The Comanche Indians were then the fiercest tribe in that region. They ate raw meat, slept on the ground, and were great thieves and murderers. They were fine horsemen, and moved swiftly from place to place on their ponies.
In June, 1856, Lee was sent with four companies of his regiment on an expedition against the Comanches, but they could not be found. The wily savages had fled to their desert retreats, where foot of pale face had never trod.
“My Fourth-of-July was spent after a march of thirty miles in one of the branches of the Bra′zos, under my blanket, which rested on four sticks driven in the ground, as a sun-shade. The sun was fiery hot, the air like a furnace, and the water salt; still my love for my country was as great, my faith in her future as true, as they would have been under better circumstances.”
The change of weather in Texas is sometimes very great.
In another letter, he tells his wife about a cold wind or norther. “I came here in a cold norther, and though I pitched my tent in the most sheltered place I could find, I found this morning, when getting up, my bucket of water, which was close by my bed, so hard frozen that I had to break the ice before I could pour the water into the basin.”
While Colonel Lee rode with his troopers from fort to fort, a dreadful disease broke out among them. Many died, but Colonel Lee did not catch the disease, though he lived among his men and ran great risks. In these sad times, his thoughts were ever with his dear ones at home.
In a letter dated Camp Cooper, June 9, 1857, he tells about the sickness of the troopers:
“The great heat has made much sickness among the men. The children, too, have suffered. A bright little boy died from it a few days since. He was the only child, and his parents were much grieved at his loss * * *. For the first time in my life, I read the service of our Church over the grave to a large number of soldiers.” A few days after, he again read the service over a little boy who had died with the disease.
In a long letter from Fort Brown, Texas, December, 1856, he says:
“I thought of you and wished to be with you.” He wrote again: “Though absent, my heart will be in the midst of you; I can do nothing but love and pray for you all. My daily walks are alone, up and down the banks of the river, and my chief pleasure comes from my own thoughts, and from the sight of the flowers and animals I meet with here.”