by Scott Zesch
10. Willie Lehmann thought that this skirmish occurred on May 19, and that the Apaches lost between ten and fifteen horses. San Antonio Daily Herald, June 2, 1870, 2. The military reports do not mention any fatalities, suggesting that Sergeant Stance did not realize that his men had killed the leader of the Apache raiding party. Or perhaps the missing Apache escaped in a different direction, and Willie Lehmann mistakenly thought he’d died in the fight. The Ninth Cavalry’s participation in the search for the Lehmann brothers is detailed in: Special Orders No. 73, Fort McKavett, May 19, 1870, and Emanuel Stance to B. M. Custer, May 26, 1870, Microfilm Roll M929/2, NARA; post returns, May, 1870, Fort McKavett, Texas, Microfilm Roll M617/687, NARA; and San Antonio Daily Herald, May 26, 1870, 2.
11. A number of African-American volunteers received the Medal of Honor for their service in the Civil War. However, African-Americans were not allowed to serve as regulars in the U.S. Army until 1866.
12. According to an editor’s note, “The cover painting on this issue does not portray an actual incident in our lead story, ‘Nine Years Among the Indians.’ However, this form of torture was practiced by the Apaches, the tribe with which Herman Lehmann spent so much time.” Frontier Times, Mar. 1963, 4.
13. T. A. Babb, In the Bosom of the Comanches (1912; 2d ed., Dallas: Hargreaves Printing Co., 1923), 144.
14. San Antonio Daily Herald, Mar. 2, 1871, 2; San Antonio Daily Express, Mar. 7, 1871,4.
15. Most of the quotes by the Smith brothers in this chapter are from their memoir, Clinton L. Smith and Jefferson D. Smith with J. Marvin Hunter, The Boy Captives (Bandera, Tex.: Frontier Times, 1927), which is one of the most delightful and least appreciated of the Texas captivity narratives. It’s also the funniest. Some of Jeff Smith’s remarks are taken from an article about him that was serialized in four issues of the Semi-Weekly Farm News [Dallas]: Nov. 4, 1930, 2; Nov. 11, 1930, 2; Nov. 18, 1930, 2; and Nov. 25, 1930, 2.
16. Captain Sansom reported that on Tuesday, February 28, the Indians killed a man named John McCormick and wounded his brother, Edward McCormick, in the leg. John W. Sansom to James Davidson, Feb. 28, 1871, Adjutant General, General Correspondence, Box 401-390, Folder 390-4, TSA. Although Clinton did not mention a second man, it is likely that John McCormick was the person whom the Smith brothers saw murdered.
17. Clinton’s account of this skirmish was confirmed by Captain Sansom, who reported that two young men named Waldrope and Allhouse exchanged shots several times with the Indians, and that Allhouse thought he wounded one Indian badly. However, Sansom recorded that this battle happened on February 28, near the same place where the Indians attacked the McCormick brothers. San-som to Davidson, Feb. 28, 1871.
18. Tosa is a Comanche prefix meaning “white.” Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee, Taa Numu Tekwapu?ha Tuboopu (Our Comanche Dictionary) (Lawton: Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee, 2003), 63. The name might be more accurately translated as “White Cat.”
19. Both Clinton and Jeff Smith recalled that Jeff was sold to Geronimo (Goyath-lay), the famous leader of the Chiricahua Apaches who inhabited southern Arizona and New Mexico. However, the oldest records indicate that Jeff was eventually recovered from a Lipan Apache, who claimed to have bought him from the Comanches. William Schuchardt to Hon. Second Assistant Secretary of State, Mar. 29, 1873, Microfilm Roll M299/T-1, NARA-CP. While it’s possible that Jeff ended up with Geronimo’s Chiricahuas at some point, I suspect that after the Smith brothers returned from captivity, they heard people speak of Geronimo as the leader of the Apaches and simply assumed that the man who had headed Jeff’s Lipan group (possibly Costilietos, a principal Lipan chief) was Geronimo. Jeff visited with Geronimo when the latter was being held prisoner in San Antonio in the fall of 1886 and said that Geronimo recognized him instantly. Smith, The Boy Captives, 205. However, Geronimo was a shrewd operator and may have pretended to recognize Jeff, hoping that Jeff could help him and the Apache prisoners in some way.
20. Apparently, Clinton Smith still remembered the Comanche language fairly well at the time he published his memoir in 1927. Pahki is a Comanche word for “rawhide rope,” and katso means “end” (Backecacho = Pahkikatso). Comanche Language and Cultural Preservation Committee, Taa Numu Tekwapu?ha Tu-boopu, 9, 151.
21. A. Irving Hallowell, “American Indians, White and Black: The Phenomenon of Transculturalization,” Current Anthropology, IV (Dec. 1963), 522.
