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CHAPTER 3. SPRING EXPEDITIONS
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35 Nine days after their Council House losses, a war party of at least two hundred Comanches rode down to San Antonio on March 28 looking for a fight. Chief Isomania, veteran of an earlier fight with frontiersman Jack Hays, boldly came into town with another Comanche. They rode into the San Antonio public square, tauntingly circling around the plaza on their horses. The two paraded some distance down Commerce Street and back again, shouting all the while for the Americans to come out and fight them.1 Chief Isomania was nearly naked, his body streaked black with war paint. In front of the local saloon on the northeast corner of the public square, he halted his horse. Rising in his stirrups, he angrily shook his clenched fist and shouted defiantly. Mary Maverick wrote in her memoirs, “The citizens, through an interpreter , told him the soldiers were all down the river at Mission San José and if he went there Colonel Fisher would give him fight enough.”2 Chief Isomania did just that. He and his war party rode up to the mission, located four miles below town, and dared the soldiers to come out and fight. Colonel William Fisher was confined to his bed due to a fall from his horse and Captain William Redd was in acting command of the post. Captain Redd stated that he must hold true to the twelve-day truce promised at the Council House. Redd hoped to work out the CHAPTER 3 Spring Expeditions April–July 1840 release of other American captives. He would be happy to fight after the twelve days. The disgusted Indians denounced Redd’s men as “liars” and “cowards” and rode away, Isomania being the last to leave town. Lieutenant Colonel Fisher wrote: I saw one of the principal war chiefs, Isamini, who is well known here and sustains a great reputation for bravery. He appears to be evidently anxious to become reconciled to the whites; and it appears that in a council held by them the evening before they came in town, he killed a Comanche Indian for endeavoring to excite the Comanches to offensive measures. They have gone on the Pinto trail toward the head of the Pedernales.3 +++++ Captain Howard Negotiates Prisoner Release The Comanches remained in the San Antonio area throughout the truce period. On April 3, Chief Piava––an unusually heavyset chief––rode into San Antonio with an Indian woman. They announced that the Comanches had brought in white captives for exchange. According to Captain George Howard, Chief Piava was offered “bread, brown sugar candy cones (peloncillo), and a beef” for his information.4 The following day, April 4, talks were opened between Howard’s First Regiment soldiers and the party of Comanches. In a letter written on April 8, Colonel Fisher described how a party of Comanche Indians, about thirty in number, made their appearance in the neighborhood of San Antonio and expressed through their messengers a desire to effect an exchange of prisoners. Being at the time confined to bed, unable to move, in consequence to a severe fall which I had received, I dispatched Captain Howard, in command of “C” and “F” companies, First Infantry, to San Antonio with instructions to effect an exchange.5 The captains of the First Regiment moved frequently between commands during 1840. George Howard, now in temporary com36 SAVAGE FRONTIER [44.204.204.14] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:58 GMT) mand of Captain James January’s Company F, took his men and Captain John Kennymore’s Company C into town to negotiate the prisoner release. I marched to the town with the company of Captain Kennymore and my own, early on the morning of yesterday , the fifth instant. The Indian called Piava, well known as a crafty and treacherous Comanche, of some influence, came in and proposed an exchange of prisoners. I assented and requested him to bring in such Texian prisoners as they had, and we would exchange one for one.6 Captain Howard and Chief Piava carried on their negotation talks for some length, during which “Piava displayed nothing but suspicion and a design to obtain some advantage in the exchange.” Finally, the two leaders agreed that two San Antonio citizens would return with Piava to the Comanche party with an Indian woman and a child of about nine years age, both of whom had been captured at the Council House Fight. Damasio and Antonio Pérez were sent with Chief Piava...