The Light Gray Apaches

Life in Utopia, Texas was not always like the town’s name. This remote Hill Country community was far from the long established towns in East Texas, an easy target for outlaws and Indian war parties.   Thirteen year old Frank Buckelew knew something about war parties.  In 1866, his father was killed by a war party two miles from his home.  Now orphaned, Frank and his two sisters moved in with their uncle.  While out in the pasture tending to his uncle’s oxen, he and his friend Morris were startled by two steers racing by; something had spooked them.  Deciding speed was the better part of curiosity, he and Morris took off for his uncle’s house.  A band of Indians emerged from the nearby woods and gave chase.  Morris got away, but Frank didn’t.  A warrior caught up with Frank and held a drawn bow and arrow to his head.  The war party roughly subdued their captive and took him to their village.  Frank’s youth probably saved him from an imminent death.  It didn’t save him from a severe beating.  Frank was stripped of his clothing then whipped with cat’s claw vines by the village’s children and women.  The worst of it came when he had to walk through a long gauntlet of taunts, clubs, leather whips, sticks, and punches.  Dazed and bruised, he was painted, dressed in Indian garb, and had his ears pierced by an elderly woman.  He was now an initiated member of the tribe.  A tribe referred to in history and today as the Lipan Apaches.   

The Lipan Apaches were part of an array of Apache tribes that extended from Arizona to Central Texas.  The word Lipan means “Light Gray People” because the Lipans believed each point of the compass was represented by a color. White represented north and black represented east.  Since the Lipans migrated from the North (white) to the East (black) the colors became mixed into light gray, hence the name Lipan. 

The Lipans belonged to the Eastern band of Apaches that consisted of the Jicarilla, Kiowa-Apache and Lipan Apache.  Attracted to the vast buffalo herds in the Southern Plains, they entered Texas in the 1600’s.   Despite the Lipans’ initial interest, Spanish missionaries tried to convert them, but to no avail.

 What the Lipans really wanted from the missions was protection from a shared enemy: the Comanches.  Masters of horse warfare, the Comanches were unstoppable in the 1700’S and early 1800’s.  They slowly pushed the Lipans into Mexico and Southwest Texas.  Because of their semi-sedentary lifestyle from raising crops, Lipan villages were isolated, tempting targets for the Comanches. It was little wonder Lipans served as scouts and auxiliary troops for the Texas Rangers.  One Lipan chief, Flacco, became a colonel in the Republic of Texas Army.

The Lipans lived in scattered bands that shared a common language and culture.  There was no tribal head chief, only the loosely held position of band chief.  Anyone could lead a raid or a hunt as long as he had the followers to carry it out.  In time, they gave up on raising crops and became more nomadic like their Plains Indian neighbors.  They took to the horse and hunted buffalo.  In addition to buffalo, their diet consisted of deer, antelope, the agave plant, and a coarse flour obtained from the Sotol bulb.  The astonishing thing about Apaches is how they could find sustenance in the most barren, desolate regions of the Southwest.  In the desert, they ruled!

Like most Plains Indians, they wore breech cloths during the summer and buckskin shirts in the winter.  Males shaved the left side of their heads while letting the right side grow to shoulder-length.  They tied their hair into braided ponytails and decorated them with feathers. Lipans lived in teepees and wikiups with a smoke hole at top for lighting fires inside.

 Marriages were carried out after a lengthy courtship with the prospective wife and her family.  The groom had to give a horse, weapons and deer skins as gifts for the daughter’s hand.  It’s sort of like buying your future in-laws a new pickup before you married their daughter.  Unless the daughter looked like Taylor Swift, I doubt many young men today would go for that.  Also, once you married into that family, you were obligated to provide for that family until they released you, even if your wife died.  In that case, you had to marry a sister or cousin.  If the husband died, the wife would shave off her hair, wound herself, and weep for days on end.  I doubt my wife would shave her head upon my demise.  She would just plant me and throw away my underwear.

Apaches of all bands had a morbid fear of ghosts.  When someone in the village died, the elderly had to prepare it for burial so the young folks wouldn’t be contaminated by the dead person’s spirit.  Along with their personal possessions, the corpse was carried on its horse to the burial site.  Upon arrival, it was buried with its possessions and the horse was killed over the gravesite.  After the burial, the relatives took an alternate route back to the village to confuse any newly risen ghosts that might follow them home.

Smallpox, Comanches and the U.S. Cavalry took a frightful toll.  The Mexican Army considered them a nuisance and went out of their way to eradicate them.  Texas settlers complained of Lipan raids from across the Mexican border.  In 1873, six companies of the 4^th U.S. Cavalry attacked Lipan camps in Coahuila, Mexico.  Their chief, Costalites, was captured and taken to San Antonio.  He was imprisoned in a filthy corral serving as a prison camp but later escaped.  Costalites was found dead 13 miles from San Antonio.  Many of the remaining Lipans joined the Mescalero Apaches on their New Mexico reservation.  The few left in Texas, like most Texas tribes, were forcibly moved to Southwest Oklahoma.

