Fort Worth: A Frontier Triumph

7. Frustrated Effort

CHAPTER 7 Frustrated Effort GENERAL TARRANT was an unhappy warrior since his return from the Village Creek expedition. He could not be content with an incomplete campaign-not such a soldier as he. In his youth, he had served with Andrew Jackson in several Indian campaigns; had marched off with "Old Hickory" to the war of 1812; and had passed through the blistering battle at New Orleans-General Jackson's immortal victory. Born in 1792 in North Carolina, he was only a youth of sixteen when he left his Tennessee home for the War of 1812. Wars for liberty had been his life. He then left Tennessee for Texas, arriving in 1835 to fight in the army of the Republic in its struggle for independence from Mexico . He joined the newly organized Texas Rangers. In 1838, he had tried his talent in the role of congressman of the Republic of Texas, only to fmd it displeasing. Trained in the school of General Jackson, he had the spirit of the frontier warrior. Soon he returned to his Ranger duties in North Central Texas. Tarrant was restless. He could not forget the fact that, with a band of minutemen, he had fled from an unfinished battle because the Indians outnumbered them. Early in June, he began measures to raise a large expedition for a second campaign to the upper Trinity. Volunteers were recruited by letters and by word. CHAPTER 7 31 He persuaded General James Smith of Nacogdoches, commander of the militia in that district, and a former soldier of Old Hickory's in the Creek war, to join him in the expedition. Smith agreed to raise a company of minutemen in East Texas and meet Tarrant with them somewhere in the East Cross Timbers. These two military units would clear Indians from the Cross Timbers and the forks of the Trinity. Then the promise of homes in this fertile region could be realized. In mid-July, hundreds of men were riding in groups converging upon Fort English, near present-day Bonham. There they organized a regiment with General Tarrant as supreme commander. By July 20, 1841, more than 300 men departed from Fort English. Tarrant led them southwest with speedy directness. On the west bank of the Trinity, they pitched camp, probably on the site of one of their former camps in present Tarrant County. From this camp, scouting parties penetrated the woodland thickets to locate the Indians. For several weeks, minutemen lived in the saddle, persistently tracking down every sign of Indians, to find no enemy at the end of the trail. Fatigue and discouragement ruled their spirits. Neither the Indians nor General Smith's company from East Texas was discovered . Tarrant laid aside his well-planned attack, led the men back to Fort English, and disbanded the regiment-a frustrated effort. Tarrant had failed to frnd General Smith in the Cross Timbers, but Smith had kept his word. Leaving the Nacogdoches district with a company , he moved northwest. On the way, he halted at King's Fort, now the town of Kaufman. The settlers related to him their experience of the previous evening when they repulsed a severe Indian attack. Next sunrise, Smith was following the trail of these Indians wHich led him to the Trinity where Dallas now stands. On Spring Branch, a mile on the west side of the Trinity, Smith made camp near a spring. The water was so delicious that the men named it Honey Spring. On the same campsite, a few months later in 1841, the father of Dallas, John Neely Bryan, was to pitch tent. From Honey Spring camp, Smith sent out twelve scouts under the leadership of Captain John L. Hall to seek the location of the Indian village of the famous Village Creek Fight. The scouting party crossed Mountain Creek, traversed the prairie on the west side of the Trinity, entered the East Cross Timbers, and came within a short distance of Village Creek, where they halted. There were many trails converging upon the creek which they decided was evidence that the Indian village was near. The area and the location was as it had been described to them, and they felt they were now on dangerous ground. 32 BOOK I Captain Hall chose from his scouts two of the most skilled in woodcraft -John H. Reagan, a buckskin-attired surveyor, and Isaac Bean, an Indian trader. A half...