Support Texas History Now

Join TSHA to support quality Texas history programs and receive exclusive benefits.

Plum Creek, Battle of

General Entry

The battle of Plum Creek was an aftermath of the Council House Fight, in which many of the Comanche Indian chiefs, their women, and warriors were killed. In the summer of 1840 the Comanches swept down the Guadalupe valley, killing settlers, stealing horses, plundering, and burning settlements. After sacking Linnville in Calhoun County, they started a retreat. The Texans organized a volunteer army under Gen. Felix Huston, Col. Edward Burleson, Capt. Mathew Caldwell, and others and with Texas Rangers under Ben McCulloch overtook the Indians at Plum Creek in the vicinity of the present town of Lockhart on August 11, 1840. There a decisive defeat on the following day pushed the Comanches westward.

John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Andrew Jackson Sowell, Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas (Austin: Ben C. Jones, 1900; rpt., Austin: State House Press, 1986). Homer S. Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas (St. Louis: Thompson, 1879). Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982).

Time Periods:

Republic of Texas

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Anonymous, “Plum Creek, Battle of,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed October 24, 2020, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/plum-creek-battle-of.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

All copyrighted materials included within the Handbook of Texas Online are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 related to Copyright and “Fair Use” for Non-Profit educational institutions, which permits the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), to utilize copyrighted materials to further scholarship, education, and inform the public. The TSHA makes every effort to conform to the principles of fair use and to comply with copyright law.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Save to MyTSHA Load a Random Entry Report an Error Request a Revision

Become a TSHA member and get a FREE Texas Almanac!

Support Texas History Now

Plum Creek, Battle of

Categories:

Time Periods:

Recently Viewed

Settings