The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900 - April, 1901 Page: 133
366 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Mexican Raid on Corytus Christi. 133
and see if there was any chance to fight them, when, if I saw that
he could do sany good with it, I would furnish him with a pistol,
but as excited as he was he was best without one.
"On reaching the trench from which I could see the crowd in
front ,of the store, I noticed several Americans held as prisoners,
among whom was ,a person named Lane, another, Mike Dunn, and
one, rpom Nelson, and I came to the conclusion that, Mexican-like,
they ,meant to take all tlhe prisoners they could from among the
Americans, and as soo-n as they were through robbing, have the
enjoyment of a general massacre, a la Peniscal.
"I determined at once I would not be taken ,alive, so. I passed
back to a place where I could command the store with my- rifle,
but to my consternation, I found ,my wife in the store, surrounded
by the raiders ,and two of them placed in such a way with cocked
pistols that any shot that should be fired from an unseen panty would
be retaliated on her by one -of the fiends; consequently, to resume
firing was only to insure her being shot, and I had: to remain
inactive while my wife was trying to pursueade them not to carry
out their threat of taking me or burning the house. Several times
when they had lighted] a fire in the store my wife put it out,
and the first time by throwingg a pitcher of water on it. I now
noticed that Smith had ,left the trench, and hearing shots from the
direction in wahidh he must have gone, knew that he was shot down
by the guards placed to keep us from leaving the house. I could now
hear the roar of the fire over my head, and to remain longer was
certain death, 'and my only chance lay in shooting down the Mexi-
cans who guarded the back of the house, and escape in the smoke.
But when I reached the end of the trench from which to put my
design into operation, my wife called to me that the Mexicans were
not there, 'and now was my only chance to leave alive, and she helped
me to tear 'a hole through the fence by which to escape. When T
left her she was getting her feather bed out of the house, 'and in
spite of the impending danger, I could but feel amused at suoh a
notion as getting out a bed- while thousands o'f other ,articles, in
my estimation, would have had the preference. I expected every
moment to be fired upon, and in such a case had made up my mind
to lie flat and return the fire, but I was allowed to turn the corner
of the fence without molestation, and, by keeping along the angle
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900 - April, 1901, periodical, 1901; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101018/m1/147/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.