About a half hour before dark, the Confederates made their move. In the beginning, everything worked perfectly. The wounded moved out, followed by the herd. Fossett’s men slipped parallel to Dove Creek, staying between the Indian camp and the retreating column. The rear guard, now under Sergeant R.C. Porter, was keeping both the mounted Indians and those afoot busily engaged. Then, all the unmounted Indians suddenly disappeared from Porter’s front. In minutes they raced up the creek to the crossing and lay in wait there. As the wounded started splashing across, the Kickapoos fired into them from ambush. To save the wounded, the troops abandoned the herd, and every available rifle was brought to bear, including those of the rear guard that was called up. The mounted braves quickly disengaged, swooped down on the horse herd, and drove it off.

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The Confederates now fought individually for their lives. All semblance of discipline was gone. They crossed the Dove in disorder but made a brief stand in a dry stream bed long enough for the wounded to get a head start. Then the position crumbled, and they remounted their horses in wild panic. The officers screamed and yelled, pleaded with them, hoping that an organized resistance could be formed, but nothing helped. They all raced madly over the plains, trying to outrun the mounted warriors.

Soon the wounded horses gave out, and men began dropping to the rear to be pulled from their saddles and killed by the Kickapoos. Private Jim Gibson, fulfilling his own prophecy of death, went under. I.D. Ferguson began to fall behind. When the Indians were almost upon him, J.O. Alexander looked over his shoulder and shouted. “Here, boys, here! Follow me! Let us save that boy’s life!”

This impetuous gesture seemed to bring some order to the rout, as man after man wheeled to return. In. moment they were all spurring directly for Ferguson. Dismounting at a gallop, the men flopped down and formed a ragged line behind a low ridge. Even many of the wounded returned to the fight. While the Indians were regrouping for an attack, the Texans took an oath that they were finished with running. They would die there if they could not stop the Indians.

In a moment the Kickapoos were on them again, attacking from all directions. But this was Indian fighting more like the soldiers were used to: Fighting from at least a slight cover at Indians milling about on horseback. Now they could hold their own.

After dark the shooting slackened, and the Indians disappeared. Not wasting a second, Fossett ordered his men to move out and head for upper Spring Creek about eight miles away. Riding and walking slowly through the cloudy night with their remaining horses, they saw numerous campfires in the distance. Fossett was afraid that they might mark another Indian camp, so he sent scouts forward. They returned shortly with the word that it was only Totton’s men. Wearily, the defeated Confederates entered the camp for the beaten militia.

About 10:00 that night a cold rain began to fall, and within minutes a howling “blue norther” swept over them, plunging the temperature dramatically. At midnight the rain turned to heavy snow. The exhausted men could not sleep. They sat up all night feeding fires and talking over the almost incomprehensible fight: A strong force of veteran frontiersmen, many with formal military training, had been beaten badly in a pitched battle with Indians. And the Indians were not some fierce, war-like tribe such as the Comanche or Kiowa, but he relatively docile Kickapoo. Trying the rationalize this defeat, some soldiers circulated rumors that they had seen uniformed Federal officers and Kansas Jayhawkers leading the Indians.

Simply nothing quite like this had happened in Texas before, and the repercussions would sound for the remaining months of the war. The Texas and Confederate militaries set up courts martial and courts of inquiry: twenty-two of Fossett’s men deserted in the next month and a half; Texas civilians were outraged both at the attack and the defeat, and the frontier settlers lost further faith in the state and national governments’ ability to protect them.

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