Shock and Awe on Horseback: The Cavalry Tactics of Terry's Texas Rangers

On a cold, rainy morning, Colonel Tom Harrison, of the 8th Texas Cavalry, scanned the field ahead with his binoculars, looking for Union activity.  With sabers drawn, the15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment came into view. Harrison smiled before turning to his men. “Now boys, we will have some fun,” he said. “There is a regiment out there preparing to charge us with sabers. Let them come nearly close enough to strike and then feed them with buckshot.” The Pennsylvanians charged while the Texans cooly stood their ground. Before they could close in with their sabers, the Texans released a devastating volley, emptying many saddles and forcing the survivors to retreat. For the 15th Pennsylvania, It was a painful lesson learned; sabers and swords were no longer useful in a cavalry fight, especially when you’re up against Terry’s Texas Rangers.

Since the Spanish Colonial Period, Texans learned the value of a good horse and overwhelming firepower.  Because of the long distances involved and the deadly adversaries they faced, such as  Mexican lancers and Comanche warriors, cavalry became the military arm of choice for Texans. Known as the greatest horsemen on the American continent, if not the world, it was useless to confront Comanches with footslogging infantry and their mule-driven supply wagons. Texans realized a different approach was needed on the vast, hostile frontier. From the Comanches and Kiowas, they learned the tactics of mobile warfare.  From the Mexicans, they learned the basics of frontier horsemanship and riding apparel. Marksmanship came from their ancestors in the United States, especially from states like Tennessee known for  firearm expertise such as the use of the long barrel musket.  With the formation of the Texas Rangers, all that learning and experience was about to pay off.

Organized in September 1861 by Benjamin F. Terry and Thomas Lubbock, the 8th Texas Cavalry or Terry’s Texas Rangers were recruited mostly from the central and gulf coast regions of Texas. Each man was to furnish his own pair of revolvers, horse, bridle, saddle, and rifle or shotgun. As the war progressed, the double barrel shotgun became their chosen weapon.  As for revolvers, the.36 caliber Colt Navy revolver was the overwhelming favorite.  Because of the problem of reloading while riding, each ranger carried 4 to 5 revolvers.

                                           

To widen the scattering of the shot, the shotgun barrels were shortened.  It also made the shotgun easier to shoot on horseback. Though their accuracy was compromised, they were deadly at close range.  One shotgun blast could wound or kill more than one man. By closing in quickly with their horses and then releasing a massive shotgun volley, a Union line of cavalry or infantry could disintegrate into confusion and chaos, especially if they were in the middle of reloading. According to one Ranger, “One volley from the shotguns into their ranks scattered these saber men into useless fragments of a force.”

A preview of coming attractions came at Woodsonville, Kentucky on December 17, 1861. Colonel August Willich, of the 32nd Indiana Infantry, gave the best description of the Rangers’ attack: “With lightening speed, under infernal yelling, great numbers of Texas Rangers rushed upon our whole force,  some of them even between them, and opened fire with rifles and revolvers.” Paired with sheer audacity, it was a method of attack the Rangers excelled at until the end of the war.

Texas Civil War Museum To Close For Good

Texas Civil War Museum

On October 31, 2024, The Texas Civil War Museum will close forever. After 15 years, Ray and Judy Richey have decided to retire. One of the best collections of Civil War artifacts will no longer be available for public viewing. The building has been sold and the artifacts will be sold individually on consignment by The Horse Soldier Antiques of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Except for its Facebook page, the museum website has been taken down.

The museum is a Civil War artifact museum with emphasis on weapons, uniforms, flags, and equipment used by Union and Confederate soldiers. In addition, one of the best collections of Victorian Era dresses in the country is featured. Among the museum's many artifacts are a presentation sword that belonged to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General Jeb Stuart’s headquarters flag, and Major General Phill Sheridan’s saber.  

Though public opinion was mostly favorable, journalists roundly condemned the museum for not placing enough emphasis on or completely avoiding the issue of slavery. Because the museum is located in the Fort Worth suburb of White Settlement, they couldn’t resist tying the museum to the city’s racist sounding name. Many may rejoice in its closing, but you will never see a collection like this in Texas again-period!

Funding for private museums is often difficult to obtain and is never a sure thing, especially when you have to rely on a large steady stream of paying visitors. Despite the revenue problems, Ray always kept the admission fees low. It was his dream to present his collection to the public. When a civil war diorama, constructed by Arizona high school students, was destroyed by the curator of a Texas military history museum, Ray put up the money for its replacement, unveiled it at the Texas Capitol, and had it placed at the Texas Civil War Museum. To this day, it is the museum’s largest draw. That’s the kind of man he is. 

Though the film may be a bit outdated and the sale of Confederate-themed souvenirs raises eyebrows, there is no intent to propagate racism, domestic terrorism, the Confederate cause or any cause for that matter. Ray and Judy have provided a wonderful gift to Texas that future generations will never see and present generations can only remember through iPhone photos.  

