The Long Funeral of Oliver Loving

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.

 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.

 

Defeat by Thirst

 

John R. Baylor

 

 

Major Lynde was in a quandary.  Rebel Texans were gathering in overwhelming numbers to attack his command at Ft. Fillmore, a lightly fortified post on the Rio Grande River in New Mexico Territory.  The only alternative was to evacuate at night and try to reach the nearest Union fort one hundred fifty miles away to the northeast.  Such a trek would require a full canteen of water, or so you would think.  Lynde's men thought they had something better.

After Texas seceded in February 1861, General Earl Van Dorn, Commander of the Confederate Army in Texas, ordered Lt. Colonel John R. Baylor to occupy Ft. Bliss in El Paso and defend Confederate held forts in West Texas.  These forts had been built by the U.S. Army to protect settlers and guard stagecoach routes against Indian attacks.  When the Civil War began, a number of these frontier forts were abandoned as U.S. troops surrendered or headed back north.   On July 3, 1861, Baylor's 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles reached Ft. Bliss.  Concerned about a Federal incursion from New Mexico Territory, Baylor decided to move against Ft. Fillmore, just up the Rio Grande from El Paso.  He set out with three hundred men.

John R. Baylor had a consuming hatred for Native Americans, especially Comanches, and felt a firm hand, as opposed to signed treaties, was the only way to deal with them.  As the son of an army surgeon, Baylor witnessed firsthand the tragic results of frontier life.  He later settled in Texas and became a prominent rancher, lawyer, and single term member of the Texas House of Representatives.  After a Comanche reservation was established on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, Baylor was appointed the Indian agent; a worse agent couldn't have been appointed.  He quarreled incessantly with his supervisor, Robert Simpson Neighbours, who wanted to protect the Comanches from an indifferent U.S. Cavalry and angry settlers bent on killing any Indian they could lay their hands on.  Baylor accused the reservation Comanches of providing aid and comfort to non-reservation Comanches still raiding  nearby settlements.  In 1857, he was dismissed, but that didn't stop him from stirring up settlers and forming vigilante groups to attack the reservation.  He even established an anti-Indian newspaper, "The White Man."  Things got so bad, Neighbors was forced to move the reservation to the Indian Territory.  He became a marked man for his efforts and was later assassinated.

The southern half of New Mexico Territory was an area plagued with constant Apache raids.  The Apaches were determined to drive out every white man in the Southwest.  Feeling unprotected and abandoned by the territorial capital in Santa Fe, the residents of Mesilla turned toward the Confederacy for support.  Many of the residents were Southern transplants, who controlled the politics and local economy.  It's not surprising they warmly welcomed Baylor's men.

The nearby Union garrison, at Fort Fillmore, would not be as accommodating.  The Union commander,  Major Isaac Lynde, decided to attack Baylor before he could advance on him.  Leading three hundred eighty men and two small mountain howitzers, the 58 year old Vermont native tried to force Baylor out of Mesilla.  Upon reaching the outskirts, he demanded Baylor's surrender.  Baylor replied, "If you wish the town and my forces, come and take them."   The Texans took up positions behind a stout adobe wall and Mesilla's rooftops.  Hampered by a dense cornfield and loose sand, Lynde's attack fell apart at the start.  Armed mostly with double- barreled shotguns, Baylor's men poured a deadly fire on Lynde's disjointed advance while Mesilla's residents cheered them on.  Lynde's aggressive spirit also fell apart with the loss of nine men.  He retreated back to the fort and made a half-hearted  attempt to fortify it with sandbags.  Hearing from a spy that Baylor was going to be reinforced with more men and artillery from El Paso, Lynde  decided to evacuate Ft. Fillmore.  The evacuation would require a daunting  trek to across the vast New Mexico desert and Organ Mountains to Ft. Stanton.  To fortify their resolve, Lynde's men helped themselves to the fort's supply of medicinal whiskey.  They filled their canteens with the stuff before heading off into the night.

