Colt vs Remington

 by Joe Walker

Noted Texas Civil War Docent, Reenactor and Expert

 

During the Civil War, two revolvers stood out as favorites on both sides: the Colt Army Model 1860 and Remington Model 1863.  Although both sides used those two revolvers, the Confederate Cavalry favored the Colt while their Union counterparts used the Remington. Overall, the Colt was the primary revolver for both sides.

 

Notable Differences

The 1863 Remington and the 1860 Colt Army have two notable differences. First, the Remington has the "top strap" designed frame that covers the cylinder, as well as connecting the barrel to the frame. The Colt cylinder has an "open top".  Second, the Colt’s entire barrel assembly is held to the rest of the weapon by a small, flat "wedge" in the barrel frame and held tight to the cylinder pin with a small tension screw.  By removing the wedge and screw, the barrel can be removed before removing the cylinder. The Remington has a long thick pin between the loading lever and barrel. These two design features have their own pros and cons. The Colt wedge and screw is easily dropped, lost, or worn. The Remington has a larger more secure pin that is harder to lose, but more difficult to handle when removing the cylinder.

 

In Combat

Both weapons are heavy- around 2-1/2 pounds, with the Remington a bit heavier. They are obliviously meant for mounted service; these monsters, along with their ammo, could fatigue most men if worn on the march. However, they both supply the .44 cal. "killing" power as opposed to the widely used .36 cal. 1851 Colt "Six Shooter" obtained mostly by civilians before they enlisted.

 

I have owned and have live-fired originals of both guns, as well as the smaller Colt Navy.  It is quite evident why soldiers carried few if any extra loaded cylinders if in the mounted service.  In close combat, you CANNOT remove and replace a cylinder on horseback, next to impossible on a jumping horse. Both weapons would have been using pre-made paper cartridges supplied in “arsenal packs” that are stuffed by fingers into the front of the cylinder and rammed home by the loading lever. Grease, used to lubricate the cylinder chambers before loading conical balls, would most likely be omitted. Adding to the difficulty, percussion caps would still have to carefully be placed on each cylinder nipple. Dismounted, loading under fire was difficult, but possible, especially if unhampered by powder flasks, lose balls, and grease.

 

Fighting dismounted using carbines and rifles became the most common tactic on defense and skirmishing for the Cavalry. The revolver was seldom used. Both the Colt and Remington had “accurate” ranges of around 25-30 yards. To improve accuracy, the Colt had one extra land and grove in the barrel. Though more than the Remington, it made little difference. The Colt never had a rear mounted sight, which attests to the lack of “long range” accuracy. However, many original Colts can be seen with a small notch on the top of the hammer that will align with the front sight when cocked. The Remington had a groove in the top strap of the frame with no notch on the hammer making it more effective for long range use.

 

Conclusion

Comparing the two, my overall opinion is they measure close to equal, with the 1863 Remington edging out the Colt Army due to a stronger frame design and overall loading ease during combat. Despite their differences, a trooper wouldn't hesitate to use the butt or barrel of either in a melee!  By 1864, any new issues to Union troopers were usually Remingtons, and the Rebs were still hanging on to their Colts and Southern manufactured revolvers.                                                                 

Big Fued in Bell County

Bell County Confederate Memorial

The Home Guard

During the Civil War, towns and cities throughout the South formed militias or home guard units to protect civilians while sons and husbands were off fighting in the war. They often consisted of old men and teenagers who were either too old or too young to serve in the Confederate Army. Some were the sons of wealthy settlers who had them enrolled to avoid military service. Others were disreputable types, who would use their time in the Home Guard for their own nefarious activities. Home Guard duties included chasing down deserters and draft dodgers, investigating subversive activity, and defending against Union cavalry raids, or in Texas - Indian raids. Sometimes home guard units were little better than outlaw gangs, a bigger threat to civilians than the Union Army. Such was the case in Bell County, Texas.

Sam Hasley Enlists

Like most young men in Texas during the early1860’s, Sam Hasley was swayed by the Confederate cause and enlisted in the Confederate Army. He left behind his elderly, white-bearded father, Drew Hasley, to run the family farm. Young Halsey departed, secure in the knowledge the Bell County Home Guard would protect his dad. Things turned out otherwise.

