Aftermath of San Saba Massacre
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volunteers and militiamen had completely lost their morale. They were chiefly tailors, shoemakers, shepherds, cigarette makers and miners, who lacked spirit and discipline. 35 The request of the officers was seconded by Fray Tomas Arcayos, the chaplain of the expedition, and by Fray Santiago Pelaez, the surgeon and doctor of the troops. Both urged Parrilla to abandon the campaign and return to San Saba. Parrilla had little or no choice in the matter. The officers and men were discouraged and had made up their minds to return to San Saba. He himself was wounded in the left arm. Consequently he granted the request of the officers. On October 7, a Mass of Thanksgiving was offered to Nuestra Senora del Rosario for their deliverance, before the discouraged band started the homeward march. They kept for a while close to the timber belt along the river, both to protect themselves and to allow stragglers and deserters, who might have taken refuge in the woods, to join the main body. After the first day, seeing that the Indians had not pursued them, the Spaniards quickened their pace. Their Apache allies were waiting for them at a safe distance. Led by them they seem to have made their way back to San Saba by a more direct route and at much greater speed than on the way out. By October 25, the expedition had arrived in the Presidio of San Luis de las Amarillas on the San Saba. Upon their return the Spaniards had little to show for their pains. Nearly five hundred men, Spaniards and Indians, had painfully marched almost two hundred leagues northeast of San Saba to the banks of Red River only to meet with defeat, regardless of the lame explanations for the reverse suffered at the village of the Taovayas. Almost sixty thousand pesos had been uselessly spent, and over one thousand horses and mules lost. The only trophy brought back was a miserable group of wretched Indians captured at one village of the Tawakonis. One hundred forty-nine men, women, and children of whom the Apaches had taken ninety-seven and the Spaniards fifty-two. The Apache allies were the only ones who profited. They traded their prisoners to the Spaniards for merchandise. Parrilla explained that those who bought them as house-servants had solemnly sworn to feed and clothe them and to give them instruction in the faith. The Spanish soldiers were not so fortunate with their prisoners. Of the fifty-two Results of t/ie campaign. 35 Petici6n de los capitanes y oficialcs . .. que se le\'ante el Real t:sta noche dc:l paraxe en que se halla. October 6, I 7 59 .. ,J. G. I., .-I udi,md,, ,I,: .llhk/1, 9i-6-i.1 (Dunn Transcripts, 1759-1761), pp. 203-207.
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