Relief would come from the mountain springs, which were much further away than Lynde expected.  His men began dropping by the wayside from the effects of soaring desert heat, overwhelming thirst and whiskey filled canteens.  Seeing their dust trails from Mesilla, Baylor set off in pursuit. For him, it was a simple matter of scooping up staggering, thirst crazed stragglers without firing a shot.  Needless to say, Lynde was forced to surrender.  He was paroled then later discharged for abandoning his post.

Baylor set up a Confederate government with himself as governor in Mesilla.  He declared the southern half of New Mexico Territory to be the Confederate Territory of Arizona.  The new territory stretched from Mesilla to Tuscon in present day Arizona.  Almost immediately, the new Confederate governor was hit by a wave of Apache raids; ranches were burned, people were killed, and livestock was stolen on a daily basis.  Criticism of the new governor mounted steadily in the local newspapers;  something the thin-skinned Baylor couldn't abide.  After a critical piece appeared in the "Mesilla Times," he sought out the editor, Robert P. Kelly, and shot him in the face.  Severely wounded, Kelley died a few weeks later.

Baylor's frustrations with the Apaches grew by the minute.  Frustration led to extermination as the only viable solution.  Written orders were issued to his rangers to kill all adult Indians and sell their children to defray the costs.  Such orders horrified the Confederate Congress and President Jefferson Davis who sought peace with the Native Americans.  Baylor was removed from office and his commission was revoked.

The Confederate Territory of Arizona lasted just short of a year.  It was to be the only territory held by the Confederacy outside of state boundaries.   After the Confederate setback at Glorietta Pass, the Texans were forced to retreat back into their home state.  At the Battle of Galveston, where many of the New Mexico veterans fought, John R. Baylor fought as a private in the Confederate Army.



 

 

 

 

Comanche Rising

 

 

They subjugated the Aztecs. They massacred the Incas.  Gold and precious stones flowed like tap water into Spanish coffers.  The New World, it seemed, was easy pickings for the mighty Spanish Conquistadors.  Superior firearms, along with superior European tactics, could overcome any tribe of godless savages. 

So they thought.

Since the late 1600's, the Comanches dominated West Texas.  Superior horsemanship gave them an unprecedented advantage over their adversaries.  Fearing the Comanches growing dominance, the Lipan Apaches of South Central Texas needed a powerful ally.  The Spaniards were their best prospect.  In 1757, Franciscan monks established the Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba near present day Menard, Texas.  Having expressed an interest in Christianity, the Apaches convinced the missionaries that they wanted to become peaceful civilized Catholics.  The missionaries were also anxious to establish a mission to help end a bitter conflict between the Apaches and foster mining operations near the San Saba River. What the missionaries failed to realize, however, was that they were being played.  The Apaches never took up residence near the mission nor attended services.  To make matters worse, they bragged about their powerful new ally;  Conquistadors armed with canons, swords and muskets.  Rather than instilling fear into the Comanches, the Apaches only ticked them off.

Along with their well armed neighbors, the Wichitas, the Comanches assembled a force of 2,000  warriors on horseback then rode out looking for the Apaches.  They descended on the Santa Cruz mission and massacred the monks, including their leader Father Alonso Giraldo de Terreros.  Those that survived were barricaded in a nearby presidio (or fort)  commanded by Colonel Ortiz Parrilla.  Father Terreros had purposely built the presidio away from the mission in hopes of not provoking the Indians.

In September 1759,  Colonel Parrilla gathered a force of 600 Spaniards and Apaches to pursue the Comanches.  Little did he know that the Comanches were as well-armed, if not better armed, than his command.  Redoubtable as traders as well as warriors, the Comanches had a lucrative relationship with French traders along the Red River.  Muskets were obtained in exchange for horses which they had plenty of.  The French also provided military assistance with advice on defensive works, something Comanches are not generally known for.

At Spanish Fort, in present day Montague County, Parrilla encountered a stout earthen fortress of entrenched Indians and possibly a few French.  The canons had no effect on the fortress while the Comanches flanked the Spaniards with mounted attacks.  Parrilla was forced to fall back, leaving behind nineteen or more dead.  It was to be the Spaniards high water mark in Texas.  The Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba was the only mission in Texas to be completely destroyed by Native Americans.  Ten years later the presidio was closed.  The Spaniards were never able to settle in Comanche territory.

