On a crisp fall afternoon in 1841, a small party of land surveyors in the employ of the Republic of Texas made their way through the Hill Country near Enchanted Rock, about ninety-five miles west of Austin. Their task was routine on paper: survey and legally demarcate land grants and territorial claims. But in 1841, this was perhaps the most dangerous line of work in the world, because the territory they were entering was the domain of the most feared tribe on the continent. They called themselves the Numunuu, which simply meant “the people.
” Their enemies, including the Apache, the Waco, the Tonkawa, and countless smaller Texas tribes, knew them by another name: the Comanche. The name was thought to derive from a Ute phrase meaning “those who fight us all the time. ” It was apt. The Comanche had migrated to the plains of Texas and Oklahoma after struggling to sustain themselves in the northern Rocky Mountains, where they had been an offshoot of the Shoshone.
For centuries, they had barely subsisted in the unforgiving environment of granite ranges and aspen forests, often dominated by stronger tribes. That changed when they encountered the animal brought over by the Spanish in the sixteenth century: the horse. The Spanish had guarded their horsemanship closely, knowing the danger if their adversaries ever fought from horseback. But after decades of raids, escaped horses, and natives who had been trained in equine care absconding from Spanish service, a substantial number of horses and a considerable body of horse knowledge had spread to the Southern Plains.
The Apache had introduced the horse meaningfully to the Texas frontier first, but it was the Comanche who developed an innate and undeniable connection to it. Within a few decades, they had mastered riding skills that rivaled any horsemen on the planet. Their entire way of life transformed. Where they had once scoured the countryside for roots, berries, and scavenged carcasses, they became a society of highly mobile hunters who lived almost entirely on the flesh of the buffalo.
Where they had once been bereft of material wealth, they became possibly the wealthiest tribe on the continent in terms of horse flesh. And where they had once been the proverbial whipping boys of their neighbors, they became a raiding force whose mere mention caused a fearful pause in conversations from Denver saloons to the capitol building in Mexico City. They had driven the Apache out of Texas, checked Spanish, French, English, Mexican, and American expansion for centuries, and wiped out smaller tribes who opposed them. Comanche warfare was brutally violent and ruthlessly pragmatic.
There was no formal military hierarchy; a war chief was simply someone able to marshal the most men for a raid. Many warriors chose not to wear grand feathered headdresses, favoring instead animal head caps made from foxes, cranes, or buffalo, and often painted pitch black, which they believed to be the color of death. Raids were frequently conducted during full moons, so much so that a full moon became known across the Texas frontier as a “Comanche Moon” and was a much-dreaded sight. On many such nights, isolated families of settlers and natives alike saw their entire worlds destroyed in a matter of minutes, in a torrent of blood, smoke, and flames.
The new Republic of Texas ironically owed its existence in many ways to the ever-present threat of Comanche raiding. The Mexican government had hoped to install a buffer of Anglo immigrant settlers who would bear the brunt of the Comanche onslaught before it reached further south. For decades, prospective settlers from America had flooded into Texas on the condition that they convert to Catholicism and become Mexican citizens. Many came, and many died brutally in their search for better lives.
Yet settlement attempts persisted, and so did Comanche raiding. Despite the incessant threat of violence, the Texas government still faced routine administrative tasks, including marking out plots of its newly claimed homeland. Surveying parties of fifteen to twenty men scattered across the Hill Country northwest of San Antonio and Austin. They would keep logs of the land, survey prospective plots, and hopefully return to the capital to provide a clearer picture of the new republic’s territories.
But any interlopers west of the major settlements were likely under the watchful eye of the true rulers of the land. The Comanche observed the surveying parties from the start. They knew these men were the means by which the white men in Austin were laying claim to their lands, and they hated them with an unfettered passion. Surveyors were targeted with especially harsh, unremitting attacks.
The Comanche preferred to take them alive and reserve their most sadistic tortures for them. Still they came. Young men from the backwoods of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama flooded into Texas after the Revolution. Many had just missed the bloodshed at Goliad, the Alamo, and San Jacinto, and were now thirsting for a fight.
For many, the dangers of being part of a surveyor team presented an enticing employment option. Such was the case for this party of young Texians in the shadow of the limestone monolith that is Enchanted Rock. For time immemorial, it had been considered sacred by the tribes in the area. It was said to be the home of discontented spirits, from slain warriors to shamed chiefs, and it was well known that any incursion into the territory surrounding it would be met with the utmost hostility.
The threat of a violent, painful end, however, was not enough to dissuade this group of combat-hungry men in their twenties. But they were no fools. This party of fifteen to twenty surveyors was among the most well-armed groups of men on the planet. Many carried the .
36 caliber Colt Paterson revolver, patented by Samuel Colt in 1836. It held five shots and was loaded by detaching the cylinder, manually loading the chambers, and reassembling the weapon to fire. At two pounds twelve ounces with a nine-inch barrel, it was very large, very loud, and terrifying, with an effective range of roughly sixty-five yards. It was well suited to the horseback, high-speed, close-up fighting that was the new norm on the Texas frontier.
For longer-range work, many of the Texans carried . 42 caliber Edwin Wesson percussion cap rifles, single-shot weapons that could be fired at a slightly faster rate than their flintlock predecessors, up to three or four rounds a minute, and were highly effective at ranges up to 150 yards. These advancements in weaponry had come at a fortuitous time, particularly for the organization from which Stephen F. Austin so often chose to draw his land surveillance parties: the still young but already legendary Texas Rangers.
