Captain Ben Tumlinson

The Emporia Gazette September 29, 1905

Houston, TX. Sept. 29
  A battle  between Mexican desperadoes and Texas Rangers resulted in the killing of one of the bad men and the wounding of two.  The fight was on La Portia creek, near Miverva;  a small border town in Wilson county.

  The Rangers were led by Captain Ben Tumlinson.  After two days riding on the trail of Garcia and Enrico Martinez, brothers and two of their associates they came upon them in an adobe house.

  A horse was shot from under Captain Tumlinson and one of his men was wounded in the first volley.  The rangers gradually worked closer to the building, and when near it, the desperadoes made a dash for a thicket.  Garcia Martinez was shot dead.  Two others fell wounded, but succeeded in getting into the underbrush.

  Martinez, who was killed, is known to have committed four murders in Texas, and several in Mexico, where a large reward is offered for him, dead or alive.  His last victim was Captain Goff, a Ranger, who he killed in Minerva, last week.



"The Indians discovered us just as we discovered them, but had not time to get their horses, so they commenced running on foot towards the mountain thickets. I threw Lieut. Joseph Rogers, with eight men, below them--and with the others I dashed past and took possession of their route above them. The Indians saw that the route above and below them was in our possession, and struck off for the mountain thicket nearest the side of the trail. I ordered Lieut. Rogers to charge, and fell upon them simultaneously. I saw an Indian aiming his rifle at me, but knew that he must be a better marksman than I had seen among them to hit me going at my horse's speed, and did not heed him till I got among them. Then I sprang from my horse quick as lightning, and turned towards him; at the same instant he fired; the ball passed through the bosom of my shirt and struck my horse in the neck, killing him immediately. I aimed deliberately and fired. The Indian sprang a few feet into the air, gave one whoop and fell dead within twenty-five feet of me. The fight now became general. Pell-mell we fell together. The Indians, thirteen in number, armed with bows and rifles, were endeavoring to make good their retreat towards the thicket. Several of them fell, and two of my men were wounded; when finally they effected an entrance into the thicket, which was so dense that it would have been madness to have attempted to penetrate it, and we were forced to cease the pursuit. I dispatched Rogers after the child, the horses and mules of the Indians, whilst I remained watching the thicket to guard against surprise. He found the child in the Indian camp tied on the back of a wild mule, with his robe and equipment about him fixed on for the day's march, and had to shoot the mule in order to get the child. He also succeeded in getting hold of all the animals of the Indians, and those they had stolen. My men immediately selected the best horse in the lot, which they presented to me in place of the one that was killed. We watched for the Indians a while longer and in the meantime sent a runner for the doctor to see to the wounded. I sent a portion of the men under the command of Rogers with the child, and the wounded men and I brought up the rear. The wounded were Elijah Ingram, shot in the arm, the ball ranging upwards to the shoulder; also Hugh M. Childers, shot through the leg. Of the Indians, four were killed. We arrived that night at Mr. Harrell's, where we found Mrs. Hibbins, the mother of the child. Lieut. Rogers presented the child to its mother, and the scene which here ensued beggars description. A mother meeting with her child released from Indian captivity, recovered as it were from the very jaws of death! Not an eye was dry. She called us brothers, and every other endearing name, and would have fallen on her knees to worship us. She hugged her child to her bosom as if fearful that she would again lose him. And---but tis useless to say more."