22. Martin Symonds, “Victim Responses to Terror: Understanding and Treatment,” and Thomas Strentz, “The Stockholm Syndrome: Law Enforcement Policy and Hostage Behavior,” in Frank M. Ochberg and David A. Soskis (eds.), Victims of Terrorism (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982), 95–103, 149–63. The Stockholm syndrome took its name from a hostage crisis that began during a bank robbery in Sweden on August 23, 1973.
23. Erwin H. Ackerknecht, “ ‘White Indians’: Psychological and Physiological Peculiarities of White Children Abducted and Reared by North American Indians,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XV (Jan. 1944), 27, 30.
24. Dot Babb to J. A. Hill, June 17, 1926, T. A. Babb file, PPHM.
25. Mason County News, Aug. 19, 1937, 4 (interview with William Schmidt, who grew up near Castell).
26. J. Norman Heard, White into Red: A Study of the Assimilation of White Persons Captured by Indians (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1973), 13.
27. James Axtell, “The White Indians of Colonial America,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., XXXII (Jan. 1975), 87.
CHAPTER 6: AS MEAN AN INDIAN AS THERE WAS
1. The meeting at the watering hole took place “some time after” the Apaches’ second raid on Herman Lehmann’s homestead, which occurred on July 18, 1870. Herman Lehmann, Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870–1879, ed. J. Marvin Hunter (1927; reprint, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), 43.
2. Frontier Times, XXXI (July, Aug., Sept. 1954), 262–63. Both Adolph Korn and Herman Lehmann knew Rudolph Fischer while they were with the Indians. Frontier Times, XVIII (June 1941), 424.
3. Recollections of Naiya (Slope of Land), Comanche Field Notes, Waldo Rudolph Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel Papers, Box 109, SINAA.
4. The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1868, 1. Ethnologist John R. Swanton studied fifteen male Indian captives from across America and found that three or four of them became chiefs, a proportion that he concluded “does not appear to be above what might have been expected.” John R. Swanton, “Notes on the Mental Assimilation of Races,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, XVI (Nov. 3, 1926), 501.
5. Clinton Smith remembered Comanche names fairly well at the time he wrote his memoir in 1927. In the 1879 Comanche census, “Monawuftakewa” was identified as a member of Mowway’s band, the group with whom Clinton lived. It appears from Clinton’s stories that “Moniwoftuckwy,” as Clinton spelled his friend’s name, was not the same person as “Monewostuki,” his foster brother, despite the similarity of the two names.
6. Clinton L. Smith and Jefferson D. Smith with J. Marvin Hunter, The Boy Captives (Bandera, Tex.: Frontier Times, 1927), 114–15.
7. James L. Haley, Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait (1981; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 98, 159–60.
8. Jonathan H. Jones, A Condensed History of the Apache and Comanche Indian Tribes [Indianology] (1899; reprint, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1976), 68–69.
9. Jones, Condensed History, 173. In his second autobiography, Herman said that he merely “had a passing fancy” for Topay, which “soon passed.” Lehman, Nine Years, 176.
10. Smith, The Boy Captives, 122.
11. Jones, Condensed History, 63–64; Lehmann, Nine Years, 51–52.
12. Clinton Smith referred to his Comanche father, Tosacowadi, as “my chief.” This title should not necessarily be taken literally, for the captives tended to use the term “chief” very loosely to describe any prominent man or head of a family.
13. Lehmann, Nine Years, 185–86. This attack, w
hich is discussed in Chapter 10, occurred at Quemado (Silver) Lake in northern Cochran County, Texas, on May 4, 1877.
14. Frontier Times, XXXI (July, Aug., Sept. 1954), 269.
15. Semi-Weekly Farm News [Dallas], Nov. 25, 1930, 2.
16. Smith, The Boy Captives, 152.
CHAPTER 7: SEARCHERS AND QUAKERS
1. Auguste Buchmeier’s meeting with General Sherman is documented in W. T. Sherman to “Dear Brother,” May 18, 1871, “Early Fort Sill Letters” Box, FSMA, and J. E. Tourtellotte to Lawrie Tatum, May 27, 1871, Microfilm Roll KA42, OHS.
2. San Antonio Daily Express, Sept. 26, 1868, 2.
3. Jonathan H. Jones, A Condensed History of the Apache and Comanche Indian Tribes [Indianology] (1899; reprint, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1976), 221.
4. Henry M. Smith to Lawrie Tatum, Mar. 14, 1871, Microfilm Roll KA42, OHS.
5. Henry M. Smith to Lawrie Tatum, July 16, 1871, Microfilm Roll KA42, OHS.
6. Dorman H. Winfrey and James M. Day (eds.), The Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, 1825–1916 (5 Vols.; Austin: The Pemberton Press, 1966), IV, 266–68.
