Charles Goodnight
Until the
turn of the 19th century, the most hazardous undertaking in Texas was driving
cattle. This entailed rounding up wild Longhorn
cattle, driving them on horseback for hundreds of miles, and corralling them at
a railhead or army fort. Indian attacks, stampeding cattle, rattlesnakes, cougars,
bears, wolves, cattle rustlers, and an unpredictable weather pattern added to
the trail herder's woes. Death often meant
an impromptu burial out in the middle of nowhere, far beyond the reach of any
loved ones. Life was indeed short for a
Texas cowboy.
The most
noted of all the great cattle drivers and indispensable sources for countless
movie and TV scripts were Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. Known as the "King of the Texas
Panhandle," Charles Goodnight pioneered the use of cattle drives before the
railroads made them obsolete. Born in
1836, in Macoupin County, Illinois, Goodnight later moved with his family to
Milam County, Texas. He worked as a
jockey, a freighter and performed various plantation jobs, including the
supervision of slave crews. He became a
scout for the Texas Rangers and discovered the Comanche camp where famed white
captive, Cynthia Parker, was camping out with her Comanche husband, Peta
Nocona. During the Civil War, Goodnight
served in a Confederate frontier regiment to help ward off Comanche raids.
Goodnight's
first big cattle drive originated from Palo Pinto County and headed southwest
toward an Indian reservation at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The Bosque Redondo Reservation was the
brainchild of General James Carleton, who wanted to convert marauding Mescalero Apaches
and Navajos into peaceful farmers. This laughable
experiment in forced cultural change was a disaster from the start. Fights broke out between the Mescaleros
and Navajos; longtime bitter rivals now forced to live on the same
reservation. There was no firewood to
cook with and the water from the nearby Pecos River was full of alkaline -
totally unsuitable to drink.
Unscrupulous army officers and contractors only made matters worse. Bosque Redondo was later closed after being
in operation for only five years.
Goodnight's beef was probably the only thing that kept the Native
Americans from starving to death.
Goodnight developed
tactics for driving his immense herds to distant markets. Because of the loud noise emitted from the
cattle drive, Goodnight's trail hands used hand signals to communicate with each
other during the drive. He also invented
the chuck wagon to feed his hungry crew and rouse them in the morning with hot
coffee. Despite all the innovations, success was only assured by his best
friend, Oliver Loving.
Like
Goodnight, Loving sought opportunity in Texas.
Born on December 12, 1812, in Hopkins County, Kentucky, he moved to the
Republic of Texas with his wife and nine children. As part of the Peter's
Colony, he received 640 acres in three Texas counties. In 1857, he had a thousand acre ranch in Palo
Pinto County along with a general store.
With the help of his son, Loving drove his cattle from Texas all the way
to Illinois on the Shawnee Trail. If
that wasn't impressive enough, he drove a herd of 1,500 head to a mining camp
in Denver, Colorado. During the Civil
War, he drove cattle for the Confederacy; a job for which he was still owed money
after the war.
After teaming
up with Loving, Goodnight established the Goodnight-Loving Trail that started
from Young County, Texas, headed southwest to the Pecos River, then north to
Fort Sumner, Sante Fe and Denver. Their
main obstacles were the Comanches and their business partners, the
Comancheros. As the cattle business
increased in New Mexico, so did the business of rustling them. The Comancheros, native New Mexican's with
little regard for Anglo Texans, became the middlemen for the Comanches and illicit
cattle contractors in New Mexico and Arizona.
Leaving the
cattle drive, without the support off fellow trail hands, was hazardous to say
the least. During an 1868 cattle drive
to Fort Sumner, Loving decided to leave the drive to bid for contracts in Santa
Fe. He promised Goodnight that he would
only travel at night to avoid any Comanche war parties. Accompanied by Bill Wilson, better known as
"One-Armed" Bill, they set out in the evening darkness. Anxious not miss the bidding, Loving made the
fatal decision to press on during daylight hours.