Home Guard Terror

As the war progressed, the Bell County Home Guard became adept at rounding up deserters, a capital offense in the Confederacy that often led to a firing squad or a hanging tree. In 1865, prior to Lee’s surrender, Confederate armies began losing more and more men to desertion. Deserters would hide out at home or congregate into armed bands and camp out in the brush. Three deserters were caught and promptly hanged from a pecan tree near Reed Lake. Civilians were questioned about deserter activities, sometimes in a less than tactful fashion. To make matters worse, Home Guard members engaged in cattle rustling, stealing cattle from absent settlers fighting in the war.  The Home Guard were fast becoming the Home Hoodlums.

John Early vs The Hasleys

The leader of the Home Guard was a shifty, abrasive, and bullish character named John Early, who changed loyalties to either the Union or Confederacy when it best suited him. Early paid a visit to the Hasley home where he got into a heated exchange with Drew Hasley. He roughed up old Hasley, pulling out tufts of hair from his bead. Needless to say, Hasley’s son was not thrilled about his father’s treatment when he returned home from the war. A vengeful Sam Hasley sought out Early, who had sided with local Unionists and received their protection. That didn’t discourage Hasley from watching his movements and looking for a chance to strike.

 

During an evening ride, Hasley spotted a band of Unionists on horseback. Seeing an opportunity, he brazenly rode into the middle of them, saying nothing but looking at their passing faces. He spotted Early, drew his pistol, and fired. Fortunately for Early, the shot hit his horse, causing it to fall on top of him.  From there, all hell broke loss. Although Hasley escaped, Bell County’s Union officials began looking for ways to suppress former rebels, especially Drew Hasely and his son Sam. Chief Justice Hiram Christian, the local U. S. appointed judge in Belton, found the answer: arrest them for hanging those three deserters near Reed Lake.  A detachment of U. S. cavalry arrived from Austin and began rounding up suspects in the hangings, including Drew Hasley. They were hustled off to Austin where they spent several months in jail before being released. The Austin jail cells were no place for a sick old man; Drew Hasley died a few years later after his release. The simple blood feud between Hasley and Early escalated into a gang war between Unionists and former Secessionists.  

The Bell County Fued

Realizing there was security and firepower in numbers, Hasley and his Secessionist friends formed the Sam Hasley Gang, fronted by Hasley’s outspoken, Union-hating brother-in-law, Jim McRae. In April 1866, criminals and Unionists began disappearing off the streets or found floating in the river. Belton Unionist, Dr. Calvin Clark, fled to Missouri, but was gunned down shortly after his arrival. After the killing of Jasper Lindley, a suspected horse thief and Union supporter, fifteen members of the U. S. 15th Cavalry, along with Lindley’s father and brother, arrived in Belton, looking for LIndley’s murderers. They settled on a local rancher named Dawes and an English sheepherder named Duncan. Both were summarily shot off their horses after being arrested. The fued reached its climax when the Lindley’s were arrested and confined in the Bell County Jail. Incensed over the Dawes and Duncan killings, a mob surrounded the jail, chased away the guards, and shot the Lindleys. The following year, Jim McCrea was ambushed after leaving a watermelon party with family members. After McCrae’s death, the fued lost steam. Law and order returned to Bell County as residents began focusing more on postwar rebuilding instead of settling old scores. Amidst all the turmoil and murders, Sam Hasley and John Early managed to stay aloof from the fighting.  

With the war over, his father dead, and his gang dispersed, Hasley became just another drunken public nuisance better off in a jail cell. In 1889, a drunk Sam Hasley created a disturbance in downtown Belton.  Deputy Marshal William “Cap” Light ordered him to go home. Instead, Easily rode his horse on the sidewalk. Light tried to arrest him before Hasley pulled his pistol. Light shot him dead. John Early had had enough. He left the Belton scene all together, never to be seen again. 

Cotton Wagons in downtown Belton

Check It Out

Check out C.L. Sonnichsen's book "Ten Texas Feuds." This University of New Mexico publication is a collection of stories about Texas' bloodiest feuds.