"Now that's what I call a "shot" of whiskey !"

Major Alfred M. Hobby

Major Alfred M. Hobby had never faced an ultimatum before.  In fact, he had never faced any real threats until now.   The Union naval commander, Lieutenant John L. Kittredge, came ashore under a flag of truce and told him he was coming ashore to inspect U.S. facilities. In blunt fashion, Hobby told Kittredge that there were no U.S. facilities and he would resist any attacks on Corpus Christi.  Kittredge gave him forty eight hours to evacuate the city. 

A merchant from the town of St. Mary's of Aransas, Texas, Alfred Hobby was an ardent supporter of states' rights and had served in the Texas House of Representatives before the war.  To promote the Southern cause in St. Mary's, he established a chapter of the Knights of the Golden Cross; a secret organization that promoted the expansion of slavery.  On May 18, 1862, he organized the 8th Texas Infantry regiment to serve the Confederacy.

A self-righteous martinet, Lt. Kittredge ran a taught ship bordering on the maniacal. Crew members were subjected to severe punishment for the slightest of infractions.  Falling asleep during a worship service could subject you to "tricing" or stretching.  The violator was tied by the wrists to the ship's rigging for thirty minutes.  Any longer and your arms would probably be dislocated or worse.  Kittredge was not above striking his crew to enforce discipline.  It was little wonder that most of the infractions on his ship involved drinking.  On a ship like that, who wouldn't take to drink!

 For several months, Kittredge and his one hundred man crew rounded up blockade runners and raided coastal towns with his sailing bark, the U.S.S. Arthur. To make matters worse, he was converting some of his captured vessels into gunboats for his own growing flotilla.  Now he had the muscle to bombard and launch direct assaults on major Texas ports. Two of his vessels, the Sachem and Corypheus, had light draft hulls to navigate shallow harbors.  The Texas port of Corpus Christi was to be his prime target.

Unlike other Texas regiments, the 8th Texas Infantry had never served outside of Texas.  They garrisoned the Texas coast to ward off any Union invasion attempts. However, fighting Union infantry and cavalry was one thing, fighting a navy was another.   There were only five cannons  available in Corpus to match Kittredge's gunboats.  None of his men had any experience with targeting and firing artillery.  Fortunately, help came from two locals: a German immigrant Felix A. Blucher, a nephew of the famed Prussian general, and Private Billy Mann, a Confederate soldier on sick leave.   Hobby's men received invaluable instruction from the two.  During the evening, the cannons were moved up to the harbor and placed within earthworks dug during the War with Mexico.  Kittredge was about to get a rude wake up call.

On August, 1862, Hobby's men opened fire on the Sachem and Corypheus from four hundred yards.  With their hulls being breeched from the Texans' fire, Kittredge was forced to fall back. In a daring move, Kittredge sent a detachment of thirty sailors ashore to flank and capture Hobby's guns.  Hobby led a cavalry charge of twenty five men and forced them to depart back to their ships.  After picking up his crew members, Kittredge began shelling Corpus Christi; six hundred shells rained down on the city before Kittredge gave up and sailed away from the harbor.  One Unionist resident, John Dix, tried to wave a Union flag from the roof of his house as if to signal the city's surrender.  Dix's daughter in law pointed a shotgun to his head before he could get off his signal. His son fought in the Confederate Army.

Returning residents found a number of spent shells in their damaged homes.  Calling them "Kittredges," they used them as doorstops.  One curious find, according to local legend, was the presence of whiskey inside some of the spent shells.  Apparently, Kittredge's rambunctious crew had taken out the gunpowder and hid their forbidden whiskey inside the shells.

Corpus Christi was secure for now.  Kittredge's career wasn't.  He was later captured during a foraging expedition at Flour Bluff by Texas troops under Hobby.  Given parole, he was sent north in humiliation and given a new command.  After belting a crewmember in the mouth with his pistol, Lt. Kittredge was court martialed out of the service.