Victorio

Victorio

Mescalero Culture

For centuries, the Apache Indians inhabited the Southwest region of the United Sates and Northern Mexico. The Mescalero Apaches made their homes in present-day New Mexico and the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. A nomadic, hunter-gatherer people, they lived off the plant that gave them their name, the desert Mescal plant. Like other Apache tribes, there was no overall tribal government. Instead, the Mescalero were divided into 20 to 30 member bands, usually based on family affiliations. In times of conflict, they gathered together under a leader who had proven himself in battle or possessed spiritual skills. They lived in brush shelters called “wicki-ups” or crude teepees made of animal hides.

War With The Spanish

Considered peaceful at first by the Spanish Conquistadores, attitudes changed when those same Spaniards tried to enslave them. The ensuing war led to whole villages and ranches in New Mexico being laid waste, making a mockery of Spanish authority. By the end of the 1700’s and after years of bloody conflict, the Apaches and Spaniards were finally at peace. After Mexico gained its independence in 1824, the war was renewed.

Raiding

Although the desert provided them with sustenance, the Mescalero’s livelihood was raiding.  Mescalero warriors targeted villages in the New Mexico territory, West Texas, and the Mexican State of Coahuila for livestock, horses and captives, mostly females and children. Military force, treachery and treaties did little to overcome the Mescalero; who excelled in guerrilla, hit and run tactics before holing up in remote mountain ranges.

Misery at Bosque Rodondo

After New Mexico and Texas were acquired by the United States, the Mescalero targeted the newly arriving settlers from their camps in the Guadalupe and Davis Mountains. Wagon trains in route to the California gold fields were often attacked, leaving a visible trail of human remains and burnt wagons. In response, a number of U. S. Army forts were established in West Texas and New Mexico to protect residents from Mescalero raids. During the Civil War, Union forces from California, under the command of Brigadier General James Carlton, and with the assistance of famed frontier scout Kit Carson, established martial law in New Mexico.  Carlton adopted a harsh, shoot-on-sight policy toward the Mescalero and Navajos.  Both tribes, who intensely disliked each other, were placed in a dreadful, military-run reservation in Southern New Mexico called Bosque Redondo. Here, the Indians were to establish farms which failed dramatically due to drought, sudden floods and worms. The nearby salty Pecos River was a poor source of drinking water and made the Indians sick. To make matters worse, disease and conflicts with renegade bands of Navajos made conditions intolerable.

Problems On The Reservation

In 1865, the Mescalero began leaving the reservation in small groups and made their way back to their ancestral homes in the mountains. A total failure, Bosque Redondo was closed. In its place, a new reservation system was adopted; the San Carlos Agency in Arizona was established for the Apaches.  After the Mescalero bands were rounded up and placed on the reservation, problems quickly arose, mostly from white squatters looking to exploit the region’s mineral wealth or sell the Indians cheap whiskey, corrupt U. S. Government officials who cheated them, malnourishment, and U. S. soldiers who would rather shoot them than reach an understanding. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant established a Board of Indian Commissioners to manage the reservations. In an abrupt departure from military control, agents from the various Protestant denominations were appointed to train Native Americans in farming and Christianity, though still under the watchful and scornful eye of the U. S. Army. 

The Rise Of Victorio

From among the many Apache bands a skillful leader and tactician arose that would frustrate the U. S. Army and Mexican militias for many months to come. A Mexican by birth, Victorio was probably born around 1825 in Chihuahua City prior to his abduction by the Apaches during a raid.  While growing up, he learned Apache customs and war tactics under his mentor, the great Apache Chief Mangas Colorados, who was later tortured, killed and beheaded by U. S. soldiers. Defiant toward U. S. authority, Victorio became the leader of a mixed band of Mescalero and Mimbrenos Apaches. On November 10, 1877, Victoria and his band left San Carlos for Ojo Caliente in New Mexico - a sacred place for the Mescalero. The U. S. Government held to its policy of concentration; the Mescalero were to be forcibly brought back to the San Carlos Agency. Victorio had other plans.  With 80 men, he departed for the mountains in August 1878.  What followed was a game of cat and mouse.  Victorio’s warriors, who never numbered more than 250, would raid ranches and villages and then head for the mountains. The U. S. Cavalry would give chase until Victorio ambushed them, took their horses, and disappeared across the U. S. Border with Mexico. 

Ambush

At an army post near Ojo Caliente, Mescalero warriors killed 7 army privates and made off with 47 horses, practically dismounting the army post’s garrison. Troops from Fort Bayard followed Victorio’s trail until they were ambushed at the headwaters of the Animas River.  Facing annihilation, the troops were forced to retreat on foot, leaving 53 of their horses behind. Herding his captured horses before him, Victorio found refuge in the Candelaria Mountains in the Mexican State of Chihuahua. A militia unit from the village of Carrizal discovered Victorio’s camp before recklessly attacking it.  True to form, Victorio ambushed them, killing 30 Mexicans.  Ten Texas Rangers crossed the border to assist the panicked Mexicans, but the Indians were long gone. 