March and Die: Walker's Greyhounds at Jenkins' Ferry

Going After Steele

Looking across a field covered with mangled dead, with many of them from their own companies, it would have been difficult for the Texans to consider the battle a triumph. On April 8, 1864, the Texas Division, or Greyhounds as they were called, played a pivotal role in defeating the Union army under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks. The collapse of Banks’ offensive near Mansfield, Louisiana brought about an ignominious finale to the Red River Campaign, a Union attempt to invade the rich cotton fields of East Texas and establish a presence in Texas to prevent French incursions from Mexico.  A second battle ensued further south at Pleasant Hill. Although the Confederate assault was stymied at great loss, Banks continued his retreat. The job, however, was not finished. Union forces under Major General Frederick Steele were on the move, marching from Little Rock, Arkansas to link up with Banks in Louisiana. Under the command of Major General John G. Walker, the Greyhounds, so named because of their rapid marches, were joined by Brigadier General Thomas Churchill’s Arkansas division and Brigadier General Mosby Parson’s Missouri division to confront Steele. Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, the Commander of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi, assumed overall command. Famished and their uniforms in tatters, the Texans’ march from Pleasant Hill to Arkansas would be a very long and hard one. Only their tenacious resolve would get them there.  

Major General John G. Walker

The Greyhounds

The Greyhounds consisted of four brigades, all of them from Texas. Before the Battle of Mansfield, they had fought at the Battle of Milliken’s Bend, an attempt to disrupt a Union supply line on the Mississippi River and divert Union attention from the besieged Confederate forces at Vicksburg. With the assistance of Union gunboats, African American troops desperately held off the Texans’ assault. The Greyhounds’ attack on a Union encampment during the Battle of Bayou Bourbeux was more successful. While serving in the Trans-Mississippi, especially in the disease-ridden swamps of Northeastern Louisiana, their greatest enemy was disease and a lack of proper food and clothing. Their experienced commander, John G. Walker, had served admirably under Stonewall Jackson in Virginia. Like  Stonewall, he understood the value of a spirited, well-led attack.

Major General Frederick Steele

Marches and Massacres

By the fall of 1863, the capital of Arkansas, Little Rock, had fallen to Union troops.  The southern half of the state was still in Confederate hands. The lack of supplies and troops along with guerilla attacks prevented the Union Army of Arkansas from advancing further. Despite the shortages, 11,000 men under General Steele marched out of Little Rock to link-up with Banks at Shreveport, Louisiana, the Confederate Headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department. Foraging by both sides had left much of the Arkansas countryside almost devoid of food, water and forage for the mules and horses. As a result, Steele’s troops were placed on half rations, barely enough to sustain an army on the march. Hungary and fatigued, Steele came to a halt at Camden after diverting from a march on the temporary Confederate capital at Washington to draw out the Confederate cavalry. To alleviate the food shortage, wagon trains were sent out to distant farms to forage. The first one sent out was guarded by the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment. Confederate cavalry under John S. Marmaduke and Samuel B. Maxey captured the train. What followed was one of the most atrocious acts of the war. Some of the members of the 1st Kansas were shot or bayonetted to death while trying to surrender.  The wounded were murdered as well. Confederate troops often became enraged when fighting former slaves, taking their anger out on Black prisoners. A second wagon train was captured at Mark’s Mill, bringing further misery to Steele’s troops. After learning about Banks’ defeat in Louisiana, Steele decided to march back to Little Rock. To lighten the load, tents, wagons, mess chests, meat, hard-tack and clothing were burned. To prevent the nearby Confederates from learning about their departure, civilians within their lines were held captive until they moved out.

The Saline River

Mud, Rain and Hunger

Just three weeks after Mansfield, Walker’s Texans were also hungry and fatigued. Rain fell incessantly during their march, turning dirt roads into quagmires. Steele’s troops had gained a full day’s march ahead of Smith. Because of the rain and mud, the gap was closing. At Jenkins’ Ferry, on the banks of the rain swollen Saline River, the Confederates caught up with Steele’s rearguard.  

The battlefield couldn’t have been more worse for Smith’s troops. Smith had placed Major General Sterling Price in direct command of his troops. More interested in liberating his native Missouri, he had a number of defeats on his record, especially disastrous losses at Corinth and Helena. The field itself was more of a rain fed swamp, submerging the feet of the advancing Confederates in water. Steele’s troops had constructed breastworks and abatis, blocking the road to the ferry and protecting Union troops crossing the Saline River. Securing the Union left was the nearby rain-swollen Cox Creek. Except for a couple of cleared farmlands, the right was a heavily wooded swamp. Overall, there was little space to maneuver and outflank the Union position. Any assault would have to be made head-on.

