Year: 1868

The San Antonio (Texas) correspondent
of the New York Times gives the particulars
of the recent murder of eight women and
children by Indians, near that place, from
which we extract the following, relative to
the terrific sufferings of Mrs. Friend:


Shortly after the whole number Fifteen or
sixteen) made their appearance and rushed
into the yard and house. One of the Mrs
Johnsons seized gun, which was taken out
of her hand by Mrs. Friend, who presented
it at an Indian, but, before she could fire,
the savage closed upon her, and, wrestling
the gun out of her hands, attempted to shoot
her, but the courageous woman seized chair
and struck the Indian upon the arm caus.
ing the gun to fall from his hands, He then
fitted an arrow to his bow and shot her thro'
the arm, when Mrs. Friend seized fiat iron
and struck him upon the head causing the
Indian to stagger, but, instantly recovering,
the brute shot her again with an arrow
This caused the poor woman to fall appar-
emily dead The aim was undoubtedly taken
at the heart, but missed, probably on account
OF the arrow being partly broken near the
spike and wrapped with thread. The Indian
now knelt near Mrs Friend, drew his knife,
and commenced scalping her.


The pain of the operation restored her to
her senses, when she seized the knife with her
right hand, and endeavored to wrest it from
him, but In vain, the knife being drawn
through her closed hand, cutting her fingers
to the bone. This act was repeated three
times, with the same result the Indian con.
tinuing scalping. He took three scalps from
her head, one about two inches wide and
three inches long, and the others about half
the size. The knife must have been very
dull, Mrs. Friend thinks. Not satisfied
with this the Indian cut off her hair wound.
ed her several times on other portions of her
head, and worked the arrow several times
through the wound. This was done, proba-
bly,, to see whether any life yet remained in
the body OF the unfortunate woman ; but
Mrs. Friend though keenly, sensible of all,
feigned death so well from the time that she
found it useless to contend with the savage,
that she uttered no cry or changed no muscle,
to show that she lived. This was her only
hope for life, and she knew it, and braved
through an ordeal terrible enough to make O
strong man tremble even at the thought of so
much agony.


The Indians plundered the house of all
movables of value, and left, taking with them
the remaining women and children. Mrs
Friend said the wailing of her boy was harder
to bear than all she had gone through that
terrible evening but even for him she knew
it was useless to show signs of life, as moth
ing would then have saved her from death.
When they were all gone, and the sound of
their voices lost in the distance, Mrs. Friend
arose and crawled and walked to Widow
Johnson's house, about mile and half
distant. The widow was absent from home,
but In the house was q man. his wife and
/ four or five children. Mrs. Friend was
cared for, and her wounds were dressed as
we'll as unskilled hands and kind hearts
would allow. After binding up her head
and extracting the arrow, the man took his
family into the bushes for the night, for
safety. Mrs. Friend preferred remaining in
the house, and in the situation in which l
have described her, she laid and suffered all
night. Surgical aid was not procured for
the poor creature until twenty. four hours
after the wounds were inflicted She was
doing well at last accounts. and hopes are
expressed that she will recover