Fight At Hembrillo Canyon

Colonel Edward Hatch came down from Santa Fe to head up a thousand man force to subdue Victorio. According to his plan, soldiers and Indian scouts were to converge on New Mexico from every direction to trap him. Like many military plans, it looked better on paper as compared to its actual execution.  As with any desert campaign that involved men, horses and mules, you had to have access to water, something that wasn’t readily available in the arid Southwest. A column of thirsty cavalry, which included the famed Buffalo Soldiers under Captain Henry Carroll, went looking for a spring in the steep-walled Hembrillo Canyon.  What they found was a well-laid ambush. Carroll’s seventy-one dismounted men were penned down. Mad with thirst, many of their horses had bolted for the nearby spring which was held by the Apaches. A detachment from the 6th Cavalry arrived on the scene, driving away the Mescalero. Carroll and 7 of his buffalo soldiers were wounded.  Again,Victorio got away.

Death At Tres Castillos

After the fight at Hembrillo Canyon, Victorio headed back into the Candelaria Mountains across the Rio Grande.  By the fall of 1880, time was running out for Victorio.  After a failed attempt to liberate fellow Mescaleros from San Carlos, the U. S. Cavalry, Texas Rangers, militia companies and citizen posses were all on the hunt.  That didn’t stop small bands of Victorio’s followers from jumping civilian parties in Texas, killing the chief engineer of the Texas Pacific Railroad. The end came in Mexico, south of El Paso, in the Tres Castillos Mountains.  Mexican forces surrounded his camp on October 9, 1880, killing 86 warriors.  Though his body was never identified, it was believed he committed suicide rather than face certain death from the hated Mexicans.  In a macabre procession, Mescalero scalps, attached to poles, were displayed to the residents of Chihuahua City. One esteemed writer calculated that Victorio’s band “seldom more than seventy-five strong, had taken the lives of more than one thousand white’s and Mexicans while eluding three American cavalry regiments, two American infantry regiments, a huge number of Mexican troops, and a contingent of Texas Rangers.”

The Miraculous Survivals of Private Nance - Part 2

Waxahachie Confederate Powder Mill Site

Recuperation and a New Job

After almost two months of recuperation at the family farm in Dallas County, David Nance packed his mule and horse for his return to Arkansas. He arrived in Little Rock on December 5,1862 and then proceeded to Des Arc, where Parson’s Cavalry Brigade was bivouacked. It was there he learned of his new assignment, making gunpowder in Waxahachie, Texas. Nance had made an unnecessary 800-mile trip due to the fault of his commanding officer. He mailed his assignment order to the wrong address. To protect his son from the fighting that nearly killed him, Nance’s father, Quill, arranged to have him work for a former neighbor, William Rowen; who built a Confederate powder mill in Waxahachie. Unknown to Quill, he had inadvertently placed his son in a very hazardous undertaking.

The Hazards of Gunpowder

Confederate gunpowder production during the Civil War, especially in the hands of untrained amateurs, is rife with accidental explosions that killed dozens outright or burned them so horribly, they died a short time later. An explosion at the Brown Island Powder Works near Richmond killed twenty-nine employees, mostly teenage girls.  At the Jackson Arsenal in Jackson, Mississippi, forty-seven were blown to pieces. Into this deadly world stepped David Nance - a total novice.

The Waxahachie Powder Mill

The Waxahachie Powder Mill consisted mainly of three barn-like structures: a furnace shed, a powder house, and a rolling mill, crudely powered by a treadwheel with ten little mules trotting atop it. The furnace shed produced charcoal from willow and maple wood brought in by local woodcutters. Afterwards, the charcoal was mixed with sulfur to form a gray compound called mash. In a cauldron, potassium nitrate or saltpeter was heated before being rinsed and crushed into powder.  The nitrate and mash were transported by tramcar to the mill where Nance worked.  Both were poured together into ten mortars, where they were blended and crushed with mule-powered cylinders into a mill cake, later shaved into gunpowder. From there the gunpowder was taken to the powder house and poured into wooded kegs.

A Lack of Safety

With no standard safety procedures in place and a hot, filthy powder mill with minimal ventilation, an explosion was bound to occur. To make matters worse, there were only five workers, including Nance, for the whole tedious, backbreaking operation. The Confederacy’s demand for manpower along with the government’s conscription act left few men available to work in munitions plants. After working long hours to meet their quotas, fatigue set in, increasing the likelihood of a devastating accident.

Explosion

The accident came soon enough on April 29,1863. In one of the mortars, an explosion set off a chain of explosions that blew Nance and two of his co-workers off their feet and away from a quick exit. Before he could get out of the mill, his gunpowder saturated clothes were set on fire. Severely burned, he managed to tear them off before getting outside and diving into a well. His two co-workers, including the mill owner Rowen, became human torches. Totally in flames, they also dived into the well.  Both died from their burns.  Luckily and once again, Nance survived.  With the exception of the powder house, the powder mill was a total loss. Though the cause was never determined, it was likely a spark from one of the mortar’s mixing cylinders that set off the powder. Recuperating at home for the second time, Nance had time to reflect:

“In the battle of Cache River, the first ball fired from the enemy’s guns hit me; and when I tried a second time to shoot at a man, a stray ball from a gun right at me prevented me again. Then the enemy captured me and I got away a half hour later. Then all who had erysipelas in my ward at St. John’s hospital died but me, and now in this awful explosion I alone was left again. These facts impressed me in a way I cannot describe.”