The 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment

The Battle of Jenkins' Ferry

On the morning of April 30, 1864, Price attacked the Union breastworks. The Arkansas troops were sent in first followed by the Missourians. A three gun Missouri battery, unlimbered on the battlefield, was captured by the 2nd Kansas Colored Regiment before it could fall back. Some of the battery gunners were shot or bayoneted by the 2nd Kansas - payback for Poison Spring. As it so often happened during the war, the infantry assaults on Steele’s heavily fortified position failed with heavy losses. Keeping the troops properly aligned proved difficult at best. One officer recalled, “When we got within 400 yards of the enemy, orders were given to form forward into line of battle amidst a roar of water splashing under the men’s feet so that none could hear the orders except those nearest to the officers who repeated them, but the rest saw and imitated the movement.” The water, the woods, and the breastworks made it impossible to attack the Union line with any measure of success.

The Greyhounds Attack

The Greyhounds attack met with the same tragic results.  The 14th Texas Regiment suffered heavily. One private wrote that his company had “lost about half of its men, killed and wounded. After the fight we had sergeants commanding companies and captains commanding regiments.” Lt. Colonel Robert S. Gould, commander of the 6th Texas Cavalry Battalion wrote,”Many men lost their shoes in the mud. Others fell. And their arms became wet and useless.” Three brigade commanders, Brigadier General Horace Randal, Brigadier General William R. Scurry, and Brigadier General Thomas N. Waul were wounded. Within two days, Randal and Scurry were dead. After an hour, the fruitless charges ended before a lull set in. During the lull, Steele’s troops withdrew across a pontoon bridge over the Saline. 

Aftermath

Out of 10,000 men on the Confederate side, 1,000 were casualties. Steele’s troops suffered 700 casualties. Steele didn’t follow up with his own assault.  Having destroyed almost all of his wagons and supplies, he had little choice but to march back to the safe confines of Little Rock. 

Worried about Banks returning, Smith sent the Greyhounds back to Mansfield.  Again, this led to more marching and more suffering. In one of the most amazing feats of the Civil War, or any war for that matter, the Greyhounds had marched 930 miles and fought in three pitched battles within 70 days, often without food or tents.  Though the losses were heavy, Texas would remain free from Union control until the end of the war. Walker’s Greyhounds had more than earned their sobriquet. 

Check It Out

Read Richard Lowe's fine book, Walker's Texas Division C.S.A Greyhounds of the Trans-Mississippi. This is the best book on Walker's Greyhounds. Considering the distances these Texans had to march and what they had to endure, it's remarkable what they accomplished and the price they paid for it.

Battle Flag of Walker's Texas Division

Finding Cynthia Ann Parker

 

Cynthia Ann Parker nursing her daughter Prairie Flower

The Scalp Collector

The evening rain fell in torrents, making it difficult to see in the distance. A young cattleman and scout named Charles Goodnight rode from house to house along the western edge of Parker County, trying to raise a company of volunteers to chase down a Comanche war party. A few days earlier, his neighbor, Martha Sherman, was gang-raped, scalped and shot with arrows before giving birth to a dead child. She died too - four agonizing days later.

His last stop, the dogtrot cabin of Isaac Lynn came into view. The curling smoke from its chimney inferred warmth and comfort, which belied the gruesome discovery inside. Under the glow of a burning fireplace, Goodnight found Lynn roasting an Indian scalp on a forked dogwood stick. Along with the pungent order, grease oozed from its skin, eventually becoming dry and tough, thus preserving it against any damaging moisture. After his daughter, son-in-law and their baby were killed by Indians, Lynn began amassing a collection of scalps. Goodnight’s attention was diverted by the arrival of eight volunteers to help him chase down the Comanches. Time was of the essence, or else they would disappear into the vastness of West Texas.

 Governor Houston’s Dilemma

In 1860, Comanche raids had increased sharply in Jack, Palo Pinto, Parker, and Young counties. Newly elected Texas governor, Sam Houston, told legislators, “Depredations by the Indians are so frequent that to hear of them has almost ceased to excite sympathy and attention in the interior of the state.” The U.S. Army, underpaid and overstretched, garrisoned a line of forts across Texas, but could accomplish little against the nimble Comanches. In a letter to U.S. Secretary of War John B. Floyd, Houston wrote, “Unless the Indians are fools enough to go up to a Garrison and be shot down, Garrisons will be of no use only to shelter the inmates.” He also pointed out that Federal horses were grain fed, not grass fed, and of little use in riding the vast distances in search of Indians.  Then there was the problem of money. There just wasn’t enough to pay and supply all the Rangers and volunteers needed. In desperation, Houston turned to an old political crony, Milton Tate Johnson.

