In February 1868, the settlers of Llano County, Texas, had learned to live with the threat of Comanche raids. The county, nestled in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin, had seen violence before. Back in 1841, Texas Ranger Jack Hayes had made a legendary stand against a much larger force of Comanche warriors from a rocky crevice, killing many with his Colt Patterson revolver. But Hayes had long since left for California, and by 1859, with federal troops withdrawing from West Texas posts ahead of the Civil War, the Comanche had returned, crossing into the county from New Mexico and Colorado to raid and kill the scattered settlers.

Small attacks had already marked the years. In May 1859, a Methodist preacher named Jonas Dancer went alone to a meeting point to begin work on a new road from Llano to Austin. The others never arrived. A group of five or six Indians attacked him while he was unarmed.

Dancer fled into a deep ravine, but the warriors chased him down and, from the slopes above, rained arrows into his body. Bleeding profusely, he finally sat down before a rock ledge and died there. The warriors scalped him and mutilated his body, leaving it for a search party to find the next day. Dancer, who had built the first church in the county and had been regarded as its father, left a widow and orphaned children.

More attacks followed. In May 1862, a man named Dancer—likely a relative or neighbor—went unarmed to search for his cattle. Half a mile from his home, a band of Indians attacked him. He ran, dodging arrows until he reached his house.

His wife rushed out with his rifle, and the Indians fled. Wounded fatally, he died the next day, leaving a wife and children. In the fall of 1863, a sheep farmer named Harrison Miller was eating dinner when arrows suddenly came through his door and windows. He grabbed his rifle and held the Indians off, then, seeing them gathered at the front, leaped through a back window and escaped down a slope to a creek.

About a mile away, the same band found Barzelay Paine, a sheep farmer around sixty years old who had gone out to find his flock. During the encounter, Paine was killed. The Indians were eventually pursued and one of them killed. The settlers later found a lone Indian riding a fine horse, making taunting gestures with his bow and spear.

The Texans chased him, and after his horse was injured in the rough terrain, they killed him. In January 1865, near the border between Gillespie and Llano counties, a widow named Martha Youngblood was at home with several children. Two of them, a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, were playing a short distance away when a group of Indians slipped close and killed the boy. They then moved toward the house.

Mrs. Youngblood saw them coming, bolted the doors shut, and refused to let them enter. The warriors tore a plank from the wall. The little girl, who had followed the Indians unnoticed, slipped through the opening.

When the Indians tried to rush inside, they were met with the muzzle of a rifle in Mrs. Youngblood’s hands. They backed off, and she saved her own life and the lives of her remaining children. Then came the tragedy that would become known as the Legion Valley Massacre.

Legion Valley lay about fifteen miles south of the town of Llano, surrounded by mountains, with Honey Creek flowing through it on its way toward the Colorado River. It was there that Matilda S. Friend lived with her family. She was the daughter of Jonas Dancer, the preacher killed in 1859, and was married to John S.

Friend. On February 5, 1868, Matilda was at the cattle lot with two or three other women and a number of children when roughly fifteen Indians suddenly passed by. The women grabbed the children and fled to the house, slamming the door. When the Indians discovered no men were present, they followed.

Inside the house were Matilda Friend; Samantha Johnson; Rebecca Johnson; a young woman named Amanda Townson, sister of one of the Johnson women; a small girl named Melinda Cordell; Lee Temple Friend, Matilda’s eight-year-old stepson; and two infants, one belonging to Rebecca and one to Samantha. The house was built of wooden pickets, and the Indians tore a pair of them out to make an opening. Matilda urged the other women to join her in defending the house, but they refused, believing the Indians would spare them if they surrendered quietly. Two guns were in the house.

When an Indian tried to enter through the opening, Matilda seized one of the weapons and tried to fire, but he snatched it from her. Another Indian, perhaps fearing the sound of a gunshot would alarm others, took the rifle from his companion. Matilda then struck the first Indian with a flatiron, nearly knocking him down. He recovered, drew an arrow from his quiver, and shot her in the side.