Return to Service

After a summer of searing pain while learning to move his limbs again, Nance worked two weeks in his uncle’s wool-processing plant before traveling to Louisiana. Along the way, he saw evidence of a collapsing Confederate army: Low moral, emaciated soldiers dressed in lice-infested rags, pitifully thin horses, dilapidated wagons, and shortages of everything. Food was no longer supplied solely by army purchase, but pilfered by the soldiers themselves from nearby farms and shops at the expense of outraged citizens. 

Duty in Louisiana

Nance rejoined his brigade at Vienna, Louisiana. Parson’s Brigade spent the fall and winter months performing a variety of duties, mostly scouting Union positions or hunting feral hogs for the Central Commissary and Rations Depot in Shreveport. The least likable of duties was the round up of draft dodgers and deserters in Louisiana, Arkansas and The Indian Territory.  After their arrest, they were herded to Shreveport to fill the army’s depleted ranks. Nance was able to replace his old double barrel shotgun with a more accurate Enfield rifle. He would not have it for long.

The Red River Campaign

The spring of 1864 brought a long anticipated Union offensive up the Red River with the goal of capturing Shreveport, the Confederate headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department.  From there, Union troops, under Major General Nathaniel Banks, would march into East Texas, confiscating cotton along the way for New England textile mills. Protected by ironclad gunboats, under Admiral David D. Porter, Banks’ 51,000 men appeared unstoppable in the face of Major General Richard Taylor’s threadbare, paltry 15,000. Confederate cavalry under the redoubtable Tom Green harassed Banks’ every move, buying time for Taylor to assemble his troops at Mansfield, just south of Shreveport. Hampered by a massive column of plodding supply wagons along a narrow, muddy road and the unbearable, humid climate, Banks was defeated by Taylor. Banks retreated toward the safety of his gunboats on the Red River.  Parsons’ Brigade, held in reserve during the battle, followed Banks toward Alexandria. Along the way, they attempted to stop Porter’s gunboats and transports but failed due largely to the gunboats’ awesome firepower, which decapitated General Green with a well placed shot. The Confederates could only watch and take potshots while the boats made their escape. 

Wounded at Yellow Bayou

Taylor’s pursuit of Banks ended at Yellow Bayou, where Banks’ remaining troops crossed the Atchafalaya River and then boarded steam transports bound for New Orleans. To protect the retreating troops, a defensive line, next to a former Confederate fort, was established.  Confederate troops, under General J. A. Wharton, who replaced Tom Green, launched a foolhardy charge to break the Union line. Using double canister shots, Union artillery decimated the Confederate ranks. Again, Nance was wounded when a minie ball struck his Enfield and then ricocheted into his chest, just behind his heart.  His Enfield obliterated, he managed to make it to a trench, where he probably passed out. After two fruitless charges, Wharton’s troops fell back, almost leaving Nance to certain capture. He bolted from the trench in time for a Union volley to graze his neck, severing an artery.  Luckily, a friend stopped the bleeding from Nance’s neck wound. A field surgeon removed the minie ball from his back.  

Texas Homecoming

Mercifully, Yellow Bayou would be Nance’s last battle. He survived the remaining months of the war, before returning home. Now a civilian, Nance farmed land his father had given him, becoming prosperous from raising wheat and oats, both in heavy demand after the war. He married and raised four children at his farm in Bonham, Texas. David Nance died at the age of eighty-two at his family farm in Dallas County.  He is buried at the William Rawlings Cemetery near Lancaster.

 

 

The Miraculous Survivals of Private Nance - Part 1

 

Texas Cavalry

Early Years and Enlistment

During the Civil War, death came sudden and came often.  Whether it was from a battle wound, effects of weather, accident, or disease, chances were slim for survival.  Private David Carey Nance of Parson’s Texas Cavalry seemed to buck the odds, surviving bullet wounds, disease and a massive explosion that flattened most of a Texas town. 

Like most young Texans at the beginning of the war, Nance saw the war as a chance for adventure while defending his state from Federal invasion.  Born on February 2, 1843 in Case County, Illinois, he spent his youth working the family farm near Cedar Hill, a few miles southwest of Dallas.  The Nance family was against secession, opposed to slavery, but anti-abolitionist.  A rash of fires in Dallas led many to believe an abolitionist plot was at work to incite a slave revolt in North Texas.  Three suspected abolitionist preachers from the North were beaten before being driven out of town while dozens of suspected slaves were whipped.  Though no arsonist was found, war sentiment increased.  After Fort Sumter, local companies were formed for service in the Confederate Army.  Many young men in Nance’s home county enrolled in three companies that became attached to Colonel William Parson’s 12th Texas Cavalry Regiment.  Against the wishes of his bible-thumping father, Nance enlisted.  Although delayed by illness, bad weather, and pursuit by a hungry pack of wolves, he and his horse caught up with his company outside of Houston at Sims Bayou.

