking over chairs and tables and heading for the door. Herman pointed to the pork and finally made them understand that it offended him. As he recalled, “The thought of having to eat with hog-eaters choked me.” He wanted nothing but roasted beef. He said, “All those sweetmeats and delicacies disgusted me, and I despised so much effeminacy.” Later that night, Herman wouldn’t sleep in the featherbed his mother fixed for him, but made a pallet of his own blankets on the ground. His brother Willie slept in the yard to keep him company.
The summer of 1878 was the most miserable period of Herman Lehmann’s life. Even his first weeks as an Apache captive hadn’t been as traumatic. He recalled, “I was mad all of the time. In fact, nothing pleased me.” His family humored him and treated him gingerly, for Herman wasn’t easy to be around. He’d been spoiled and pampered by the Native American women for many years. When he returned from hunting, he would leave his horse at the front door of his mother’s hotel with a slain deer still tied to it. He expected the women of the household to skin and clean the deer, as well as feed and stake his horse. Although his mother and sisters tried to do everything he wanted, he flew into a rage if they failed to roast the short ribs or tenderloins to his satisfaction.
About a year after Herman came home, his mother enrolled him in the local school. He hated it. Herman was twenty years old and couldn’t stand being confined. Finally, he told his mother that he was going to tear down all the lattice in the schoolhouse so he could see out. She never made him go back. His teacher at Loyal Valley, John Warren Hunter, wrote, “As one in prison, he pined for the companionship of his Indian friends, and their manner of life.”
Herman recalled only one moment during that trying
period when he thought he could reconcile with his white mother and win her admiration. One day he asked her if she remembered seeing fires on House Mountain on a cold winter night several years before.
“Yes,” said Auguste. “I remember the time. There was snow on the ground, and the Indians made a raid and got off with a large number of horses.”
Herman’s face lit up. “Me got heem!” he shouted. “Me got heem!”
Then he squatted and traced in the sand the brands of the horses he had taken. All of them had belonged to his neighbors around Loyal Valley. Herman couldn’t understand why his mother didn’t seem proud of his accomplishment.
Gottlieb and Sophie Fischer were well aware that their son was dissatisfied in Fredericksburg. Gottlieb tried to persuade Rudolph to bring his Comanche wife and children to Texas, thinking that would make him content. However, Rudolph refused to send for his family. He said, “The white people would always look upon my wife as a squaw, and she would not be happy here.”
Unlike most recovered captives, Rudolph does not appear to have caused any trouble when he returned home. The news items and letters describing his time in Fredericksburg do not indicate that he stole horses or killed swine or fowl. Perhaps he thought those sorts of juvenile pranks were beneath his dignity as an adult warrior. Or maybe he was just biding his time.
Only two months after Rudolph arrived in Fredericksburg, rumors of his departure started to circulate. At Fort Sill, Indian agent James M. Haworth heard that some cowboys had seen Rudolph at their camps south of the Red River in the latter part of November 1877. Rudolph was supposedly traveling with one of the Indian hunting parties on the way back to the reservation. This report turned out to be false; Rudolph was in Fredericksburg throughout the fall and winter. (The young man the cowboys saw was probably Herman Lehmann.)