DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Now picture this stretch of Val Verde County, spring of 1875. The U.S.
Army had come to lean hard on a particular group of men — the Black Seminole Indian scouts, also called Seminole-Negro scouts — running patrols along the Texas-Mexico border against raiding parties. These weren't men you sent out lightly, and the Army knew it. In April of that year, Lieutenant John L.
Bullis rode out of Fort Clark with three of them: Sergeant John Ward, Private Pompey Factor, and Trumpeter Isaac Payne. Four men. Four days of scouting this rough country.
And then, on April 25th, they found it — a fresh trail. They followed it to within a half-mile of where that marker now stands. What they found waiting on the other side of that trail was about thirty Comanche Indians.
Thirty. With dozens of horses. Four men against thirty, and the math was not in their favor.
Outgunned and outnumbered, the scouts made the call to withdraw. That's not retreat — that's sense. But right in the middle of that withdrawal, Lieutenant Bullis' horse bolted.
Stranded him. Out in the open, with thirty Comanche between him and any kind of safety. Now here's where you find out what a man's made of.
Factor and Payne didn't run. They turned and laid down cover fire. And Sergeant John Ward rode back — rode back — and pulled his Lieutenant out of there.
All three of those scouts — Ward, Factor, and Payne — later received the Medal of Honor for their gallantry that day. Thirty against four. One man left behind.
Three men who didn't leave him. That's the whole story, right there within a half-mile of this road.
What the marker says
In the 1870s, the U.S. Army relied on Black Seminole (Seminole-Negro) Indian scouts in campaigns against raiding Native Americans along the Texas-Mexico border. In April 1875, Lt. John L. Bullis and three scouts -- Sergeant John Ward, Private Pompey Factor and Trumpeter Isaac Payne -- left Fort Clark to scout for raiders in this area. After four days, they found a fresh trail and on April 25, within a half-mile of this site, they engaged a party of about 30 Comanche Indians with dozens of horses. Outgunned and outnumbered, the scouts withdrew, but Bullis' horse bolted, stranding him. Factor and Payne provided cover fire, and Ward rescued his Lieutenant. The three Seminole scouts later received Medals of Honor for their gallantry. (2006)