Camp Herbert Woes

By December 1861, the 12th Cavalry’s camp was a muddy shantytown of various tents, canvass overhangs and crude wigwams made of pine limbs.  Dubbed Camp Hebert in honor of the District Commander of Texas, General Paul Hebert, its purpose was to guard the railroad track and telegraph lines between Galveston and Houston.  Like many Confederate camps early in the war, disease, not bullets, was the biggest killer.  Plagued by an incessant cold rain and living in a morass of knee deep mud, more than forty-eight men succumbed to pneumonia and typhoid, referred to back then as “Bayou Fever.”  One of Nance’s messmates, Billy Parsons, fell victim to disease.  Depression followed in Camp Herbert, but quickly subsided after an announcement from Colonel Parson.  The 12th was heading to Missouri or Kentucky.

Ride to Arkansas

The Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge, however, led to a change in destination.  After the battle, Major General Earl Van Dorn marched his army into Mississippi to assist Major General Albert Sidney Johnston in his attack on Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant.  Arkansas was stripped bare of manpower, arms and supplies.  A desperate call for troops was sent out.  Newly appointed General Thomas Hindman declared martial law in Little Rock while raising an army.  Parson’s Texans were appropriated to help defend Arkansas.  Victorious at Pea Ridge, General Samuel Curtis’ troops marched southeast along the White River, burning farms and stealing livestock along the way.  Upon reaching Batesville, he rendezvoused with troops under General Frederick Steele, arriving from Southeastern Missouri.  Ordered to capture Little Rock, Curtis was hit with a wave of partisan attacks, slowing his advance and buying time for Hindman to bolster his defenses.

Shot at Cache River

After a two-week furlough and a bout with pneumonia at the family farm,  Nance headed to Little Rock.  Placed under the command of a former Arkansas politician, Albert Rusk, Confederate cavalry units camped at Searcy, on the move to scout and engage Curtis.  Humidity and mosquitoes plagued the cavalrymen, forcing them to cover themselves with blankets to repel the pesky insects.  On July 6, 1862, the 12th and 16th Texas regiments arrived at the Cache River to hold the James Ferry and prevent Union troops from crossing.  The 12th camped six miles south of James Ferry on the Des Arc Road.  The following morning, Parson’s asked for 70 volunteers to form an advance guard further up the road.  Nance was among 20 who volunteered to form a skirmish line ahead of the advance guard, watching for any Union activity ahead.  Nance found himself at the furthest and most vulnerable point in the line.  Alone in a Cypress swamp, Nance suddenly saw Federal cavalry 40 yards away.  They immediately opened fire, wounding Nance twice in throat.  Both he and his horse, droppedl into the swamp.  Such wounds were always fatal; the trachea was damaged, sometimes severed, causing blood to flow into the lungs.  Using a ripped portion of his shirt to form a crude bandage for his neck, Nance crawled in the mud and hid under a fallen tree.  He didn’t remain hidden long.  “The enemy moved up, and I was in their midst, but they had not discovered me,” wrote Nance.  “My hat, clothes and gun were gone, but I had side arms left which I tried to use.  Just then another ball crashed through my shoulder as I lay along. Then I was helpless, with three crimson streams flowing fast; and I thought my time was short.”  A union cavalryman put a pistol to his forehead but was stopped short of pulling the trigger by a sympathetic captain; who forced him to stand up and then led him to a field hospital.  Covered in blood, gore and mud, Nance was left for dead in a grassy knoll among dead and critically wounded soldiers.  After thirty minutes, he managed to crawl back into the brush without being detected by his guards.  An hour later, his bloody and distorted form was discovered by fellow Texans.  Nance was loaded into a wagon bound for a hospital at Des Arc, Arkansas.  During the bumpy two hour ride, the other two wounded men with him passed away.  After the wagon arrived, Nance managed to lower himself from the wagon and incredibly walked up a flight of stairs to his hospital room. 

The fight at Cache River was a bloody tactical win for Curtis but a strategic loss for his campaign.  Casualties amounted to 63 for the Union and 90 to 250 for the Confederacy.  Short on supplies, harassed by Confederate cavalry, and unable to live off the country, he gave up his attempt to capture Little Rock, marching instead to Helena where Mississippi River steamboats could supply him.  The capture of Little Rock was delayed for a year.

Hospital Agony

Nance’s wounds were cleaned and bandaged.  Assured that no vital organs were damaged, he went to sleep on a real bed, but was kept awake most the night by a mortally wounded soldier; who moaned all night until his death the following morning.  His face purple and swollen, his jaws were too sore to function, preventing him from eating.  On July 10, Nance was transferred to a military hospital at Little Rock, sixty miles away.  The mule driven wagon was anything but comfortable; blow flies tried to get at his wounds while dust added to his difficulty in breathing.  The five story St. John’s College hospital held 500 sick and wounded patients.  An average of eight patients died each day.  Nance wrote, “Soldiers constituting so-called  undertaking details made regular visits to the wards twice a day collecting bodies for burial.”  As if his wounds were not bad enough, he came down with erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection characterized by a painful red rash caused by unclean, poorly bandaged wounds.  Placed in the erysipelas ward, Nance endured two weeks of further agony.  Though he survived his wounds, his physician didn’t.  He died from disease.  Granted a sixty day furlough, Private Nance headed back to Texas and his family.  What awaited him at home would be far worse than his wounding at Cache River. 