Texas' First Naval Victory

Republic of Texas Schooner

 

 

 

Stephen F. Austin enjoyed the ocean breeze.  After eighteen years in Mexican prisons for suspicion of treason,  it felt good to be out.  The emprasario of the largest colony in Texas had made his way from Mexico City to New Orleans. From there, the schooner San Felipe would take him down the gulf coast to the Texas port of Velasco.  As the port came into view, any anticipated homecomings were cut short; a Mexican warship appeared on the horizon.     

During Austin's absence, Mexico's Centralist government, led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, decided to reign in its remote colony with taxes, import duties and armed troops.  Texas colonists greatly resented this sudden intrusion.  For years, they had lived tax free, courtesy of a distracted Mexican government beset with internal discord.  To enforce the collection of import duties along the Texas coast, Mexico dispatched an ill-tempered, hard drinking navy lieutenant with few endearing qualities, Thomas "Mexico" Thompson. 

Prior to joining the Mexican navy, the English born Thompson was a down and out merchant captain looking for a second chance.  That second chance would come from extorting Texas merchant vessels at the helm of his warship Correo Mejicano.  Texans saw him for what he really was, a mere pirate in the guise of a Mexican naval officer.  Thompson, on the other hand, despised those  ungrateful Yankee Texans who refused to support their government.  The fuse was lit.

On September 1, 1835,  Thompson attempted to seize the merchant vessel Tremont, anchored just off  the coast near Velasco.  Suspecting the Tremont of smuggling illegal goods , he sent over a marine detachment in rowboats to take possession. In a boiling rage, the ship's owner, Thomas McKinney, watched the seizure unfold from ashore.  He decided to take matters into his own hands.  Accompanied by thirty armed volunteers, he boarded the steamboat Laura and steamed out to the Tremont.  Pulling alongside the seized vessel, McKinney's men opened fire with their muskets on the marines.  Fleeing for their lives, Thompson's men jumped back into their rowboats and paddled back to the Correo. 

As he approached Velasco, the swashbuckling skipper of the San Felipe, Captain William Hurd, armed the two 12 pound cannons he had on board.  Each despising the other, Thompson and Hurd had been looking for each other for weeks.  Both boasted they would capture or summarily execute the other.  Now they would get their chance.    

After securing the Tremont, the Laura steamed out to the San Felipe.  Seeing the "Father of Texas" on board was a huge morale booster for McKinney and his volunteers.  The Laura towed the San Felipe back to Velasco where Austin and his fellow passengers disembarked.  Hurd and 20 volunteers boarded the San Felipe.  It was time to settle up with "Mexico" Thompson; they were going after him. 

Hurd pulled up alongside the Correo as the evening darkness approached.  Thompson called out to the  Texans with his bullhorn, "Let go your anchors, you damned Yankees!"  Instead the Texans let go with their cannons and muskets.  For forty five minutes, the Correo and San Felipe traded shots in the darkness.  The lack of wind led to a thick cloud of gun smoke that shrouded the opposing vessels.  Screams of the wounded mingled with the thunder of the cannons.  Thompson was wounded in the thighs and one of his cannons was dismounted; the Correo seemed to have gotten the worst of it.  Only the smoky darkness prevented his ship from being boarded.

Since he couldn't find the Correo in the dark, Hurd decided to return to Velasco and resume the chase in the morning.  Thompson also decided to withdraw but was in hostile waters.  He would have to hope for a steady wind to fill his sails and propel the Correo to Matamoros.  By morning, he had made little headway; Velasco was still in sight and the San Felipe was being remanned and rearmed.  To make matters worse, she would be towed by the steamboat Laura and wouldn't need sails to reach her target.

