Capture and Escape of Mrs. Shegog

H. G. Bedford

From Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine, August, 1927

SINCE beginning to write a history of the Indian troubles, Mr. and Mrs. Gray have several times mentioned the capture of Mrs. Shegog, as one of the most horrifying incidents that they have ever known among all the tragical events that have occurred in Texas. Colonel Sams, who also lives here at the town of Benjamin, was very familiar with this incident, and speaks of it in the same manner. Not long after it occurred, I moved up on Black Creek, not a great way from the place where it happened, and just on the trail which the Indians followed when they committed this cruel deed. Having met with the people who witnessed it, and it having occurred so close at hand and having the horrors presented so vividly, may be to some extent the reason why it seems so fearfully horrifying. The killing and scalping of people was no new thing in that part of the country, for during the entire war and for many years thereafter, this section of the country was accustomed to frequent visits from the Indians, and the people were in continual dread. They came skulking in through the Upper Cross Timbers, and therein concealed themselves until they were ready to make their sweep over the country. Prior to the time of which we are writing, the Indian had had no trouble in killing on the Upper Red and Pease rivers all the buffalo that was. necessary for a sufficient supply of meat to last them through a long raid into the settlements, and large number were enabled to come together, which was the case in this instance.

Mr. Menasco came into the country, when a young man, from Arkansas, and lived for a time in Navarro County, where he was married to Judge Brown' s daughter. Afterwards he moved into the northwest part of Denton County, and settled on the head of Clear Creek, where he had been long enough, when the war began, to become very well and comfortably fixed in his home. In the early part of the war, his father came to live with him. Although the Indians had been into the country on a number of very destructive raids, they had never yet molested his home. They, nevertheless, were in continual suspense, waiting and hoping for the time to come when the Government would give them safe protection. Captain Shegog, who married a sister of Mr. Menasco, lived near him, perhaps a mile and a half from him. One day in the winter of 1868 and 1869, at a time when Captain Shegog and Menasco were out on the range, hunting stock, a large band of Indians, estimated at three hundred, came down through the cross timbers. Evidently they were Cornanches from high up on the Red River, and on account of the large number of them, they were moving along intrepidly in the daylight, and camping at night, as if they were in their own country, among their friends. This whole body of fearful savages moved through the country, leaving devastation and death as they went. They carried on their brutal work, as if they had no thought or fear of being restrained in their destruction.

On this sad and fatal. day, the two oldest children of Menasco were at the home of Captain Shegog, when their grandfather, learning that the Indians were in the country, went over to Shegog's to bring them and their aunt, Mrs. Shegog, where they could be in a safe place . But while they were returning, and perhaps had gone about half the distance, they were suddenly surrounded by a large number of the Indians. The old man was cruelly murdered and Mrs. Shegog, with her child a year or more of age, and the two little Menasco girls, four and six years of age, were taken as prisoners.

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They then went to the house of Menasco and, surrounding it, began whooping and yelling like infuriated demons. Of course, they intended to kill, rob and carry off as captives the inmates of the house, as might suit their momentary fancy, but Mrs. Menasco, taking her stand in the door, with her gun presented, told them that some of them must die, should they attempt to enter there. Just think of this brave woman, standing there all undaunted in the presence of such dreadful danger, seeing her sister-in-law and her own dear children there, captives, in the merciless hands of the savages! Calmly and determinately she stood for home and for fireside and all that was left her there. Those cruel old warriors read in her appearance the fate of that one who dared to enter there. So they turned to the horse lot, took the two valuable horses that were there and departed. Just after they surrounded Menasco's house, Shegog and Menasco came in sight, but it would have been worse than folly for them to have attacked such an overwhelming force, and they could only watch and wait to see what the dreadful result would be. When these people were carried off, it was quite warm and pleasant for the time of year, consequently they were not clad for cold weather on that day.

This large band of Comanches went far down into the settlements, evidently intending to sweep the vast herds of stock horses off of the prairie country, but in this they failed to a great extent. They went down below the town of Gainesville, and then turning back west again, they camped only a mile or two from the town. They had not taken their prisoners far before they killed Mrs. Shegog's child, and took its mother on with them, until one night, a cold norther blowing and the snow falling, she slipped off into the darkness and escaped to the house and hospitable home of Sam Doss, where, though almost frozen, she was kindly cared for and soon returned to her home. No doubt that, on account of the extreme cold weather, the Indians failed to make search for her. The next morning early they moved on, but before they had gone many miles on their way, they left both of these tender little girls, perhaps frozen to death at the time they were left. The body of one of them was found in about one month afterwards, but that of the other was not found until nearly three months had passed. The Indians found that the horses on the prairie were too thin of flesh to bear rapid driving, so they took but few of them away and then, again, the excessive cold hindered them on their return, and it was said that many of the horses perished in the snow storm. Not long after these heart-rending scenes, these families moved down to Pilot Point, where they lived and prospered, until a few years past.

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