The Man Who Shot Dillinger

 

Chales Winstead

The Great Depression was a time of grinding poverty, shanty towns, soup lines, and trains laden with tattered hoboes looking for work.  Thousands lost their homes and farms to foreclosure.  As a result, many blamed the banks for their misfortunes.  Gangsters, such as “Baby Face” Nelson, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Alvin Karpis, and John Dillinger caught the public’s imagination.  Because they robbed the hated banks, they were often seen as heroes and modern day Robin Hoods.  Nevertheless, they shot people, especially police officers and bank employees with families to support.  The money they robbed didn’t go toward charities for the poor, but toward their own pockets. 

 

Back then, bank robberies were committed with an impunity that would dumbfound today’s  innocent, law-abiding public.  During the twenties, law enforcement in major cities, such as Chicago, were hampered by corruption, stingy budgets, and state and local jurisdictions that wouldn’t cooperate with each other.   To make matters worse, the bank robbers were heavily armed with submachine guns, automatic rifles, and shotguns, awesome military grade firepower the police could barely counter.  By the time police officers and sheriff deputies gave chase, the criminals were in another state jurisdiction, holed-up in back-alley apartments and remote farm houses, except for Bonnie and Clyde; who mostly just lived in their car.  Their stolen money could buy a whole lot of underworld support, especially informants who could warn them if the law was getting too close.  If you had the money and corrupt officials that looked the other way - crime paid!

 

That all changed during the early thirties with the emergence of the federal government’s crime fighting unit - the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI.  Under the leadership of a former government attorney, J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI would become the nation’s premier law enforcement agency.  A self-disciplined, neatness freak, who lived with his mother, Hoover surrounded himself with suited, well-groomed, extremely loyal agents, mostly dapper Southern boys with law degrees.  However, they were also unarmed investigators with little, if any, police experience.  Hoover himself had never arrested anyone.  Snappy appearances were great for newspaper photos, but not so great for armed manhunts that could get you killed during a gunfight.  What the FBI needed to compensate for its youthful inexperience, especially against heavily armed, hardened gangsters, was a tough, frontier approach to law enforcement.  What better place to look than Texas.

 

Referred to as the “Cowboys,” these grizzled FBI agents from the Southwest weren’t anything like Hoover’s “young and grateful” type.  They wore cowboy hats, chewed and spit tobacco, drank, and packed oversize revolvers.  But more important, they could look you straight in the eye, and without hesitation, shoot you dead.  Charles Winstead, who often carried a .357 Magnum revolver, fit that type “to a T.”

 

Charles “Charlie” Winstead was born in Sherman, Texas on May 25th, 1891.  Unlike the buff, silent character portrayed by the actor Stephen Lang, in the movie “Public Enemies,” he was 5 feet, seven inches tall and weighed only 135 pounds.  Winstead was anything but silent, if riled, he wouldn’t hold back, vocally or physically; a trait that would eventually cost him.  In one incident, he struck a deliveryman who called him an “sob” over a parking space.  Before joining the FBI, Winstead served in the army during World War I and was a deputy sheriff in a number of Texas counties.  After joining the FBI, he was sent to the Dallas field office where he participated in unsuccessful hunts for Bonnie and Clyde and “Machine Gun” Kelly.  Though lacking in education, Winstead had a keen insight into the criminal mind and could conduct an investigation.  His big break came with his arrest of 1920’s bank robber Harvey Bailey in Rhome, Oklahoma.  Bailey was referred to as the “Dean of Bank Robbers.” So successful at his profession, he opened a chain of car washes and gas stations throughout South Chicago, eventually losing it all in the 1929 stock market crash.   In May, 1934, Winstead boarded an airplane at Dallas’ Love Field for a trip to Chicago; he was being transferred to help hunt down the most notorious bank robber in U. S. History - John Dillinger.

 

John Herbert Dillinger could probably never remember a time when he wasn’t in trouble.  Born on June 22, 1903 in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was a bully at school and stole cars as a teenager.  To avoid a further downward slide, Dillinger enlisted in the U. S. Navy but eventually deserted while his ship, the USS Utah, was docked in Boston Harbor.  He was later dishonorably discharged.  Out of a job, newly married,  and without an employable background, Dillinger turned to crime, robbing $50 from an elderly grocery store owner in Mooresville, Indiana.  He was arrested and received a 10 year sentence.  While incarcerated at Indiana State Prison, he learned the basics of bank robbery from fellow inmates, stating “I will become the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here.”  He was as good as his word after being paroled on May 10, 1933.  What followed was a string of 24 bank robberies throughout the Midwest with a gang of ex-convicts he knew in prison. To obtain needed arms and bullet proof vests, he brazenly held-up police stations. 

 

Dillinger’s career came to a screeching halt when police in Tucson, Arizona arrested him while he was hiding out.  He was extradited to Crown Pointe, Indiana to stand trial for a bank robbery in East Chicago.  The jail house was reinforced with additional guards, turning it into an armed camp.  A swarm of news reporters descended on Dillinger’s jail cell.  He took full advantage of the publicity, presenting himself as a heartfelt, working class type who only robbed banks to make a living. “I was just an unfortunate boy who started wrong,” he told reporters.  In one news photo, he had his elbow resting on the shoulder of the county prosecutor, as if they were the best of friends.  Dillinger’s public stock rose further when he escaped.  Using a hand-carved wooden handgun, dyed with shoe polish, he made a clean getaway without a shot being fired.  Afterwards, the bank robberies continued.