Near the
Guadalupe Mountains, a party of several hundred Comanches spotted them and gave
chase. After discarding their horses,
they set up a defensive perimeter in a ditch near the Pecos River. Armed with four six guns, a revolving six
shot rifle, and a repeating Henry rifle, Loving and Wilson held off the
approaching Comanches for hours.
Undeterred, the Comanches shot arrows into the air to rain them down on
the surrounded pair. Both of them hugged
the side of the ditch to avoid being hit.
The arrows missed their mark, but not the bullets; Loving was wounded in
the wrist and side. Knowing full well
the torture and death that awaited them, Loving decided to stay behind while
Wilson attempted to escape the Comanche encirclement and reach Goodnight. Wilson stripped down to his hat and long
underwear, then slipped into the Pecos River at night. With only one arm, he managed to swim past a
Comanche warrior undetected. Plagued by
heat, thirst, malnourishment and bleeding feet, Wilson hiked back to Goodnight's
cattle drive.
For two days,
Loving waited for Goodnight. By now, the
Comanches had probably ambushed Goodnight's herd and killed all of the trail
hands; he decided to make his own escape.
After getting past the Comanches, he headed toward Fort Sumner. An oxcart, driven by three Mexicans and an
Anglo boy, found him semiconscious by the trail; he was half-dead from fever
and loss of blood. Loving was placed in
the cart and taken to the army post at Fort Sumner.
Goodnight
found a crazed "One-Armed" Wilson emerging from a cave. After discerning Loving’s predicament from
Wilson’s senseless babbling, he went after his friend along with six of his
crew. Not finding him, Goodnight rode on
to Fort Sumner where he learned of his survival. Loving's side wound was healing nicely but
his arm had developed gangrene. Loving's
arm was amputated, but the gangrene had spread.
For several days, Goodnight sat beside Loving's bed until he died. Loving's dying wish was to be buried back in
Texas. Goodnight's crew constructed a
crude metal casket of empty oil cans for the journey. Loving's corpse was exhumed from a temporary
grave and placed inside. True to his
legendary determination, Goodnight brought him back to Texas for burial at a
Weatherford, Texas cemetery.
On July 26,
1870, Goodnight married Molly Dyer, his longtime sweetheart, who taught in a Weatherford
schoolhouse. He continued to drive
cattle into New Mexico and Colorado. In
addition, he invested heavily in the development of Pueblo, Colorado and formed
Colorado's first stock raisers' association in November, 1871. Now referred to as Colonel Goodnight, he
built a ranch near the Palo Duro Canyon where hostile Comanches once resided. Affectionately dubbed Home Ranch, his first
ranch house was a dugout, using abandoned Comanche lodge poles as rafters. In 1878, he made his famous treaty with the
legendary Comanche chief, Quanah Parker.
He would provide Parker with two beeves each day if the Comanches would
leave his herds alone. With his wife's
encouragement, he also started a domestic buffalo herd. Sired by a bull named Old Sikes, he developed the "cattalo" by crossing
bison with polled Angus cattle. Buffalo raised on Goodnight’s land would later
be used to stock wildlife parks such as Yellowstone National Park. To educate his ranch hands, he established
Goodnight College in 1898. Goodnight
died in Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 93.
He was buried at the Goodnight Community Cemetery near his ranch.
The two best
films concerning Texas cattle drives are “Red River” and the TV miniseries
“Lonesome Dove.” John Wayne’s character,
Thomas Dunson, in “Red River” is similar in appearance to Oliver Loving. The mini-series “Lonesome Dove” features two characters
based on Charles Goodnight and Oliver loving: Woodrow Call, played by Tommy Lee
Jones, and Augustus “Gus” McCrae, played by Robert Duval. In my opinion, it really doesn’t get any
better than this. During the series, Gus
McCrae dies from gangrene after an Indian arrow wounds him in the leg. In dramatic fashion, Call takes his body back
to Texas for burial. It is doubtful Loving’s
burial was as arduous a task.