7. H.P.N. Gammel (comp.), The Laws of Texas, 1822–1897 (10 Vols.; Austin: The Gammel Book Co., 1898), V, 960.
8. Background information on Lawrie Tatum and his service at the KiowaComanche agency comes from several sources, including: Martha Buntin, “Beginning of the Leasing of the Surplus Grazing Lands on the Kiowa and Comanche Reservation,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, X (Sept. 1932), 369–82; Aubrey L. Steele, “The Beginning of Quaker Administration of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, XVII (Dec. 1939), 364–92; Lee Cutler, “Lawrie Tatum and the Kiowa Agency, 1869–1873,” Arizona and the West, XIII (autumn 1971), 221–44; T. Ashley Zwink, “On the White Man’s Road: Lawrie Tatum and the Formative Years of the Kiowa Agency, 1869–1873,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, LVI (winter 1978–1979), 431–41; and “Lawrie Tatum’s Letters,” Prairie Lore, IV (July 1967), 50–61, IV (Jan. 1968), 186–89, and V (Oct. 1968), 116–24.
9. Lawrie Tatum, Our Red Brothers and the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant (1899; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 86–87.
10. H. R. Clum to Enoch Hoag, Apr. 4, 1871, Southern Plains Indian Agencies Collection, WHC.
11. Stan Hoig, Jesse Chisholm: Ambassador of the Plains (Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 1991), 96–99.
12. W. T. Sherman to R. S. Mackenzie, May 29, 1871, “Early Fort Sill Letters” Box, FSMA.
13. Tatum first described the white boy in Mowway’s band in Lawrie Tatum to Enoch Hoag, May 13, 1871, Microfilm Roll M234/377, NARA-SW. Subsequently, this captive was mentioned in numerous letters and reports: H. R. Clum [to Enoch Hoag?], June 8, 1871, Microfilm Roll KA42, OHS; Lawrie Tatum to Cols. Grierson and Mackenzie, Aug. 4, 1871, Microfilm Roll M234/377, NARA-SW; Lawrie Tatum to his wife, July 8, 1871, and Aug. 5, 1871, Prairie Lore, V (Oct. 1968), 116, 118; annual report of Lawrie Tatum, Sept. 1, 1871, in Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1871 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 503; and annual report of Lawrie Tatum, Sept. 1, 1872, in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1872 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 247–48.
CHAPTER 8: DEATH ON THE RED RIVER
1. The Battle of the North Fork of the Red River, described in this chapter, is difficult to reconstruct with precision because of the paucity of firsthand sources. Ranald Mackenzie summarized his attack on Mowway’s village in his brief report to the assistant adjutant general, Oct. 12, 1872, transcribed and reprinted in Ernest Wallace (ed.), Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas, 1871–1873 (Lubbock: West Texas Museum Association, 1967), 141–45. Other eyewitness accounts of the battle, recorded many years after the fact, include: Henry W. Strong, My Frontier Days and Indian Fights on the Plains of Texas [Waco, Tex.: n.p., 1926], 38–39, 117–18; Robert G. Carter, The Old Sergeant’s Story: Winning the West from the Indians and Bad Men in 1870 to 1876 (New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1926), 82–90; and Robert G. Carter, On the Border with Mackenzie, or Winning West Texas from the Comanches (Matti-tuck, N.Y.: J. M. Carroll & Co., 1935), 376–93. Secondhand reports include: Dallas Herald, Nov. 16, 1872, 1; C. C. Augur to Assistant Adjutant General, Sept. 30, 1873, Fort Concho files, Secretary of War 1870s (photostat from Records of the War Department, U.S. Army Commands, Letter Sent, 1873–1874), J. Evetts Haley Collection, HML; and Lawrie Tatum, Our Red Brothers and the Peace Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant (1899; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 134–35. Accounts of the battle from the Comanche viewpoint are even harder to come by. The fullest published eyewitness report is that of Clinton Smith, found in Clinton L. Smith and Jefferson D. Smith with J. Marvin Hunter, The Boy Captives (Bandera, Tex.: Frontier Times, 1927), 127–32. Col. Wilbur S. Nye transcribed the recollections of two Comanches, Cohayyah and Mumsukawa (usually spelled Mamsookawat), in 1935. Excerpts from these interviews appear in: Wilbur Sturtevant Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill (1937; 3d ed., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 162; Wilbur Sturtevant Nye, Plains Indian Raiders: The Final Phases of Warfare from the Arkansas to the Red River (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 302; and Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001), 220, 222–23. An account based on the recollections of Persuwiyeckwit George Mad-dox is recorded in J. Emmor Harston, Comanche Land (San Antonio: The Nay-lor Co., 1963), 168–69. In 1933 a Comanche named Post Oak Jim related stories about Quanah Parker’s participation in the “Battle of Tipi Creek” or fight with the soldiers on the “North Fork River.” Comanche Field Notes, E. Adam-son Hoebel Papers, Manuscript Collection No. 43, Series V, APSL; Comanche Field Notes, Waldo Rudolph Wedel and Mildred Mott Wedel Papers, Box 109, SINAA. Other sources about the Comanches who participated in the battle include Thomas C. Battey, The Life and Adventures of a Quaker Among the Indians (1875; reprint, Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House Publishers, 1972), 86 (describing John Valentine Maxey’s role in the battle), and Hugh D. Corwin, “Parra-o-coom, Comanche Indian Chief,” Prairie Lore, III (Oct. 1966), 93–95 (stating that Paruacoom and Quanah Parker led the Quahadas in the battle).
