Battle of the Knobs

The survivors left their own account of the ending. The Decatur Chamber of Commerce reprints Lt. Benthuysen's report as quoted in Walter Prescott Webb's The Texas Rangers. His eighteen men took cover in timber, and the fighting lasted about two hours at fifteen or twenty steps. When the attackers set fire to the grass in a ring around the position, he abandoned the remaining horses and charged on foot, losing six more men. The wounded survivors then retreated seventeen days, reaching the Sabine on November 27, fifty-eight days after leaving.

What the plaque says

Battle of the Knobs On November 10, 1837, a company of eighteen Republic of Texas soldiers led by Lt. A. B. Benthuysen engaged in a battle with approximately 150 Indians near this site. Ten Texas soldiers were killed in the battle, and the Indian casualties were estimated at fifty. The Texans killed were Alexander Bostwick, Jesse Blair, James Christian, Joseph Cooper, J. Josslin, A. H. Miles, William Nicholson, Wesley Nicholson, William Sanders, and Lewis F. Sheuster. The geologic feature known as the Knobs serves as a memorial to the soldiers who were left on the battlefield. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wise County Courthouse — 2.2 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Great Hanging Memorial — 36 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.

More markers nearby

• First National Bank of Decatur — 2.2 mi
• Colonel Absalom Bishop — 2.2 mi
• Charles Vernon Terrell — 2.2 mi
• Wise County, C.S.A. — 2.2 mi