June 24, 1841; Utopia: On 24 June 1841, Texas Ranger John Coffee (Jack) Hays gathered a force of sixteen Texans and twenty Mexicans under Captain Flores to pursue Comanches who had been stealing horses in the San Antonio area. The party picked up the Indians' trail, which headed west. After a few days, the tracks led up the Sabinal River into Canyon de Uvalde, south of present-day Utopia, Texas. Here a circling flock of buzzards caught the rangers' attention, as the birds often gathered near Indian camps. Within two miles of the canyon, Hays and a Mexican dismounted and crept closer, finding a band of about twelve Indians.
Hays returned to his company, ordered the men to mount up, and led them to charge the camp. At the first shots, the Comanches fled into a nearby thicket, but the rangers and Mexicans barreled right in after them." The Indians had but one gun," Hays reported, "and the thicket being too dense to admit their using their arrows well, they fought under great disadvantage but continued to struggle to the last, keeping up their warsongs until all were hushed in death." During the three-hour fight, an arrow clipped Hays's finger and two more rangers were wounded. The Texans killed ten Indians and captured two, one a wounded warrior and the other a woman. The trail continued on to what appeared to be a larger camp, but with tired horses and loaded with plunder, Hays decided to return to San Antonio. There he would enlist a larger expedition to continue pursuit of the Comanches.
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