 

Middleton Tate Johnson

Milton Tate Johnson Takes Command

A native of North Carolina, Johnson served two terms in the Texas Legislature and ran for governor four times, losing in each attempt. He commanded a regiment of Texas Rangers along the Trinity River. On June 6, 1849, he and Brever Major Ripley A. Arnold established a fort they named after U.S. Army General William J. Worth – Fort Worth.  Johnson also helped organize Tarrant County. He later established a cotton plantation, becoming the largest slaveholder in Tarrant County.

On March 17, 1860, Houston authorized Johnson to raise a force of Rangers. Eventually, seven companies were raised and assembled at Fort Belknap in Young County. Among them was a promising young captain named Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Fort Belknap was a U. S. Army fort abandoned after the nearby Indian reservation was closed and the Indians moved north into the Indian Territory. After a rousing parade, the problems began to emerge, the main one being a lovesick Johnson.     

Love and Rangers

Her name was Mary Louisa Givens, the English widow of a U.S. Army officer, who was suspended after his men tried to burn down their own fort near Abilene, Texas.  Johnson, himself a widower with five children, was head-over-heels to the point he abruptly left Fort Belknap to marry his sweetheart in Galveston. In a private letter to Houston, Johnson wrote, “I am bound to see her, but will be back before I am missed.”   

He was missed all right. Without a firm guiding hand, the Rangers began to drink and fight amongst themselves. A lack of food and water added to the deteriorating morale.  The Rangers, less Johnson, finally set out on June 10, 1860, to take on the Comanches. Under the command of Captain J. M. Smith, they found no Indians. The offensive failed miserably.  Under mounting criticism, Houston was forced to disband Johnson’s command.

Lawrence Sullivan Ross

The Tracking

Meanwhile the raids grew worse. The Comanches made off with a huge herd of horses. This time, the response was quicker.  Under the more competent command of Captain Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross, fifty-nine rangers, ninety-three volunteers, including Goodnight and the eight he brought from Parker County, and a detachment of twenty-one U.S. cavalrymen rode out on December 14, 1860. They rode through the Western Cross Timbers until they reached the Pease River near present day Vernon. Goodnight scouted the way, made difficult by thousands of Buffalo tracks. Through experience, he managed to discern the horse tracks from those of the buffalo.  A break came when he discovered Martha Sherman’s family bible. Comanches often took books during raids, using the paper to pad their shields against bullets. Another sign was the nearby chittam trees, which bore a berry Comanches craved. Looking over the ground around the trees, Goodnight saw signs they were not more than ten minutes away. A freshwater creek, Mule Creek, was close by. It was likely the Comanches were camping there.

Ross found them first. Only two hundred miles away were eight or nine grass huts. Not exactly a whole Comanche village filled with menacing warriors, but more of a camp used to process buffalo meat. The Indians were casually packing-up to leave, never noticing what was about to happen. The cavalry
detachment broke away to block of the Indians escape route. The Rangers charged head on, hitting the Comanche camp like a cue ball hitting racked billiard balls. The Indians scattered in all directions. The Rangers shot down squaws and men alike. Ross shot down one Comanche later identified as a chief, Peta Nocona, though Comanche witnesses later testified that it wasn’t him. During the battle of what was latter called The Battle of Pease River, seven Comanches were killed during the charge. Four of them were women. Ranger Hiram Rogers later recalled, “but I am not very proud of it. That was not a battle at all, but just a killing of squaws.”