To Thompson's utter horror, he watched the Laura and the freshly armed San Felipe slowly coming toward him.  Low on ammunition, manpower and wind, he decided to surrender.  Along with five of his men, he was placed in irons on his own ship.  The rest of his crew, including the marines, were sent ashore.  The Texans helped themselves to the Correo's small arms and army payroll.  Accompanied by the San Felipe, Hurd ran up an American flag on the captured vessel and set sail for New Orleans

Since Texas, a Mexican colony, didn't have an admiralty court, Captain Hurd sought justice in a United States admiralty court.  Upon arrival, he claimed that Thompson was committing piracy against the San Felipe, a U.S. registered vessel.  Thompson and his men were thrown into the county jail to await trial in a district court.   The Mexican Consulate protested that Thompson was a commissioned Mexican officer and couldn't be jailed for enforcing Mexican laws.  Thompson, however, didn't have his signed paper commission with him for proof.  

 

The trial became a sensation when New Orleans' most prominent attorneys represented the opposing parties.  District Attorney Henry Carleton, a former U.S. infantry lieutenant that fought in the Battle of New Orleans, represented the prosecution while future U.S. Senator and Ambassador to Spain, Pierre Soule, represented the defendant.  As accusations were hurled, tempers grew increasingly short and hilariously childish.  Like a scene out of a slapstick comedy, the opposing barristers began hurling their inkwells and law books at each other.  Angered by such a melee in a court of law, the presiding judge threw both Carleton and Soule in jail for six hours to cool off.  Closing arguments were insufferably long and impassioned.  Soule presented his final speech in his native French.

After eighteen hours, the jury deadlocked and Thompson was set free.  Nevertheless, the guy just couldn't catch a break; he was arrested again for debt based on charges from past creditors.  

In order to placate a very angry Mexico, federal officials were pressured by U.S. Secretary of State, John Forsyth, to enforce U.S. neutrality laws in a more even handed manner.  Ironically, the even handed manner led to the arrest of Captain Hurd himself for pirating a Mexican vessel.  Not surprisingly, he was promptly acquitted by a sympathetic jury.

The incident died down but not the outrage.  To say the least, Mexico felt humiliated over the incident.  "Would not the United States have protested with unexcelled indignation," wrote Mexican Secretary of War Jose Maria Tornel, "if the schooner Grumpus, or any other of their war vessels, had been captured by the Correo and brought at once with its entire crew into a Mexican port?" A month after the trial, the Mexican schooner Bravo fired into Velasco.  The opening shots of the Texas Revolution had begun.



Forsaken Ally

 Members of Tonkawa Tribe

 

 

Whenever the early Texas settlers needed a good, stand up ally, they could find one in the Tonkawa Nation.  Of all the Native American tribes in Texas,  the Tonkawa were always quick to offer assistance to their Anglo neighbors.  Stephen F. Austin developed cordial relations with them and welcomed them into his colony.  At every social affair held by the settlers,  members of the Tonkawa tribe would often show up uninvited.  Texas rangers used them as scouts and auxiliary troops against the Comanches. 

 For decades, the Tonkawa inhabited Central Texas near present day Austin.  Advancing pressure from the Comanches in the North and the Apaches to the West forced them to seek alliances with any group that could help fend them off.  The Anglo settlements offered them a powerful deterrent against their long time enemies.   It's not surprising they were friendly towards them. 

The Tonkawa adopted the customs of the Plains Indians with its emphasis on the horse and buffalo hunt.  Tonkawa families lived in crude tepees within a maternal clan.  They wore little or no clothing; the men wore excessively large breechcloths and the women donned short skirts and painted breasts.  During the winter, they wore buffalo robes.  The Tonkawa  had a preference for facial ornaments such as earrings, necklaces and tattoos.  Subsistence came from anything they could hunt or gather.  This included, buffalo, deer, jackrabbits, pecans, oysters, crayfish, and dogs.  Pecans were used as a form of barter.  Farming was tried but with little success.    

The Tonkawa had one abhorrent custom: cannibalism.  Like the Karankawas, the Tonkawa didn't consume human flesh for food, but as a ritualistic means of acquiring a dead persons spirit and strength.  During a "Scalp Dance," they bit off portions from the cooked limbs of a slain enemy.  The Comanches, along with the other neighboring tribes, greatly detested this practice, especially when members of their own tribe were consumed. 

