Julius Sanders

Julius Sanders and the Remaining Part of the Red Men's Raid

Julius Sanders and the Remaining Part of the Red Men's Raid Julius Sanders who lived on the Frio about nine miles east of Uvalde was returning home from some corrals or stock pens, which he and his sons had constructed about ten miles south of Batesville, for the purpose of catching mustang ponies. Mr. Sanders rode a splendid gray horse and had only gone a few miles when the same sixteen Indians mentioned in the preceding section, murdered and scalped him and took his horse.

About two miles beyond where the Indians murdered Julius Sanders, who was killed the succeeding day after the Indians left the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, the sixteen warriors charged Shanghi Pierce and Leonard Eastwood. Eastwood was riding a wild pony which began to pitch, and seeing that it was impossible for him to escape, he told Pierce to run on to the ranch and protect the women and children. After Mr. Pierce was gone the Indians rode on by Leonard Eastwood and surprising as it may seem, they never harmed him. But when the Indians passed, he counted them, and there were sixteen warriors, including the red-headed man. The Indians often did peculiar things, and this was one of them. Just why they did not molest Leonard Eastwood, no one knows, unless they did not care to ride his wild pony, and delighted to see his horse pitch.

After extending their raids almost to Corpus Christi, the savages came back up the Nueces. Benavides, a Mexican Captain in charge of a company of Mexican minute men or rangers, concealed his men near a lake between the Nueces and Rio Grande, for he felt sure the Indians would pass this point. When they did the "Red-Headed Indian" was riding the gray horse of Julius Sanders. He was recognized and Benavides ordered his men to shoot that "Red-Headed" ... but the Indians escaped. Again the Indians were counted and there were sixteen, including the mysterious "Red-headed man."

Note: Before writing this section, the author personally interviewed James Robinson, a son of Henry Robinson who was killed, and the same James A. Robinson that talked to Major Davis. Also talked to Ed. L. Downs, J.C. Ware and others who were living in Uvalde County at the time.

The above story is from the book, The West Texas Frontier, by Joseph Carroll McConnell.