 

It was all too much for the FBI to ignore and simply pass on to local law enforcement.  Under famed Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the Chicago FBI office ramped up the search for Dillinger; who suffered a leg wound while robbing a bank in Mason City, Iowa.  A break came when the owner’s wife of the Little Bohemia Lodge, near Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, notified authorities of Dillinger’s presence.  Dillinger, recovering from his leg wound, hid out in an upstairs bedroom along with fellow gang members, including the violent, hot-tempered “Baby Face” Nelson.  Purvis and his agents quietly surrounded the lodge.  Their plan unraveled when the car of a lodge customer came down the driveway. The agents yelled at the driver to stop, but he couldn’t hear them because he had turned on the car’s radio.  The agents opened fire, killing the innocent driver and alerting the gangsters inside the lodge.  Machine gun fire erupted from the lodge’s upstairs windows, holding off Purvis’ men long enough for Dillinger and his gang to escape out back, scattering into the nearby woods.  “Baby Face Nelson” shot and killed an agent before stealing his car and getting away.  Overly sensitive toward public criticism and the political repercussions that followed, Hoover pulled out all the stops to get Dillinger - dead or alive.  

 

After Winstead landed, he was driven to the Chicago office to meet Purvis and fellow members of the newly created “Dillinger Squad.”  It became obvious to squad members; they were not  here to capture Dillinger, but kill him.  Agents fanned out across the Midwest to question Dillinger’s family and close associates with no results.  A multitude of potential informants telephoned, but usually proved unreliable.  After months of searching, a reliable informant was finally found, a former madam from the Chicago underworld. 

 

Known in crime lore as “The Lady in Red,”Ana Sage was a Rumanian immigrant who had a talent for managing whorehouses.  Starting out as a “five and dime” prostitute at the Harbor Bay Inn in East Chicago, she eventually ran the place after the owner was sent to jail for selling hard liquor.  Sage was so successful that the Harbor Bay Inn became a well-oiled, established den of inequity at the going rate of $2 a tumble. In 1923, she rented an entire hotel for her operation, the forty-six room Koster Hotel, later referred to as “The Bucket of Blood” for all the knife and gunfights that occurred inside.  East Chicago’s corrupt police force kept her out of jail until her luck finally ran out.  Indiana’s reform-minded governor referred her to the federal immigration authorities for deportation.  With no whorehouses to run, Sage resided in a number of Chicago apartments she also used for call girl operations.  Among her girls was Polly Hamilton, a pretty sandwich shop waitress.  Introducing himself as “Jimmy Lawrence,” a clerk at the Chicago Board of Trade, Dillinger began dating her.  Facing deportation and knowing the real identity of Polly’s boyfriend, she decided to inform on Dillinger in exchange for not being deported. The FBI agreed to the exchange after Sage told them her, Hamilton and Dillinger would attend a movie theater on July 22, 1934.   She would be wearing an orange skirt to signal their arrival.  FBI agents surrounded the Biograph Theater along with members of the Chicago Police Department.   Purvis would light a cigar to signal Dillinger’s exit from the theater.  Shortly after the movie ended, Dillinger came out of the theater; Purvis lit his cigar.  Dillinger noticed their approach and tried to escape down an alley.  Winstead and two other agents opened fire with their handguns.  The steady-handed Texan fired the fatal shots that killed Dillinger.  One struck him in the back of the neck and exited just below his right eye.  Curiosity seekers surrounded the body.  Using their newspapers and handkerchiefs, they sopped up the blood as souvenirs.

 

Winstead received a letter of commendation from Hoover.  After helping track down “Baby Face” Nelson, he returned west, serving in FBI offices at El Paso and Albuquerque. Winstead had little use for Hoover’s imperious demeanor, telling one rookie, “Everyone at headquarters knows Hoover is an egomaniac, and they all flatter him constantly.  If you don’t, you’ll be noticed.”  It was a female news reporter that ended Winstead’s FBI career. Resentful of her questions, he insulted her and accused her of being a Communist after she downplayed America’s war effort during World War II.  Always sensitive toward the press, Hoover demanded an apology from Winstead. Instead, Winstead did what any prideful Texan with a disdain for federal popinjays would do.  He told him to, “Go to hell !”  Afterwards, he resigned from the FBI on December 10, 1942, four years short of receiving tenure for government retirement.  Winstead served as a captain in Army Intelligence during the war.  He was also briefly in charge of security during the secret A-bomb testing at Los Alamos, the “Manhattan Project.”  Before retiring and taking up horse ranching, he was employed as a sheriff’s deputy and private investigator in New Mexico.  Charles B. Winstead died of cancer on August 3, 1973 and was cremated at Albuquerque’s Fairview Park Crematory.          

 

Rogue Rebels

 During the Civil War, Texas cavalry, west of the Mississippi, was known and feared for their daring and fighting prowess, but little could be said for their discipline.  Salutes were seldom used, if at all, and ranking officers were often addressed by their first name.  Under the command of a hypocritical Methodist preacher, one brigade of unruly Texans was not only undisciplined, but at times-out of control, a rouge unit beyond the purview of state and local authorities. 

