John Chisum
During the Civil War, there were instances on both sides of
profit replacing patriotism. The sudden
lack of markets and severe income loss led some to circumvent government
authority for new business opportunities, especially if the authority was on
the losing side. Late in the war, cotton
was always a hot commodity in illegal trading with the enemy. In West Texas, a different commodity offered a
second monetary source: Cattle.
After Confederate forces were driven from Southeast New
Mexico, Union forces occupied the region and established an Indian reservation
near their newly constructed Fort Sumner.
The reservation was built on an arid, uninhabitable stretch called the
Bosque Redondo. Into this dreadful
landscape, the U.S Army, under the firm command of General James Carlton, crammed
members of the Navajo and Mescalero Apache tribes. During the months to come, Bosque Redondo would
prove to be more of a prison camp hellhole than a reservation. To begin with, the Mescalero and Navajo had
fought each other for decades, and weren’t about to make a lasting peace. The dry weather wouldn’t allow sustained crop
production. Being that it was in a
desert, there was no wood to make fires and only a brackish trickle of water to
drink. To make matters worse, the
Comanches raided the reservation and stole the Navajo’s horses. A stable food source was quickly needed to
feed the reservation and the Union forts in New Mexico.
In 1864, Union contractors James Patterson and William
Franks contacted Texas ranchers to arrange cattle drives to Fort Sumner and
Union held El Paso. They carried plenty
of cash to make their purchases. With
Confederate markets cut off by the loss of the Mississippi and Confederate
currency on the wane, it was difficult not to accept their offers. Famed Texas Ranger James “Buck” Barry
reported to his superiors, “It might be well to inform you that we have five
men here under arrest that say they were hired by one Patterson in New Mexico
to drive beef from our frontier.” The Texas
Third Frontier District reported a drive of 1,000 to 1,500 cattle heading west
over their district. The most notable
of these unlawful ranchers was famed cattle baron John Chisum. Although he supplied the Confederate Army with
4,000 head of cattle, Chisum sought approval from the Texas governor to move
his vast herds from Denton County to Concho County in West Texas, a remote area
near the New Mexico border and conveniently too remote for Confederate authorities. In his book, “From the Cow Camp to the Pulpit,”
one of Chisum’s ranch hands, M.C. Smith, wrote about the assembly of a cattle
herd destined for Fort Sumner in September 1864 – seven months before the end
of the war. After the war, Smith went to
work for Patterson.
The Texas government had few men and funds to patrol West
Texas. Most defensive efforts were
focused on the Texas coast where Union amphibious operations were a constant
threat. Ironically, the Native Americans
that plagued Confederate Texas also kept Union troops in New Mexico occupied
and away from the more populated East Texas.
Though their loyalties became more blurred toward the war’s
final month, Texas ranchers, nevertheless, had a keen eye toward the future. In 1866, the Goodnight-Loving Trail was established
to drive Texas herds into New Mexico.
The great cattle drives to Kansas followed shortly. Though traitorous by law, it’s still good to
know these unlawful Texas cattle drives went to feed hungry Navaho children.