The period of close relations with the settlers came to an end in the 1850's.  The Tonkawa were forced on to a reservation in Young County near the Brazos River.  Because of the incessant Comanche raids on their settlements, Texans began to regard all Native Americans  as hostile.  In some cases, Tonkawa villages were attacked by angry settlers who wanted them removed.  Before the start of the Civil War, the Tonkawa were moved across the Red River into the Indian Territory (now present day Oklahoma). 

During the war, the Tonkawa continued to serve as scouts for the Texas rangers  and backed the Confederate authorities that managed their reservation.  The other tribes hated the Tonkawa for helping the Texans and their continued practice of cannibalism.  On October 23, 1862, a coalition of the Osage, Shawnee, Kiowa, Caddo and Comanche tribes attacked the Tonkawa's  Wichita Agency near present day Fort Sill.  The Confederate agent, Mathew Leeper,  escaped out a back window in his nightshirt while his agency was burned to the ground.  The Tonkawa were forced to flee but many were caught and killed on the spot.  Their long time leader, Chief Placido, was slain along with 137 men, women and children.  Already decimated from disease, the Tonkawa were almost wiped out . 

The survivors fled back to Texas near Fort Belknap.  Like today's homeless people, they lived in squalor near Fort Griffin until the late 1880's.  They were later moved to the Sac and Fox agency in Oklahoma.  Because of their dwindling numbers, the Tonkawa language was lost along with many of their songs and dances.  Today, the tribe has only 600 members that reside in Oklahoma.

 

 

 

 Tonkawa Scouts and U.S. Cavalrymen

 

Final Curtain at The Vaudeville

Ben Thompson

 

 

Hollywood has shaped our image of the Old West gunfighter; we picture him as a rather unsociable character with a piercing gaze, collected demeanor, donning a duster or serape, and crowned with a dark, wide brimmed, telescope creased hat.  Someone who doesn't have a lot of redeeming qualities, unless he shot an arch-criminal or two.

One of the most notable of Texas gunfighters was just the opposite; a portly, dapper Englishman that wore top hats, drank heavily, and had a fondness for musical theater.  Despite his appearance, Ben Thompson was probably the most dangerous gunfighter in the Old West.  Famed U.S. Marshal "Bat" Masterson wrote, "Ben Thompson was a remarkable man in many ways and it is doubtful if, in his time, there was another man living who equaled him with the pistol in a life and death struggle." He was a survivor that always managed to outthink his opponents. On March 11, 1884, his luck ran out in a San Antonio theater.

Born in the industrial town of Knottingly, England, Thompson immigrated to Austin in 1851. During the Civil War, he served with the 2nd Texas Cavalry under Colonel John "Rip" Ford.  Wounded twice, he saw action at the Battles of Galveston and La Fourche Crossing.  While in a Laredo gambling hall, he and his brother Billy got into a shootout with a company of Mexican American Confederates.  They killed two of them but were never charged, probably because the victims were Hispanic. 

After the war, Thompson again got into another deadly dispute, this time with an Austin teamster over a mule.  He shot the teamster while he reached for his shotgun.  Union occupation troops arrested him, but he escaped from jail and headed south into Mexico.  Serving under the Emperor Maximilian, he battled both Juaristas and the Mexican police.  When Maximilian was overthrown, Thompson returned to Texas with an attitude and even more experience with a pistol. 

Upon his return, he wounded his own brother-in-law in a family altercation.  Thompson served a two year sentence at Huntsville for attempted murder.  Upon release, Ben, Billy, and wife Catherine settled in Abilene, Kansas.  Ben and another Texan, Phil Coe, opened up the Bull's Head Saloon; a successful establishment that catered to a steady stream of free-wheeling cowboys and supported an outdoor painting of a manly bull with an oversized lower appendage.  Local society complained, so Sheriff "Wild Bill" Hickok painted over it.  While Thompson's family were recovering from a horse buggy accident, "Wild Bill"  killed Phil Coe, probably over Hickok's impromptu paint job.  Thompson decided to move back to Austin.