The Reverend George Washington Carter was born in January, 1826, in Fauquier County, Virginia.  At the age of 21, he became a Methodist minister, serving congregations in Richmond, Petersburg and Fredericksburg.  In 1860, the Texas Methodist Conference invited him to become president of Soule University at Chappell Hill, Texas, an all-male Methodist College of around 150 students.  Because of the Civil War, the school closed its doors after most of the student body enlisted in the Confederate Army.  Carter, an ardent secessionist, resigned his position and then returned to his native Virginia.  In Texas, local politicians and businessmen, wanting to help the Confederate cause, raised companies under the authorization of the Governor of Texas.  Carter, on the other hand, obtained his authorization from the Confederate Secretary of War.  Commissioned a colonel, he sought enlistment terms of three years for his volunteers instead of the preferred one year most Texans signed up for. The Confederate Conscription Act of April 1862 solved his recruiting problem.  In the South, getting drafted was considered dishonorable, forcing most Texans to volunteer.

By volunteering, recruits could elect their officers, receive cash bonuses, and choose their preferred branch of service.  For most Texans, the choice was clear - cavalry.  As a result, Carter was able to raise three regiments of cavalry.  At first, his recruits were to be mounted as lancers, forsaking the more traditional sword and saber.  The lances, however, were not readily available; Colt revolvers, shotguns, and Bowie knives would have to suffice.  Each regiment was commanded by a Methodist minister with little to no military experience.  In addition to Carter’s own 21st Cavalry Regiment, Franklin C. Wilkes commanded the 24th Texas Cavalry Regiment and Clayton C. Gillespie commanded the 25th Texas Cavalry Regiment.  Collectively, they were known as Carter’s Lancers.

Problems began when Carter’s recruiting conflicted with Texas Governor Francis Lubbock’s efforts to comply with the Confederate government's demand for badly needed infantry regiments.  Texans, for the most part, had a deep disdain for marching on foot, preferring the comfort of a saddle and his own faithful steed.  Lubbock complained, “If it be so that such authority is vested in Colonel Carter or others I can only repeat what I have already said, that it will defeat every effort I can make to raise infantry.”

Carter ignored the governor’s protests.  Setting up two camps of instruction, in Austin County, for his 2,000 man brigade, he and his officers enjoyed an easy camp life of stewed beef, boiled him, roast chicken, and mashed potatoes washed down with rye whisky.  A train of black servants, owned by the officers, prepared their meals and serviced their tents.  Questions arose as to how they obtained their food, either paying for it directly with phony bank notes or seizing it outright from local farmers. Complaints began to mount and newspapers began to publish accounts of the Lancer’s misdeeds.  Among the most serious, Carter’s fondness for drink and his ensuing inebriation for days at a time.   To make matters worse, he was frequently absent from camp, leaving his officers to obtain food for their men and forage for their horses.  The Texas Republican newspaper suggested a church inquiry into Carter’s behavior.

Under such lax command, the Lancers began to take on the character of a bad college fraternity.  When Carter failed to produce back pay and those promised enlistment bounties, things got ugly.  Corncribs and smokehouses at nearby farms were ravaged and farmers insulted. Before arriving at Shreveport, on their way to Arkansas, their reputation preceded them.   Brigadier General Henry E. McCulloch, Commander of the Eastern District of Texas, would not allow Carter’s ruffians to camp near the district town of Tyler and closed all the liquor stores.  In Shreveport, the 24th and 25th regiments were charged with pillaging.  The 25th’s commander, Clayton Gillespie, was charged with being drunk and disorderly, even getting into a fight with one of his own men in a grog shop.  Louisiana Governor Thomas O. Moore complained to Confederate Secretary of War George W. Randolph that Carter’s men had “seized private property, entered houses of private citizens, brutally practiced extortion and outrage, and with bullying and threatening language and manner spread terror among the people.”  After ordering the state militia to Alexandria, Moore warned Secretary Randolph that if the Lancer’s officers were not dismissed, his “marksmen may save you the trouble if they come again.  There is a point to which patient endurance can exceed no further.”

The party ended in Arkansas.  General Theophilus H. Holmes ordered the 24th and 25th Texas cavalry regiments to dismount and turn their horses over to the quartermaster.  Instead of becoming lancers, they became easier to control infantry.  Carter’s own 21st regiment avoided the dismounting by attaching itself (sans lances) to Parson’s Texas Cavalry Brigade.  

Because Parson’s command was inducted into the Confederate Army at a later date than Carter’s 21s regiment, Carter claimed he was Parson’s superior.  Parson’s men were more loyal to the man than to the rank; they were not about to take orders from Carter.  As a result, both colonels, Carter and Parson, went their independent ways, only working together when necessary.   After the war, Carter served in the Louisiana legislature and became a lecturer.  His personal life took a rocky path with his marriage and divorce of three women.  His third marriage, at the age of sixty-nine, was to a twenty-one year old girl. The Virginia Methodist Conference tried him for immorality.  He died at the Maryland Line Confederate Soldier’s Home in Pikesville, Maryland on May 11, 1901.