 

Cynthia Ann

Among the female captives, Ross made a startling discovery. One of the squaws was a blue-eyed Caucasian, holding a baby. Her hair was cropped short in Comanche fashion. Covered with blood and grease from handling buffalo carcasses, she called herself Naudah and was taken captive as a child, but having little recollection of how it happened. Mother and child were taken to Camp Cooper in Throckmorton County. While there, it was revealed she was Cynthia Ann Parker, captured by the Comanches at the age of nine, brought up Comanche, and married to the slain Peta Nocona. Cynthia Ann had two sons and a daughter named Prairie Flower, who was the only child she had with her. Now thirty-three years old, she knew little English and felt more captured than rescued. Cynthia Ann agreed to live with her Uncle Isaac at his farm near Fort Worth, but she was more the grieving Comanche widow than the grateful, long-lost niece finally returning home. She slept on the floor and spent hours by a campfire staring up at the stars, depressed by the loss of her husband and not being able to see her sons. When Prairie Flower died of a fever, she mourned in the Plains Indian way by cutting herself along the arms and breast. Cynthia Ann Parker died in 1870 of an unknown illness, no doubt exacerbated by a broken heart. One of her surviving sons would grow up to become the last great chief of the Comanches - Quannah Parker.

 

Check It Out

Check out the movie, “The Searchers,” based on the novel by Alan Le May about the kidnapping of a Caucasian girl by Comanches. The girl’s half crazed uncle, played by John Wayne, conducts a search for her.

Goodnight Stakes His Claim

Charles Goodnight

In 1876, a bullish, weather-beaten man gazed off into the horizon while scratching his beard. The featureless, boundless expanse of the Texas Panhandle made it difficult to navigate. For days, he and his Mexican guide searched on horseback for a canyon, an anomalous, jagged gash in the Panhandle plains. One that could contain a massive Longhorn cattle herd and their dedicated cowhands. Finally, they found their destination - Palo Duro Canyon. After looking over the deep canyon with its towering cliffs, well-watered pasture, and cedar trees, the old trail herder liked what he saw. One of the greatest cattle barons in U. S. history, Charles Goodnight, had found the location for his new ranch.  

 

Bio

Goodnight liked to brag he was born at the same time as the Republic of Texas, March 5, 1836, in Macoupin County, Illinois. In 1845, his family journeyed 800 miles to Milam County, Texas. It was there he learned to hunt and track while hiring himself out to work at neighboring farms and plantations. Ten years later, he and his stepbrother were herding cattle in the Brazos Valley to Palo Pinto County where he eventually moved his mother and siblings. It was there he would meet the man who would dramatically change his life - Oliver Loving. Together they ran cattle through the Indian Territory, Kansas and Colorado. During the Civil War, Goodnight fought Comanches as a Texas Ranger, assisting in the recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker, the famed Anglo mother of Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. After the war, Goodnight and Loving established the Goodnight-Loving trail stretching from South Central Texas to Wyoming. Loving was killed fighting Indians. Goodnight had his body sent back to his home in Weatherford, Texas for burial. In 1869, he established his Rock Canyon Ranch near Pueblo, Colorado. While there, he married Molly Dyer, a schoolteacher from Weatherford. Settling into ranch life proved short-lived, Goodnight lost most of his holdings during the Panic of 1873. To recoup his losses, he decided to make a fresh start, ranching in the remote grasslands of the Texas Panhandle.   

The Panhandle

After sending Molly to California to live with relatives, Goodnight gathered a herd of sixteen hundred longhorn cattle near Trinidad, Colorado before herding them across the Llano Estacado, a region few traveled much less settled. The Comanches and Kiowas, who once inhabited the region, were now corralled in their Southwest Oklahoma reservations after the 1874-1875 Red River War. Goodnight had some knowledge of the Panhandle from his service with the Texas Rangers, but no full understanding of what lie ahead. What did lie ahead was a region of buffalo hunters, Indian traders, and bandits on the lookout for horses and cattle to steal. The most dangerous being a demented, half-French, half-Mexican gunfighter named Sostenes Archiveque; who claimed to have killed 23 Americans before being run out of New Mexico.  Adding to this seedy array were the sheepherders who weren’t exactly thrilled to share their land with cattle ranchers. What little law and order there was came  from distant army forts. The nearest Texas civilian court of law was over two hundred miles away in Henrietta. Law, for the most part, was law of the six-gun or rope.

Home Ranch

After herding his cattle into the canyon, Goodnight’s cowhands chased off any nearby grazing buffalo herds by firing their six-shooters at their feet, setting off a massive buffalo stampede out of the canyon. Next, they built corrals, a house and a smokehouse. Goodnight christened his collection of buildings and cattle the “Home Ranch.” Provisions were shipped by wagon from Colorado or Kansas. During shortages, food, namely buffalo, antelope and wild turkeys, were hunted on the plains.  Highly sought tobacco, that was either smoked or chewed, was replaced with coffee grinds.   

