Free The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers by Charles M. Robinson III

Mexican army toward the Alamo. As they neared, a rifle sounded from the walls, and the bullet grazed the foot of a Gonzales man, who responded with a loud string of Anglo-Saxon epithets. The shooting stopped, the gate swung open, and at 3 A.M. on March 1, the Gonzales Rangers entered the Alamo. 45
    The appearance of these reinforcements caught the attention of the Mexicans. Gen. Vicente Filisola, Santa Anna’s second-in-command, who preferred to think of the rebels as newly arrived American adventurers rather than “colonists or inhabitants of Texas,” grudgingly acknowledged that the Gonzales contingent was local. Santa Anna preferred to ignore them. 46
    The Gonzales Ranging Company raised the garrison to approximately 186, but it was not enough to resist Santa Anna’s divisions. At dawn on March 6, Mexican troops overwhelmed the Alamo, killing all the defenders, including the Ranger volunteers.
    IN THE WILDERNESS more than a hundred miles to the northwest, Tumlinson’s Rangers were unaware of events in San Antonio. Leaving the city well before the arrival of the Mexicans, they had arrived at their rendezvous at Hornsby’s Station and were just settling down to supper when “a young white woman, an entire stranger, her clothes hanging in shreds about her torn and bleeding body, dragged herself into camp and sank exhausted on the ground,” according to young Noah Smithwick. 47 It took time to get a coherent statement from her, but at length the Rangers learned she was Sarah Hibbons. She had been traveling with her husband, brother, and two small children when they were attacked by Comanches. The two men were killed and the wagon was plundered. She was tied to one of the wagon mules and her three-year-old son to another. The younger child, however, irritated the Indians with its crying, and they silenced it by smashing its head against a tree.
    As the Indians reached the Colorado, a norther blew in, and they sought shelter in a cedar brake. Confident Mrs. Hibbons would not escape and leave her three-year-old behind, they didn’t bother to tie her up or post a guard. Realizing her only hope for herself or her son was escape, she waited until they were asleep and slipped away. The following night, she found the camp.
    The Rangers finished their supper and prepared to ride. Their host, Reuben Hornsby, knew the country and acted as guide. They rode through the night until they judged they were near the Indian trail, then halted and waited until daylight, so they wouldn’t miss it in the dark. Scouts went out at first light and soon found the trail. Smithwick remembered it was “fresh and well defined as if the marauders were exercising neither haste nor caution . . . having no doubt spent a good portion of the previous day in a fruitless search for their escaped prisoner.”
    They tracked the Indians to Walnut Creek, about ten miles northwest of Austin, and found them preparing to break camp. The surprised Comanches dashed for shelter in one of the numerous cedar brakes, leaving everything except weapons. Smithwick’s horse took him right in among them, and one warrior barely missed him with a musket shot. Knowing the Comanche’s gun was empty, Smithwick jumped off his horse and fired at him. The Indian dropped, and, presuming he was dead, Smithwick reloaded and ran after the others.
    The warrior, however, was only wounded, and managed to reload his musket while lying on the ground. He fired at Tumlinson, killing his horse. Another Ranger grabbed the musket away and smashed the Comanche’s head with it. The other Comanches managed to get into the brakes, where, according to Smithwick, “it was worse than useless to follow them.”
    A tragedy almost occurred when a Ranger prepared to fire on what appeared to be a bundled Indian fleeing on a mule. As he pulled the trigger, another Ranger knocked the barrel up, and the ball went over the rider’s head. The mule was recovered and the rider proved to be the Hibbons boy,