In the fall of 1858, 125 Anadarko, Caddo, and other Brazos reservation men guided a major campaign against the Comanches in Oklahoma. They were led by future Texas governor L.S. (Sul) Ross, and were known as Ross’s Indian Brigade, in support of Major Earl Van Dorn. The campaign was successful and Choctaw Tom, who had earlier been a scout for Sam Houston, was allowed to leave the reservation with his family to hunt bear with Anglo friends in the Palo Pinto area. Choctaw Tom’s family was well-known in the area because his wife often treated the sick among families that had settled near the reservation. Tom was away from camp, to buy an ox and cart when a group of Erath County men crept up to the tents and opened fire. Six Indians died in the gunfire, all of them in their beds except for one man that was at the tent’s opening. Tom’s nine year-old daughter woke to see a musket in her face and when she moved it, her thumb was shot off. The only casualty from Erath County was Samuel Stephen, the founder’s son, who became the first person buried in the Stephenville cemetery. W.W. McNeil, one of the organizers of the raid, returned to Stephenville and warned that an attack was expected. (the only motive that I can imagine was to stir up violence with the reservation Indians so the Anglos could claim the land – one year later the reservation closed and the last of the agricultural Texas Indians were marched to Oklahoma). But Jose Maria, the leader of the Anadarko/Caddo Indians refused to allow a vengeful response. Instead he wanted to wait to see what Captain Ross would do. (Ross was in Austin). The Indians wanted to take their case to court, but it was so close to the Civil War, that Ranger Captain Ford refused to make the arrests. Hateful writers spun bogus stories abut what happened: the worst was J. W. Wilbarger, who claimed that Choctaw Tom’s family was a Comanche camp, and that a trail was followed from recent Comanche atrocities. There followed a battle in which two women were accidentally killed, and the Anglos fought heroically.

Cecile Elkins Carter, Caddo Indians: Where We Come From, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995; and J.W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas: Reliable Accounts of Battles, Wars, Adventures, Forays, Murders, Massacres, Etc, Austin, Texas: Hutchings Printing House, 1889.