Tale of terror and resilience near Fort McKavett

Edited by Jim Fish

Few events in the annals of Texas frontier history capture its settlers' raw peril and indomitable spirit, like the Great Indian Raid of 1866 near Fort McKavett, as Jasper Newton told in 1911 at San Angelo. 

"I, Jasper Newton, bore witness to this harrowing episode, and now, nearly half a century later, I recount it for the readers of this paper—a tale of tragedy, bravery, and survival etched into the rugged landscape of the San Saba Valley.

"In 1866, I resided at old Fort McKavett, a weathered outpost on the western edge of settled Texas. My father-in-law, Mr. Dawson, lived a mile downstream on Charlie Champie's place along the river. That year, his daughter fell gravely ill, compelling him to seek a doctor's care in Georgetown. Her condition teetered on the brink of hopelessness, and years would pass before she regained her health. I took charge of his homestead in his absence, tending to the stock and premises with my family in tow. Days before the raid, I had been aiding Mr. Poe at the 18-mile crossing of the San Saba, surveying the river for irrigation potential. This task kept me from home when calamity struck.

"It was an hour before dawn when Charley Champie galloped into the yard, his voice a thunderclap of urgency. 'Jasper, get up and get home quick!' he cried. 'The valley is literally alive with Indians. They've killed McDougall, lanced Clara Schulenberger, and driven off all the stock in the country. I expect their scouts will be back today to murder us all—over two hundred in the bunch!' 

"His words jolted me into action. I raced toward Mr. Dawson's place, stopping at the McDougall homestead, a mile-and-a-half below McKavett, where a grim scene unfolded.

"Men were already scouring the area for James McDougall, a cattleman who, the day prior, had set out with George Roberts to drive fat cattle to San Antonio. They had penned their herd at Hillard's on Cedar Creek, but McDougall's hobbled horse returned home alone. Mounting a pony, he rode back to retrieve it—never to be seen alive again by his family. His body, discovered the next morning, told a brutal story. Stripped naked, his back riddled with wounds from arrows or knives, he lay by the riverbank, clutching a bamboo briar. A bullet had pierced him from back to throat, suggesting he had swum across the San Saba in a desperate bid to escape, only to be felled as he reached the opposite shore. Curiously, his scalp remained intact—a rare mercy from his assailants.

"Meanwhile, horror descended upon the McDougall home. At 9 a.m., Mrs. McDougall sent her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Clara Schulenberger, to the garden for vegetables. Wearing a sunbonnet, Clara mistook the approaching horsemen for a cow outfit from the Conchos—until a white man on a powerful horse charged, knocking her down. 

"She scrambled to her feet, screaming as she fled to the house, unaware she'd been lanced. Her mother, seeing blood pour from the wound, dragged her inside and barred the doors of their picket shack as some two hundred Indians stormed the yard, leaping fences and shrieking like fiends.

"What followed was a testament to maternal grit. Amid house-cleaning chaos—furniture strewn across the yard—Mrs. McDougall seized an old, broken, double-barreled shotgun, a family relic unloaded for years. As the raiders plundered, ripping feather beds and scattering their contents to the wind, she thrust the useless weapon through a crack in the wall, bluffing death to any who dared approach. 

"Several spoke fluent English, taunting her to surrender, but her resolve held firm. While most ransacked the homestead, a splinter group pursued and slew McDougall, leaving Clara grievously wounded—her spine pierced, three ribs severed by the lance. No doctors graced this frontier; for four agonizing years, she endured her injuries, a living monument to the raid's toll.

"The scale of the assault stunned us all. Bobbie Robinson, perched atop his house with a field glass, counted 250 warriors herding at least 10,000 cattle up the valley, a bounty swelled by a dry season that drove stock to the river. Runners summoned aid from Mason and Camp San Saba, and two days later, fifty-three men arrived to pursue the raiders. Tracking them to the dry lakes on Devil's River, they found evidence of eleven barbecued horses—proof the enemy outnumbered even Robinson's estimate. Realizing fifty-three stood no chance against such a force, they retreated, abandoning the chase.

"Days earlier, a federal officer with two cavalry companies had camped at Fort McKavett, scouting frontier posts. On the raid's day, they were at Spring Creek, near future Fort Concho. With the Indians still herding our cattle nearby, we hatched a desperate plan to alert them. Augustine, a Mexican, volunteered to ride John Ringer's racehorse through the night. Dodging Indian scouts, he reached the camp at sunrise, only to be rebuffed by the officer, who declared, "I'm not out hunting Indians. If those people want them whipped, they can do their own fighting." Our plea for salvation went unanswered.

"This raid, often pinned on the Comanche, I attribute instead to the Kickapoo—a distinction lost on a frontier reeling from its ferocity. The Great Indian Raid of 1866 left scars on the San Saba Valley: McDougall dead, Clara maimed, and livelihoods gutted. Yet Mrs. McDougall's defiance and our stubborn survival also forged a legacy of resilience—a chapter of Texas history written in blood and grit."

Jasper Newton shared this account in 1911 from his home in San Angelo, thus preserving a vivid memory of a perilous past for generations to come.