Flight

Cora Montgomery (aka Jane McManus Storms Cazneau) was a journalist temporarily residing in Eagle Pass with her husband. An ardent promoter of U.S. expansionism, she was credited with coining the phrase "Manifest Destiny." Montgomery happened to be at Fort Duncan on the day that John Horse and Coacoochee rode in off the plains:

"From the broken ground in a direction that we knew was untraversed by any but the wild and hostile Indians, came forth a long procession of horsemen .... Some reasonably well-mounted Indians circled round a dark-nucleus of female riders, who seemed objects of special care. But the long-straggling rear-guard was worth seeing .... Such an array of all manners and sizes of animals, mounted by all ages, sexes and sizes of negroes, piled up to a most bewildering height, on and among such a promiscuous assemblage of blankets, babies, cooking utensils, and savage traps, in general, never were or could be held together on horseback by any beings on earth but themselves and their red brothers." [complete excerpt]