The Negotiations

Dutch Henry Born

While on the way back from buying provisions, Goodnight encountered one of Old West’s most notorious horse thieves, Dutch Henry Born, a German immigrant and former scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Not one to settle for a menial job, Dutch Henry turned to theft, specializing in Indian ponies and mules. After introducing himself, Goodnight  and Dutch Henry reached an agreement.  Dutch Henry’s band of horse thieves would not cross into Goodnight’s ranch and face his well-armed cowhands.  In return, the land above the Salt Fork of the Red River was Dutch’s to plunder. The deal was sealed over a bottle of French brandy. Surprisingly, Dutch honored the agreement. 

The sheepherders, on the other hand, were a touchy issue. For years, prior to Goodnight’s arrival, vast herds of sheep or pastores were herded out of Las Vegas, New Mexico into the Panhandle for winter grazing. In the spring, the sheep were returned to Las Vegas for shearing. At that time, there were no fences. Until the arrival of barbed wire, custom dictated boundaries. Respecting those customs was another matter. When a pastores drifted into Goodnight’s ranch, his cowhands herded them into the Canadian River, drowning four to five hundred sheep. A deputy arrived from Las Vegas and arrested the guilty party. Goodnight was forced to pay damages for their release. In an agreement with the sheepherder leaders or mayordomos, Goodnight would keep his cattle out of the Canadian River Valley. The sheepherders would stay out of the Palo Duro Canyon.  

John George Adair

The Money

Like any growing business, you need money.  Money to buy provisions, buy cattle, buy land, lobby government officials, and pay the ranch hands. The problem was where to get it.  For Goodnight, the solution was investment. The investment, however, came from an unlikely source, an Irishman and heir to a large estate in Rathdair, Ireland - John George Adair. Trained for diplomatic service, he decided finance was more to his liking. In 1866, Adair established a brokerage firm in New York, getting rich by lending to the English at low interest rates and lending to Americans at higher rates. His wife, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, was an attractive, widowed New York socialite. Both of them had a taste for the sporting life and wanted to go out west to hunt buffalo. No buffalo were killed, but Adair did accidentally shoot and killed his horse, and almost himself, when his horse stepped into a prairie dog hole. Nevertheless, the West fascinated him, and he moved his brokerage firm to Denver in 1875. It was there he met Charles Goodnight, who invited him and his wife to his new ranch in Texas. Goodnight’s wife, Molly, would accompany the Adairs and her husband. In 1877, the Goodnights, the Adairs, four wagons, a light ambulance, and a hundred head of short-horned Durham bulls set out from Trinidad for the Texas Panhandle. 

Anxious to get into the cattle industry, Adair agreed to invest nearly $500,000 at 10% interest for a five year period. The name of the ranch was changed to the JA (Adair’s initials) Ranch. Goodnight would manage the ranch for an annual salary of $2,500. With the investment money, Goodnight purchased 24,000 acres in a scattered, elongated crazy-quilt fashion that included crucial hayfields and watering holes. By doing so, he was able to gain control of the entire canyon.

Paving the way for such acquisitions was the firm of Gunter, Munson and Summerfield, surveyors and lawyers  out of Sherman, Texas. Jot Gunter traded in land certificates like baseball cards. Millions of Texas acres were granted to railroads, corporations and cash-laden individuals. Goodnight’s cattle expertise held him in good stead with the firm, who was more than eager to entice him with additional acres. He later recalled, “I bought land anywhere and everywhere I could get it, provided I could get it right. I paid different prices for it. Some land cost me twenty cents per acre, some twenty-five, som thirty, and some thirty-five cents per acre.” 

In five years, Adair made a profit of $512,000. After 1878, the JA Ranch went through a period of expansion. The buffalo were killed off by hunters, leaving the grass to the cattle.  Improved breeds, artificial watering holes and barbed wire followed.  Goodnight's herd grew to 100,000 head. More land adjacent to the canyon was purchased from Gunter, including the Tule and Quitaque Ranches. Through Goodnight's careful guidance, the JA Ranch became the best managed ranch on the plains.

Check It Out

Check out J. Evetts Haley's fine book, "Charles Goodnight Cowman and Plainsman." Goodnight's life is like a Hollywood western, but better.