Mexican and Indian force ,~ere then on the march to that town; represented al one time to be very near it; and al another, to have actually commenced the work of massacre and conflagration. This occasioned the removal of the families to a place of safety--nor was the news satisfactorily contradicted till many had proceeded quite to the Sabine. Bowls, the Cherokee Chief, was the principal actor in the affair, and indeed the sole author of the false information, which procuded the panic. The Cherokees, no doubt, at one time, meditated hostility. Bowls came into the white settlement, with several of his men, and told those with whom his people were particularly friendly, to remove; and pledged his faith for the safe-keeping of such property as they might leave with him, and for its surrender whenever hostilities might cease. It was even stated that he was remo,~ng his own women and children, collecting and dri,fog off his cattle; beyond the supposed threatre of tha pproaching war -· certain indications, if true, of intended hostilities. General Gaines in the mean time, encamped near the east bank of the Sabine, to preserve the neutrality of his government, and carry into effect the 33d article of the treaty between the U. States and Mexico, touching the subject of Indian hostilities on the frontier. This movement was strengthened in its effect on the Indians, by an official order, sent by an officer, to the Caddo villages, and by a like communication sent with like solemnity, to the Cherokees. Information of these proceedings, and of the signal effect produced by them on the Indians, immediately allayed the panic; and on my return, I had the satisfaction to meet numbers on · their way home. Concerning the position of the belligerant armies, up to the 13th inst. inclusive, my information is drawn from the written dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief of the Texian army, and from very full verbal communications, inade by l\'Ijr. Ingram direct from Gen. Houston's Head Quarters and now at my house in this city. On the 7th inst. a division of the enemy, estimated at 11 or 12 hundred encamped on the west bank of the Brasos, at the town of San Felipe de Austin, twenty miles below the encampment of Gen. Houston. On the 12th, Gen. H. says- "He is informed that a detachment of the enemy, six or eight hundred strong, were endeavoring to effect a crossing at the Fort Bend", about fifty miles below him, and that "he should cross, and occupy the east bank of the Brazos, at Groce's, Later information, stales, that he had fallen back to Buffaloe Bayou, thirty miles east of the Brazos; a movement rendered mecessary to enable the families to proceed
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