2. “Several dead men” is an exaggeration. By official counts, this battle left one of Mackenzie’s men dead and three seriously wounded, one of whom soon died.
3. Nye, Plains Indian Raiders, 302. In an earlier writing, Colonel Nye indicated that Paruacoom made this speech during a battle with Colonel Mackenzie’s forces along the White River (Fresh Water Fork of the Brazos) on October 10, 1871. Nye, Carbine and Lance, 151. In fact, most of the Comanche accounts, as recorded in Nye, Corwin, and the Comanche Field Notes, seem to conflate the two fights, confusing the details.
4. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1872 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 94.
5. Clinton Smith indicated that Tosacowadi received his mortal wound in a different battle with the army. Smith, The Boy Captives, 161. This was probably an error, as I found no record of any other major fight between the army and Clinton’s group of Comanches between the time of the Battle of the North Fork of the Red River on September 29, 1872, and Clinton’s arrival at Fort Sill on October 24, 1872.
6. The visit of the Indian delegation to Washington, D.C., and other cities is described in: Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1872, 128–33; Evening Star [Washington, D.C.], Sept. 28, 1872, 1, Oct. 1, 1872, 1, Oct. 2, 1872, 1, Oct. 5, 1872, 1, Oct. 11, 1872, 1, Oct. 15, 1872, 1, and Oct. 25, 1872, 1; New York Herald, Sept. 24, 1872, 4, Oct. 12, 1872, 7, Oct. 23, 1872, 6, and Oct. 31, 1872, 5; and The New York Times, Sept. 26, 1872, 5, Oct. 12, 1872, 4, Oct. 23, 1872, 1, Oct. 25, 1872, 1, and Nov. 1, 1872, 2.
7. Evening Star [Washington, D.C.], Oct. 15, 1872, 1.
CHAPTER 9: THE LONG WAY HO
ME
1. The Butlers’ recollections of the captives’ time at the school are recorded in Josiah Butler, “Pioneer School Teaching at the Comanche-Kiowa Agency School 1870–3,” Chronicles of Oklahoma, VI (Dec. 1928), 518–21.
2. One writer contended, “At Fort Concho the women appear merely to have existed, although they did receive a small allowance of meat.” J. Emmor Harston, Comanche Land (San Antonio: The Naylor Co., 1963), 169. I found no other source suggesting that the women were mistreated; in fact, practically all the other evidence is to the contrary. The Comanches’ experience at Fort Concho is chronicled in: John P. Hatch to the Acting Comsry. of Sub., Oct. 21, 1872, and John P. Hatch to Assistant Adjutant General, Department of Texas, Oct. 24, 1872, Record Group 393, Part V, Fort Concho, Texas, Entry 2, IV, 147, 149, NARA; Wilbur Sturtevant Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill (1937; 3d ed., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 164; San Angelo Standard-Times, Aug. 29, 1954; and Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001), 224.
3. Endorsement, W. T. Sherman, Oct. 30, 1872, F.A. Walker to C. Delano, Nov. 4, 1872, and C. Delano to the Honorable Secretary of War, Nov. 23, 1872, Microfilm Roll 19, FCML.
4. C. C. Augur to John P. Hatch, Dec. 5, 1872, and C.C. Augur to Lawrie Tatum, Jan. 16, 1873, Southern Plains Indian Agencies Collection, WHC; John P. Hatch to Commanding Officer, Fort Griffin, Dec. 11, 1872, John P. Hatch to Commanding Officer, Fort Richardson, Dec. 11, 1872, and John P. Hatch to Lawrie Tatum, Dec. 12, 1872, Record Group 393, Part V, Fort Concho, Texas, Entry 2, IV, 166, 168, 169, NARA.
5. Henry M. Smith to E. J. Davis, Nov. 18, 1872, Records of Governor Edmund J. Davis, Box 301–82, Folder 268, TSA.