Paul Carlson and Tom Crum conclude Myth, Memory, and Massacre with the observation that “…in the larger story of Anglo-Indian conflict in Texas the so-called Battle of Pease River was not particularly significant. Indeed, its importance, such as it is, centers mainly on its use as a lesson in historiography, folklore, and mythmaking. The brief fight along Mule Creek demonstrates again how folklore and collective memory remain difficult to alter. If, in fact, memory is constructed, then collective memory is the handiwork of numerous and varied laborers, and numbers and variety do not make it any more reliable” (153).
But what I find most interesting about this careful reassessment of historical evidence and collective memory is that, while it makes a strong case against thinking of what happened on 19 December 1860 along Mule Creek on the Pease River in north Texas as a decisive battle in a long war, it demonstrates even more convincingly just how significant the event is for “the larger story of Anglo-Indian conflict in Texas” — and for the mythic representation of Texas that has played (and continues to play) a role in the mythic representation of the United States. What happened became part of a story on which Sul Ross built a political career that included being elected governor of Texas and of which one of the circles of “we” a sizable number of Texans have drawn around themselves for over a century has been largely constructed.
The authors are aware of this, as the title makes clear. This book is about myth, memory, and massacre — and that is important because those three terms and the human actions they name are aspects of the way we understand ourselves. They are ways in which we answer the question of what we mean by “we,” and, implicitly, who we identify as “they.” In the long run, this is at least as important as (and I would say generally more important than) the specifics of a particular battle, the firepower of the armies involved, or the particular flags under which those involved in the battle fought (or were caught in the crossfire). It is more important than those factors at least in part because it determines whether what happened is remembered as a “battle” or as a “massacre,” something to celebrate or something to regret — or is forgotten. Recent history confirms just how important that distinction can be.
The event that occasions this book is familiar, particularly to those who grew up (as I did) in north and northwest Texas. Most of us have heard the story more than once, in more than one variation: in December 1860, a force composed of U.S. cavalry and Texas Rangers stumbled upon a Comanche hunting camp on the Pease River. They raided the camp, killed a number of people, and took three prisoners, one of whom was a woman later identified as Cynthia Ann Parker, a member of a prominent Texas family who had been taken captive as a child in a raid on Parker’s Fort in 1836. The woman, whose name was Naudah, was married to Peta Nocona and had a daughter (also captured in the 1860 raid) and two sons (neither of whom was present at the time of the 1860 raid). One of the sons, Quanah, went on to become famous as a chief and as a founder of the Native American Church.
Carlson and Crum are historians, and they are Texans. Both identifications give them reason to be interested in what happened. And that interest means another telling of the story, one that is of particular value because it is aware of a wide range of previous tellings (including tellings in Comanche oral tradition) and because — in the process of remembering — it is attentive to the dynamic and political character of memory in relation to identity. How the woman (Naudah/Cynthia Ann Parker) is named — and by whom — shapes and is shaped by the story. That she was a member of a prominent family meant that her capture in 1836 and again in 1860 would be told and told again. It meant that the question of who captured her would be a significant part of the story. This has been a familiar element of war stories in the West since Homer sang the wrath of Achilles, which was provoked by what happened to two women in another war. That her son became famous as a Comanche political leader added another layer of significance and transformed the story over time. That one of the men who claimed to have been responsible for the capture in 1860 became famous as a Texas political leader occasioned further transformation. That the Comanches were forcibly removed from Texas and that the removal had considerable impact on the current shape of the state means that this is a yarn still being spun.
And in the spinning, one hopes, we learn something about what we make of ourselves, of our struggles, and of the worlds we inhabit as we continue to make history. The publisher tells us that Carlson and Crum seek to “set the record straight” (as did Quanah Parker, who spoke at the Texas State Fair in 1910 of “making some Texas history straight up”). Getting stories straight, of course, is a passion of historians; but it is the making of history more than the “straightness ” of it, the recognition that memory is always being made, that what is in it and what is not are both important, that is most significant here.
Every memory is a construction, an act with personal and political significance. That includes war stories. And knowing that, in making them, we make the “we” of which we think ourselves a part may make us more critical both in our making and in our hearing. Particularly when it comes to war stories (which are often told straight up by those who were not there as well as those who were), knowing that is a critical skill. We struggle to get stories right, to set the record straight. And the straighter we set it, the harder it is to challenge within the circle of that “we.”
Carlson and Crum are to be commended for stepping outside one such circle to unstraighten the “true” record with which it has been made. I think it would be a good thing if, in our memories of wars as well as our anticipations of them, we followed their example.
Steven Schroeder, Chicago
Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum. Myth, Memory, and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-89672-707-6.