In August 1866, as Texas settlers were still reeling from the end of the Civil War, a series of American Indian raids along the western frontier brought tragedy to families in Montague County and far to the southwest in Menard County. Among the most harrowing was the attack on the Box family, a story preserved through interviews with survivors and neighbors and later recounted by General George Armstrong Custer.
James J. Box lived on the head of Elm in Montague County, near the present city of Saint Jo. He had been returning from a trip to eastern Texas with his wife Mary and their children when they stopped in Gainesville because of Mrs. Box's illness. A new baby was born there, and when the infant was just one week old, the family resumed its journey homeward.
On August 6, 1866, the same day William McDougall was killed in Menard County, the Box family left Gainesville. They traveled with daughters Margaret, 18; Marzie, 11; Ida, 7; and the seven-day-old baby, Laura. About three miles east of their home, approximately 32 Indians attacked the wagon, murdered Mr. Box, and took his wife and children captive.
Charlie and William Grants, along with John Loren and Zeke Hoffman, had ridden upon a hill to look over the surrounding country when they saw seven or eight Indians moving toward a wagon. Soon more Indians appeared, and the boys counted 32 in all. Armed only with cap-and-ball pistols already discharged at young turkeys, and riding young ponies, they decided they were in no condition to charge such a large force. They returned home and spread the alarm.
Cherry, accompanied by a black man named Jack Loren and perhaps one or two others, hurried to the scene. They found where the Indians had opened the feather beds for the ticking and saw considerable leather on the ground that Mr. Box had been bringing from eastern Texas for local citizens to make shoes. The body of Mr. Box had not yet been found. After riding around the wagon three times, the citizens located him lying in the broom weeds, which were white with feathers.
When the Indians killed Mr. Box, his wife Mary and her daughters fled the wagon in hysterical fright. Although Mrs. Box was hardly able to be out of bed, with her infant at her breast, she was tied on a wild horse. She and her daughter started on a long journey toward northern Oklahoma or Kansas. Mrs. Box reported that 19 Indians carried them away, though Charlie Grant stated that 32 were counted around the wagon. It is possible the others went in a different direction.
After they had gone some distance, Mrs. Box's horse appeared fatigued and began to slow. An Indian punched the animal in the side with a spear, causing the pony to jump. Mrs. Box dropped her one-week-old baby. She whirled her horse to pick it up but was prevented by the Indians, who murdered the infant in the most brutal manner before her eyes.
According to the History of Montague County by Mrs. W. R. Porter, Mrs. Box, who later became the wife of Captain Brunson, told of being tied on a wild horse that was speared to make it plunge. The plunging caused her to drop her baby, and the Indians picked the child up and killed her before her mother's eyes. The party was taken across the Red River.
The Indians refused to give Mrs. Box water, although she was so thirsty her tongue was swollen from her mouth. One of her daughters took off her slipper and filled it with water as they crossed a stream, giving it to her mother. Mrs. Box managed to drink it before the Indians could dash it from her lips. For this act of kindness, the Indians beat the daughter almost to death with a leather cord.
The Indians separated the family, putting them in different camps. The little girl, 8 years old, would cry and run after the other members of the family when she saw them. The Indians held her feet to the fire until they were blistered, so she could not follow her mother and sister. As the Montague County history noted, it is hard to realize such barbarous acts ever took place in that county, but all the cruelties the early settlers suffered at the hands of the Indians will never be known.
Due to the patriotic efforts of F. M. Williams, Governor J. W. Throckmorton, and others who worked through the Indian agents and military authorities, plans were perfected whereby Mrs. Box and her daughters were ransomed from the Indians a few months after their capture. They were in the hands of the Kiowas, who roamed over the Texas Panhandle, western Oklahoma, Kansas, and elsewhere.
On the same day as the Box attack, far to the southwest in Menard County along the San Saba River, William McDougal was killed. Cattlemen in Menard County and elsewhere had rounded up about 5,000 head of cattle, herded about 10 miles east of old Fort McKavett. When the day's work was done, McDougal rode to his home about a mile and a half east of the post and spent the night.
Next morning, he saddled his pony and started alone toward the herd. He had gone only about a mile when several Indians charged him. McDougal ran about a mile and swam the San Saba River, but was finally overtaken and killed. The Indians shortly afterward came upon Clara Schulenberg, a stepdaughter of McDougal, who was returning from the garden about a quarter mile from the house.
Miss Schulenberg was almost home when the Indians reached her, her arms full of cantaloupes. She could not see very well and at first thought the Indians were cowmen. Finally she cried, "Oh mother, they will get me." She ran and fell over the fence into the yard, and the Indians lanced her just as she went over the fence. Mrs. McDougal, who had not realized her husband was slain and who was unprotected at the home, made all the disturbance possible to cause the Indians to think several men were in the house. She succeeded in frightening them away and saved her wounded daughter from further injury.
The Indians on this raid drove away approximately 5,000 head of cattle. During this invasion, as well as others, there was reason to believe that white cow thieves from New Mexico and elsewhere were cooperating with the Indians who stole so many cattle. The Indians had no particular incentive to steal so much stock, and John Hitson of Palo Pinto County and others sent west during the dark days of Reconstruction discovered many Texas cattle in New Mexico. These cattle had been driven away by Indians who were no doubt hired by cow thieves. On major raids when such immense herds were captured on the San Saba, Pecos, and elsewhere, the cattle were often later found on the great western ranches of New Mexico.
