593
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BUONAPAR.TE LAMAR
of stolen horses in Company with Lieut. A. M. Miles & sixteen privates making in all including myself eighteen persons, On the . 3th I met a party of Cherokees near the Forks of the Brazos, they were a going to the Comanche Indians with powder & lead for the purpose of exchanging it for Horses & mules, this party of Cherokees were piloted by a party of seven Kechies Indians when first discovered one of the Kechies was half mile in advance of his party our men su1Tounded him & tried to make him surrender but he would not be friendly with us but was in the act of shooting Lieut. Miles with his rifle, when he was killed by our party. By this time the Cherokees came up and informed me that the Kechies were their pilots. I immeadetly called off my men from the pursuit, but told the Cherokees that-they could not furnish the hostile Indians with powder & lead to murder the inhabitants o-n the fron- tier and if they attempted to go on I would take their goods away from- them they told me that they would return ,home which they did Nov 4th crossed the forks of the River Brazos we still could discover shod horse tracks, going 'in a north east direction, On the 10th on the head waters of the Trinity I fell in with a large body of Indi~ns in a moving position towards the south west. I first sup- posed them to be Kechies, but was afterwards informed that they were Toweash. Whacos & a few Kechies & Caddoes, I got this infor- mation fr.om the Shawnees & Delawares, I judged the Indians to be about one hundred & fifty strong, about fifty or sixty of them were armed with Rifles & the balance had bows & arrows, I stationed my men in point of timber to defend our selves, about three o clock the Indians made a charge upon us -and completely surrounded our position when they commecd firing from thir Rifles ·upon us, they had fired eight or ten shots before we returnd their fire there was a continual firing kept up on both sides until about half past four at not more than pistol shot apart, when we had the good fortune to kill their p;rincipal Chief, when they retreated a short distance and seasd firing, I flatterd myself that the action was done, up to this time we had four men & six horses killed, in about fifteen minutes the savages again advanced and fired the woods on three sides of us, the fourth side was prairie where their horsemen with bows and arrows were stationed, Our only alternative was to charge through those Indians who were armed with Rifles in preference to those who were armed with Bows & arrows as we could not move our horses through the fire we left them, sixteen o,f us charged about fifty Indians and drove them before us, six more of my party fell dead in making the charge, eight came through alive but three·out of the eight were wounded, The names of the killed were the second Lieut. of Capt Boyers company A. M. Miles Lieut. A. M. l\files-Killed Joseph Cooper Do
Alexander Bostwick Do Doct. Wm. Sanders Do Lewis F. Sheuster Do I. Joplin Do
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