Battle of Plum Creek The Battle of Plum Creek was a clash between allied Tonkawa , militia and Rangers of the Republic of Texas and a huge Comanche war party under Chief Buffalo Hump , which took place near Lockhart , Texas , on August 12 , 1840 , following the Great Raid of 1840 as the Comanche war party returned to West Texas . Background . Following the Council House Fight of 1840 a group of Comanches led by the Penateka Comanche War Chief Buffalo Hump , warriors from his own band plus allies from various other Comanche bands , raided from West Texas all the way to the coast and the sea . These Comanches were angered by the events of the Council House , in which Texans had killed Comanche Chiefs when the Texans had raised a white flag of truce . The Council House Fight . The Texan officials began the treaty talks with demands that the Comanche considered impossible . Including the Comanche return of all white captives . This included people such as Cynthia Parker . Other white captives were with bands of the Comanche not represented at the talks . As a show of " good faith " the Comanche chiefs brought in one captive , a severely mutilated adolescent girl named Matilda Lockhart . The Comanches had burned off her nose with hot coals . The Texans thought they were going against their word , because the Comanche chiefs did not return all of the white captives and figured they held back some of their white captives to guarantee their own safety . The Texas militiamen told the chiefs it was they that would indeed be held hostage to guarantee the release of their other white captives . The chiefs quickly realized their gross miscalculation . Everyone panicked and drew their weapons . The militia began firing and the Comanches were killed . The Great Raid of 1840 . But Buffalo Hump was determined to do more than merely complain about what the Comanches viewed as a bitter betrayal . Spreading word to the other bands of Comanches that he was raiding the white settlements in revenge , Buffalo Hump led the Great Raid of 1840 . On this raid the Comanches went all the way from beyond the Edwards Plateau in West Texas to the cities of Victoria and Linnville on the Texas coast . In what may have been the largest organized raid by the Comanches to that point on Texas settlements , or an attack by Indians on any white city in the continental United States , they raided and burned these towns , plundering at will . Linnville was the second largest port in Texas at that time . On the way back from the sea the Comanches were confronted by Texas rangers and militia in a fight called the " Battle of Plum Creek " ( near the modern town of Lockhart ) . The Battle of Plum Creek . The " battle " was really more of a running gun fight , as the Comanche War Party was trying to get back to the Llano Estacado with a huge herd of horses and mules they had stolen , a large number of firearms , and other plunder such as mirrors , liquor , and cloth . Volunteers from Gonzales under Mathew Caldwell and from Bastrop under Ed Burleson gathered to intercept the Comanches . Joined by Ranger companies and armed settlers hastily assembled as militia from central and east Texas , they confronted the Indians at Good ' s Crossing on Plum Creek , near the modern town of Lockhart ( about 27 miles south of Austin ) . Texas history says the Texans won this battle , although the Indians got away with most of their plunder and a great many of the stolen horses and mules . " Several hundred head of horses and mules were recaptured , as were also immense quantities of dry goods . " The Texans reported killing 80 Comanches ( unusually heavy casualties for the Indians ) in the fight , yet recovered only 12 Indian bodies . Apparently greed largely determined the battle ' s outcome . The Comanches would have never been caught had they not been herding such an enormous number of captured and heavily laden mules and horses . Similarly , the Texans discovered stolen bullion on some recaptured mules and subsequently most of them went home — without an organized pursuit of the Comanches . Thomas J . Pilgrim took part in the Battle of Plum Creek . Aftermath . Buffalo Hump continued to raid white settlements until 1856 , when he led his band into the Brazos River Reservation . The town of Linnville never recovered from the Great Raid , most of its residents moving to Port Lavaca , the new settlement established on the bay three and one half miles southwest by displaced Linnville residents .