Her presence and “rescue”/re-capture at Pease River was a matter of national importance, probably because, as Ross was quoted as saying in the book Indian Depredations, by J.W.

[7] Peta Nocona was one of the war chiefs present at the attack on Fort Parker, and had formed his own band of the Comanche called the Nokoni.

[8] In early 1860 Peta Nocona led the Comanches in a raid through Parker County, Texas, which ironically was named in honor of his wife's family.

After the raid he returned with his band to what he believed was a safe retreat under the sandstone bluffs of Pease River near where Mule Creek flowed into the stream.

The site was long a favorite of the Comanche, providing both cover from the fierce blue northers that hit the plains, and ample forage for their ponies, with easy buffalo hunting from the nearby herds.

Sul Ross quickly ascertained that he simply did not have sufficient men to guard the frontier,[9] and instead determined that the best way to protect the settlers was to take the offensive to the Indians at the earliest opportunity.

Modern research has revealed that Peta Nocona did not intend to stay at Pease River, and was preparing to move on when the attack came on his camp that December day.

With an oncoming blue northern blotting out sign, Ross was able to move up to spy out the location of the Noconi on the Mule Creek head bank as it came into the Pease River.

According to this story, seeing that the camp was hopelessly overrun, Chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker fled to the east up a creek bed.

Reportedly, mounted behind Nocona was a 15-year-old Mexican girl, while Cynthia Ann Parker carried her two-year-old child, Topʉsana ("Prairie Flower").

[10] In the popular account recollected by Sul Ross and first printed in James T. DeShields' 1886 book Cynthia Ann Parker, after a chase of a mile (1.6 km) or so, he and Ranger Tom Killiheir hotly pursued a man they thought was a chief from his headdress, who had a second Indian on the back of his pony, and a second pony with a woman carrying a small infant.

The Comanche chief recovered and began to fire arrows at the approaching Ross, one striking the horse on which the Ranger captain was mounted.

Apparently mortally wounded, Nocona managed to drag himself to a small tree and bracing himself against it began to chant the Comanche death song.

There is evidence in his later correspondence that Ross was aware of the political advantages conferred by widely held perceptions about his role in the incident at Pease River.

Not knowing whether his wife and youngest children were even alive, Peta Nocona made the hard decision to flee, in order to assure the safety of his remaining son.

Nye claimed that he encountered men who saw Nocona alive several years after the Pease River fight, when he was ill with an infected war wound.

This version strongly supports Quanah's claim that his father survived Pease River, and died three to four years later of an infected wound.

Some accounts say Martinez noticed her blue eyes, a rare trait for a native Comanche, and as the woman was questioned, she pointed at herself and said "me Cynthia".

Another version, that of Sul Ross, in his official report on the battle wrote of identifying Cynthia Ann Parker, again quoted in Indian Depredations, by J.W.

Quanah Parker, the last Comanche war chief, at the end of his life would see his mother and sister's remains disinterred, and reburied beside him at Fort Sill.