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Karnes County, Texas
Biographies
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Henry Karnes Henry Karnes is another of those remarkable characters whose true history is a romance. He was raised in Tennessee. At an early age he joined a company of Arkansas trappers, who turned their attention to attacks on the Pawnee villages on the head branches of Red River; but having disagreed they separated. Karnes, with three or four others, proceeded across to the head of the Trinity. Here having their horses stolen, they obtained a canoe and floated down the river to Robbin's Ferry. Karnes procured employment at Grace's Retreat, where the war found him. He entered the Texas service, and fought with a hearty good-will. One who was often with him, and by his side at Conception, says he never knew him to swear before or since that day. But when he came into the lines, after being shot at so often, and began to load his rifle, he exclaimed, with some wrath, the "d__d rascals have shot out the bottom of my powder horn." Karnes rose to the rank of colonel in Texas. He was of low stature, and weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds, was quite sober and temperate, and had an effeminate voice. He was wholly illiterate, yet he had remarkable gentleness and delicacy of feeling, and was otherwise amiable in private life. He died at San Antonio, in August, 1840, surrounded by his numerous friends. (From Yoakum's Texas.) [A Texas Scrapbook Made Up Of The History, Biography, and Miscellany of Texas And Its People, compiled by D. W. C. Baker, 1875, transcribed by Cathy Danielson] |