Austin himself had fostered the original concept for their predecessors in the 1830s. The Texas mounted rifles, born largely of necessity, patrolled the ranges of the Texas frontier and presented the only available organized resistance against Mexican governmental harassment, banditry, and Comanche raiding. In 1835, the organization had been codified into a state-sponsored military and law enforcement hybrid force. Their legend had grown from dusty Texas settlements to the finest parlors of New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.
And among their ranks, no one garnered more respect or more fear than Captain John Coffee Hayes. Born in Cedar Lick, Tennessee, in 1817 to a military family, Hayes had arrived in Texas in 1836 at age nineteen in search of fortune, adventure, and war. He missed the Texas Revolution but found a home with the Rangers, an outfit with a casualty rate that at times reached fifty percent. In an occupation full of large, burly men, Hayes stood out for a different reason.
He was a slender five-foot-six twenty-something with a boyish face and a quiet, affable demeanor. But one look at his eyes revealed a man unshackled by fear. Eyewitness accounts transformed his unremarkable stature into the figure of an unshakable ranger who feared no hardship, thrived in the chaos of combat, and possessed an innate ability to lead men others found ungovernable. His legend had spread far and wide through Texas, and it made him an ideal member for the surveying party Stephen F.
Austin needed to send to Enchanted Rock. So it was that Jack Hayes found himself at Enchanted Rock that fall afternoon. As the survey team went about their laborious tasks of unspooling steel measuring ribbon and marking locations on maps, Hayes and several Ranger companions stood watch. At some point, Hayes decided to ride out toward the rock to get a closer view of the legendary landmark.
Thinking himself secure, since no Comanche had been spotted, Hayes rode off alone. But the Comanche were cunning. A sizable number of warriors had been trailing the party, and Hayes’ departure was the opportunity they had been waiting for. As he neared the base of the rock, the sound of Comanche war cries cracked the still afternoon air.
Hayes knew instantly he had no hope of retreating to his party before being caught and overrun. Caught literally between a rock and a hard place, he rode hard to the base of Enchanted Rock, dismounted, and began a desperate scramble up its face. His intent was to gain the highest ground in the area, and in the words of author J. W.
Wilbarger in Indian Depredations in Texas, Hayes was determined to sell his life at the highest market price. His reputation made him a prize target, and he was pursued up the side of the giant rock with great energy by warriors intent on harvesting his scalp. Hayes managed to ensconce himself in a crevice in the limestone and construct a makeshift defensive position. He hunkered down with his .
42 caliber rifle aimed outward and two Colt Paterson revolvers holstered on either hip. A less experienced fighter might have made a fatal mistake, because the rifle was a single-shot weapon. A defender had essentially one shot, and it had to count. Hayes had seen many young Ranger comrades miss their single shot and be cruelly ended by the Comanche.
So even as his pursuers rained arrows upon his position, Hayes forced himself to hold his fire. Whenever a warrior attempted a charge, Hayes would brandish his rifle barrel at him, managing each time to dissuade the attack. He knew the Comanche approach to warfare did not entail enduring casualties en masse to obtain victory. In the mind of the plains warrior, it was always better to fight another day.
That prudence left an exploitable gap, and Hayes fought on. The Comanche soon tired of this hated intruder keeping them at bay from atop their own sacred landmark. They resolved to attack in earnest. Hayes steadied himself behind the makeshift rock wall and waited as the Comanche surrounded the base of the rock and began a charge en masse toward his position.
He waited, unmoved, until the leading warrior was within a few yards. At the last second, Hayes rose, brought the warrior into his sights, and squeezed the trigger, sending a lead ball into the Comanche’s torso. The Comanche paused to assess the damage to their fallen comrade. When they discovered the warrior was dead, long wolf-like howls went up, and they fell back to the base of the rock.
Hayes used the respite to reload his rifle and recheck his revolvers, ensuring at least ten additional shots once his final rifle shot had been fired. In short order, the Comanche made another, even more vociferous attack. High-pitched, blood-curdling war cries flooded the air. Hayes again coolly received the charge, waiting until the Comanche were within range before popping up from his position.
Sensing this to be his last stand, Hayes pulled his revolvers and emptied one five-shot cylinder into the Comanche surrounding him. Another retreat followed. Hayes hunkered down and began hurriedly reloading for what he assumed was an inevitable third assault. Then he heard the very welcome sound of his comrades firing their weapons and making their way toward Enchanted Rock.
They had been fighting an even larger body of Comanche during Hayes’ ordeal and had only discovered his position when they heard his shots coming from high up on the rock. Seeing the much larger force of Texians advancing, the Comanche force surrounding Enchanted Rock took their wounded and withdrew into the canyons and sagebrush of the Hill Country, leaving their dead behind. Hayes and his cohorts reunited at the base of the rock and, under more vigilant watch, continued their work until the next day. Hayes would go on to countless more adventures, leading the Rangers in the Mexican-American War and chasing down Comanche raiders.
His legend grew to such an extent that the Comanche bestowed upon him the begrudgingly respectful nicknames Captain Jack and “Bravo Too Much. ” In a culture where courage and martial prowess were the ultimate masculine virtues, even a sworn enemy like Jack Hayes was due his due. In 1847, Hayes married Susan Calvert, the daughter of a wealthy hotel owner in Seguin, Texas. In 1849, the young couple moved to California with millions of other Americans during the Gold Rush.
Hayes did not strike it rich in gold, but he became a successful rancher and businessman and was elected Sheriff of San Francisco in 1850. In 1853, not long after the birth of his first son, a peculiar package arrived in the mail. Inside was a small golden spoon, sent as a gift by the legendary Comanche chief Buffalo Hump. The handle was engraved with the words “Buffalo Hump Jr.
” Such was the level of respect Hayes had earned, even among his longtime enemies. Hayes died in 1883 at the age of sixty-six and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.