Near Site of Indian Battle

Duane's take

The marker tells it this way, and I'm just passin' it along — so here's what happened near this stretch of Taylor County ground. February 15, 1870. Six men ride out from Fort Griffin — Corporal Hilliard Morrow and five soldiers of Company E, 24th U.S.

Infantry. Their orders are straightforward enough: relieve the guards stationed at Mountain Pass mail station, not far from where you're rolling right now. Standard duty.

The kind of assignment that doesn't make anybody nervous. And then it does. Soon after arriving at the station, that small party of six found themselves besieged by a raiding party of seventy-five Comanches.

You heard that right. Seventy-five. Six men inside, seventy-five outside.

That's a ratio of more than ten to one, and the numbers were not in Corporal Morrow's favor. Now here's where the story earns its place on a marker. They held.

Six men repelled that attack. Three of the Comanches were killed in the fighting, and not one of those soldiers suffered a loss. Not one.

The Comanches did ride off with something to show for the raid, though — five mules and one horse belonging to the El Paso and San Antonio Mail Company, which ran a branch line right to that station. So the mail company paid a price that day, even if Corporal Morrow's men did not. Six soldiers.

Seventy-five raiders. February 15, 1870. The math out here in West Texas has always had a way of not working out the way you'd expect.

What the marker says

On February 15, 1870, Corporal Hilliard Morrow and five men of Company E, 24th U.S. Infantry, set out from Fort Griffin to relieve guards at Mountain Pass mail station near here. Soon after arriving, however, they were besieged by a raiding party of 75 Comanches. Although outnumbered by more than ten to one, the courageous group repelled the attack. The Indians, however, drove off five mules and one horse belonging to the El Paso and San Antonio Mail Company, which ran a branch line to the station. Three of the Indians were killed, but the soldiers suffered no losses. (1968)