On Tuesday we began our annual spring trek from Austin to Reno. As we headed northwest from Austin through the beautiful Texas Hill Country, we were greeted by a beautiful display of colorful wild flowers that had benefited from the the thunderstorms from the night before.
Before long we were in the area patrolled by the U.S. Second Cavalry in the mid to late 1850's. The officers of this elite unit were selected by then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. They included many men who would become full generals in the next decade during the Civil War. Among them were Robert E. Lee, John Bell Hood and George Thomas. They were led by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Sidney_Johnston
The job of the Second Cavalry was to protect the frontier settlers against raids by the Comanches, probably the toughest of all Indian tribes in North America. They were so feared that they drove the Apache's into the desert mountains to the west. The Comanches had long traveled a set of trails from what is now Oklahoma to Mexico. The forts and camps of the Second were established along and near this traditional route of the Comanches. At this time the Comanches were still a very powerful force. They still raided as far east as 20 miles west of the Texas state capital of Austin. That would put them at about my house, which is located about a mile from Lake Travis (then part of the Colorado River).
Today we head for Apache country and the mountains of north central Arizona.