The arrow struck a rib, deflected around her breastbone, and came out the other side. A second arrow hit her arm; a third struck her chest. With the third wound, unable to fight any longer, she sat down calmly on the bed and leaned her head against the bedpost. Believing she was dead, one of the warriors began to scalp her.

The pain was so intense that she raised her hand and grasped the knife. He tore it from her hand, cutting her badly. When she tried to seize the knife a second time, he struck her three blows with it, leaving her completely unable to move. Then he completed the scalping slowly and left her for dead.

Another one returned, perhaps to check if she was alive, and tugged the arrow embedded in her chest back and forth to see if she would move. Matilda remained perfectly still, pretending to be dead, and he finally left. The other women and children were all taken captive. Hearing their cries as they were led away, Matilda rose and tried to walk to the window, but she was too weak from loss of blood.

She crawled to an opening in the wall and, with a grieving heart, watched her friends being taken off. When the Indians were gone from sight, she tied a cloth around her head and, despite her wounds, went outside to gather the few things the Indians had left, returned them to the house, and closed the door. Then she walked to a neighbor’s house, about a mile and a half away. It was near sunset when she started, and she arrived around eight o’clock that evening, drinking snow along the way to quench her thirst.

The family inside was alerted by the barking of dogs. Bradford, the neighbor, came out and met her. She was a terrible sight—wounded, scalped, and bleeding. Not recognizing her in the dark, Bradford hurried back inside.

She called out and told him who she was. He brought her inside and, at her request, began pulling the arrows from her body. Then Bradford and his family fled, fearing an Indian attack, leaving Matilda alone for the entire night. They did not even dress her wounds or remove her bloody clothing.

They left her with a small fire and a bucket of water, alone in a house two miles from any other. Around eight the next morning, two widowed women came to help her. The cloth covering her head had dried and stuck to her wounds so tightly it could only be removed with hot water. Her whole body was so swollen from her injuries that removing her clothes was extremely difficult.

The two women did what they could, but a doctor did not arrive until nearly eight that evening. Matilda’s recovery took almost a year, but she eventually regained her health and later moved to Kansas. Meanwhile, a runner reached the town of Llano that same night with news of the massacre. Early the next morning, ten or twelve citizens mounted their horses and rode for Legion Valley.

They found the Indians had headed south. About a mile and a half from the house, they found the infant of Mrs. Johnson, its head dashed against a large rock. Four miles farther, at a pass over the mountain, they found the place where the Indians had stopped and camped.

There they discovered a narrow trail leading about a hundred yards into a dense thicket. At the end of it lay the body of the young woman, Amanda Townson, eighteen years old. She had been bound to the snow-covered ground, brutally assaulted, then killed and so mutilated that she was difficult to recognize. Three miles further, they found the body of one of the Johnson women, stripped of most of her clothing, partially eaten by hogs.

Some of the party stayed to bury the dead, while others continued the chase. The Indians had turned west, collected around thirty horses, and the pursuers followed them for five days, often traveling at night. They knew from small footprints around watering holes that the Indians had taken the young boy, Matilda’s eight-year-old stepson, with them. The pursuers got within a short distance of the raiding party near the Devil’s River, but their supplies ran out and their horses were exhausted, forcing them to turn back.

The small girl, Melinda Cordell, was held captive for about eight months before a company of state troops recovered her. She was sent first to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, then to Fort Arbuckle, and finally returned to her relatives in Texas. The boy, Lee Temple Friend, remained a captive for nearly five years before his grandfather, Reverend Leonard S. Friend, recovered him.

By that time the boy could only speak the Indian dialects he had learned among the Comanche. He never adjusted to civilized life and died on June 2, 1875, at the age of fifteen. Matilda Friend had been about eight months pregnant at the time of the attack. Despite her three arrow wounds and the scalping, she gave birth to her daughter, Jennie Isabel Friend, on February 29, 1868, just weeks later.

Once she recovered, she and her husband moved to Butler County, Kansas, where they raised five more daughters. The only woman who survived the Legion Valley Massacre was the only one who had tried to fight back. The other three women, who had chosen to surrender peacefully, were all taken captive, assaulted, scalped, and killed.