IRON JACKET (?-1858). Iron Jacket (Po-hebitsquash, Pro-he-bits-quash-a, Po-bish-e-quasho) was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man to whom the Indians attributed the power to blow approaching missiles aside with his breath. His name probably resulted from his practice of wearing a Spanish-type coat of mail into battle. On May 12, 1858, the jacket failed to protect him, and he was killed on the bank of the South Canadian River in a battle with a combined force of Texas Rangersqv and Brazos Reservation Indians led by John S. Ford and Shapley P. Ross.qqv
BIBLIOGRAPHY: John S. Ford, Memoirs (MS, John Salmon Ford Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin). Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Indians, 1820-1861 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1928).
Robert Lee Williamson