General George Armstrong Custer also left an account of the Box family massacre in his 1872 book, My Life on the Plains. He gathered details from the mother and eldest daughter after their release from captivity, a few months before a council held with Satanta and other chiefs. The most prominent chiefs in that council were Satanta, Lone Wolf, and Kicking Bird of the Kiowas, and Little Raven and Yellow Bear of the Arapahos. Extravagant promises of future good conduct were made by these chiefs.
So effective and convincing was Satanta's oratory that at the end of his address, the department commander and staff presented him with a uniform coat, sash, and hat of a major general. In return for this compliment, Satanta within a few weeks attacked the post at which the council was held, arrayed in his new uniform. This chief had but recently headed an expedition to the frontier of Texas, where among other murders committed by him and his band was that known as the Box massacre.
Custer wrote that the Box family consisted of a father, mother, and five children, the eldest a girl about 18 and the youngest a babe. The entire family had been visiting at a neighbor's house and were returning home in the evening when Satanta and his warriors dashed upon them, surrounded the wagon, and at the first fire killed the father and one of the children. The horses were hastily taken from the wagon, while the mother was informed by signs that she and her four surviving children must accompany their captors.
Mounting their prisoners upon lead horses, of which they had a great number stolen from settlers, the Indians prepared to set out on their return to the village, then located hundreds of miles north. Before departing, they scalped the father and child who had fallen as their first victims. Custer observed that it would have been far better had the remaining members of the family met their death in the first attack.
From the mother, whom Custer met when she was released after living as a prisoner for more than a year, he gathered the details of the sufferings of herself and her children. Fearing pursuit by the Texans and desiring to place as long a distance as possible between themselves and their pursuers, the Indians prepared for a night march. Mrs. Box and each of the three elder children were placed on separate horses and securely bound to prevent escape in the darkness.
The mother was at first permitted to carry the youngest child, a babe of a few months, in her arms, but the child became fretful during the tiresome night ride and began to cry. The Indians, fearing the sound of its voice might be heard by pursuers, snatched it from its mother's arms and dashed its brains out against a tree, then threw the lifeless remains to the ground and continued their flight. No halt was made for 24 hours, after which the march was conducted more deliberately. Each night the mother and three children were permitted to occupy one shelter, closely guarded.
After traveling for several days, the war party arrived at the point where they rejoined their lodges. They were still a long distance from the main village, which was near the Arkansas. Each night the scalp of the father was hung up in the lodge occupied by the mother and children. A long and weary march over a wild and desolate country brought them to the main village, where the captives found that their most serious troubles were to commence.
In accordance with Indian custom, upon the return of a successful war party, a grand assembly of the tribe took place. The prisoners, captured horses, and scalps were brought forth, and the usual ceremonies, terminating in a scalp dance, followed. Then the division of the spoils was made. The captives were apportioned among the various bands composing the tribe. When the division was completed, the mother fell to the possession of one chief, the eldest daughter to another, the second, a little girl of probably 10 years, to another, and the youngest, a child of 3 years, to a fourth.
No two members of the family were permitted to remain in the same band, but each was carried to separate villages, distant from each other several days' march. This was done partly to prevent escape. Custer wrote that no pen could describe the painful tortures of mind and body endured by this unfortunate family. They remained captives for more than a year, during which time the eldest daughter, a beautiful girl just ripening into womanhood, was exposed to a fate infinitely more dreadful than death itself.
She first fell to one of the principal chiefs, who, after robbing her of that which was more precious than life and forcing her to become the victim of his brutal lust, bartered her in return for two horses to another chief. He, again, after wearying of her, traded her to a chief of a neighboring band. In that way, this unfortunate girl was passed from one to another of her savage captors, undergoing a life so horribly brutal that when meeting her upon her release from captivity, one could only wonder how a young girl nurtured in civilization and possessed of the natural refinement and delicacy of thought which she exhibited could have survived such degrading treatment.
The mother and second daughter fared somewhat better. The youngest, however, separated from mother and sisters and thrown among people totally devoid of all kind feeling, spent the time shedding bitter tears. This so enraged the Indians that as a punishment, as well as a preventive, the child was seized and the soles of her naked feet exposed to the flames of the lodge fire until every portion of the cuticle was burned therefrom. When Custer saw this little girl a year afterward, her feet were from this cause still in a painful condition.
These poor captives were reclaimed from their bondage through the efforts of officers of the army and by the payment of a ransom amounting to many hundreds of dollars. The facts relating to their cruel treatment were obtained by Custer directly from the mother and eldest daughter immediately after their release.
Custer said the Box family was held captive for a year, but other accounts state that they were rescued in October 1866. It could be that they stayed at military forts for some time to recover after their rescue, and that was when Custer met the mother and eldest daughter and noticed the unhealed wounds on the youngest daughter Ida's feet.
Joseph Carroll McConnell mentioned that Mrs. Box later married a Mr. Brunson. However, this appears to have been the oldest daughter, Margaret, who married a Mr. Brunson. They lived in Terry, Montana, for many years until she died in 1920. The mother, Mrs. Mary Box, appears to have died in 1867, and the second oldest daughter, Marsey Box, died in 1875 in Decatur, Texas, at just 22 years of age. There is little information on Ida Box, the youngest girl whose feet were burned by the Kiowas. She may have died at a young age as well, leaving only the oldest daughter, Margaret, to survive to old age from the Box family.
It was likely the Comanches or Kickapoo Indians who killed William McDougal on the same day, August 6, 1866, far to the southwest on the San Saba River. The Texas settlers were getting attacked by multiple tribes all along the western frontier during this time.