He became a professional gambler and joined a traveling circuit of the Old West's most famous: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Luke Short, John Wesley Hardin, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and "Wild Bill" Hickok.  Like most gunmen of that period, he was more dangerous when drinking.  Using nearby street lights for target practice, you could say he actually shot better when he was drunk.  One of the most serious and notable  of many liquor induced shootouts was with the management of Austin's Capital Theater.  He shot the operator of the theater, Mark Wilson, and seriously wounded the bartender.  He was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. 

In 1879, Thompson became a professional gunman for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.  With his hefty railroad earnings, he opened up a gambling hall at the Iron Front Saloon on Congress Avenue.  Gaining a notable reputation for his gun fighting skills, fair play, and sense of charity, he was elected twice as Austin's City Marshal.  Needless to say, that reputation led to a considerable drop in the crime rate.    

Always one to compromise a lofty position with a festive nature, Thompson often traveled to San Antonio for a rollicking night of drinking and gambling.   His drinking got the best of him after he started losing his money at the popular Vaudeville Saloon and Theater; he pulled his gun on the dealer and demanded the return of his money.  The Vaudeville's gruff owner, Jack Harris, put the word out that Thompson was no longer allowed in the Vaudeville.  Thompson didn't take that as a warning but as a direct challenge. 

 On July 11, 1882, Ben Thompson returned to the Vaudeville.  Cradling a shotgun, Jack Harris waited for Thompson at the theater ticket office.  Thompson stood at the doorway, somewhat concealed by the evening darkness.  He spied Harris who was standing behind a wooden, latticework screen in the ticket office.  Thompson yelled, "'What are you doing with that shotgun?"  Harris replied, "Kiss my ass you son of a bitch!"  Before Harris could bring his shotgun to bear, Thompson fired two shots, mortally wounding Harris in the chest.  He surrendered to the San Antonio police that night. 

Texas courts were amazingly lenient where gunfighters and gamblers were concerned.  If both parties were armed, it was usually declared self-defense fair and square.  Neither murder nor manslaughter was considered; the victor was set free.

Thompson was acquitted and returned home to a hero's welcome.  He was now Austin's gunfighter; the man who took out their rival city's bullying theater owner.  Nevertheless, Harris' death weighed heavily on Thompson.  He resigned as City Marshal shortly after his return.  Many claimed Thompson was never the same; he became depressed and drank more heavily.

The end came when he took his depressed state back to the saloons and theaters of San Antonio. This time he was accompanied by an old friend, John King Fisher.  King Fisher was the deputy sheriff of Uvalde County; a former cattle rustler with an itchy trigger finger.  They both made their way to the Vaudeville where its new managers Billy Simms and Joe Foster were prepared for a worst case scenario.  The worst came soon enough.

Accounts vary but not the results - Ben Thompson and King Fisher were ambushed from behind in a Vaudeville Theater balcony.  As many as twenty guns, rifles and pistols, were fired into Thompson and Fisher.  The balcony was spattered with blood and gore as frantic people shoved their way out of the smoke filled Vaudeville.   

Thompson was found dead with his eyes wide open.  Considering the leg wound Foster suffered, Thompson may have gotten a few licks in before he fell.    King Fisher never got off a shot, he died immediately.  Eleven days later, Joe Foster died of complications from his leg wound.

The fact that Thompson had five bullets in his head lends evidence toward an execution rather than a face-to-face gun battle.  As usual, since all the participants were armed, a jury found Joe Foster and a Vaudeville bouncer named Jacob Coy not guilty on the grounds of self-defense.  Thompson's corpse was returned to Austin by his brother Billy and received one of the largest funerals in Austin history.  He was buried at Austin's Oakwood Cemetery.
 

Ben Thompson certainly had his fair share of supporters and detractors.  Austinites generally liked him, respected him and overlooked his drunken combative nature. San Antonians felt the opposite; they resented having their respected local businessman gunned down by Austin's hooligan marshal.  That resentment could certainly have swayed a local jury of Jack Harris'  peers.