White captives, like Frank, were usually given the task of caring for the horses.  He was also about to fall prey to an arranged marriage.  After a year, Frank decided he had enough and escaped.  He later became a Methodist preacher.  Frank Buckelew died in 1931.

For decades, it was thought the Lipans had disappeared, assimilated by other tribes and the general Hispanic population.  That changed as more and more Lipan descendants became aware and better informed of their ancestry.  In 2009, the Lipan Apaches became a state recognized tribe based in McAllen.  A rich culture brought back into the Texas fabric.

The Mexico Connection

                                          Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy

In December, 1863, a detachment of eighty Federal cavalrymen set out on a hundred mile trek north from Brownsville.  A portion of the detachment included members of the 1^st and 2^nd Texas Union Cavalry, Texans who opposed the Confederacy and had sided with the Union.  Their objective was a ranch just off the southern coast of Texas near Corpus Christi.  On December 23, they galloped through the front gate.  The owner, Richard King, was warned three days earlier.  Thinking his pregnant wife, Henrietta, and their four children would be safer if he left the ranch; King placed them under the care of a faithful hand, Francisco Alvarado.  Under the command of Captain James Speed, the troopers ransacked the ranch house in front of Henrietta and shot Francisco dead.  Speed warned the father in law, Hiram Chamberlain: “You tell King that if one bale of cotton is carried away from here or burned, I will hold him responsible with his life.” After rustling some of King’s cattle for their trip back, they left.   Speed’s warning would only elicit defiance.  “They were worse afraid than the ladies of the house,” King sneered after learning of the attack.  He continued his operations that would make him one of the wealthiest men in Texas and a legend in the cattle industry, smuggling cotton through Mexico for Confederate arms.

Because of the Union naval blockade off the Gulf coast, the Confederacy sought alternative sources for arms and supplies.  Mexico, a neutral foreign country with a long border, became a prime source.  For the Trans-Mississippi states of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, this took on a note of desperation after the Mississippi River was captured by Union forces.  To purchase supplies, cotton was the only medium of exchange readily available and outside of gold, the only one accepted by foreign suppliers. 

The problem was getting the cotton there.  Texas had a small rail network that went only as far south as Alleyton, fifty miles west from Houston.  Wagons carried the cotton from there to Brownsville, a month-long trip over semi-arid terrain with little sustenance for mules and oxen.  Because of bandits and Comanche war parties, armed outriders accompanied the wagon trains.  The King Ranch served as a depot (some would say an oasis) on the wagons’ tortuous trail.  After reaching Brownsville, the cotton was ferried across the Rio Grande to Matamoros.  From there it was carried east by river steamer and wagon to Bagdad, a seedy, ramshackle boomtown near the mouth of the Rio Grande.  A Texas pastor decried Bagdad as “a veritable Babel, a Babylon, a whirlpool of business, pleasure, and sin. A common laborer could easily gain from five to six dollars per day, while a man who owned a skiff or a lighter could make from twenty to forty dollars.  The saloon and hotel keepers were reaping an abundant harvest.  The Gulf, for three or four miles out, was literally a forest of masts.”

Those masts belonged to European and American ships. Inspired by greed, some Northern ship owners buried their loyalties and shipped munitions out of Union states.  Munitions destined for Texas!  In one of the Civil War’s strangest episodes, the New York ship, “Alfred H. Partridge,” was overtaken by the Confederate raider, “Clarence.”  Bound for Matamoros, the ship was carrying arms for the Confederacy.  Upon learning of the ship’s destination, the “Clarence’s” skipper released the “Alfred H. Partridge” under a $5,000 bonded promise to deliver its cargo to the “loyal citizens of the Confederate States.”

Because of the shallow waters off the Mexican coast, steamboats brought the cotton out from Bagdad to the ships.  They returned with arms and supplies.  Most of the steamboats were owned by two former New Yorkers, Mifflin Kenedy and cattle rancher Richard King.  Formed in 1850, M. Kenedy and Co. had a monopoly on steamboat operations from Brownsville to the mouth of the Rio Grande.  To prevent seizure by Union warships, the partners placed their boats under Mexican registry.  The Federal Navy could only watch as steamboat after steamboat brought in supplies and ammo in exchange for cotton. 

To smooth things over in Mexico, Monterrey resident and Confederate representative J.A. Quintero established or tried to establish relations with Mexico’s corrupt border governors.  Santiago Vidaurri, Governor of both Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, controlled a major portion of the cotton routes in Mexico.  Realizing the economic opportunities, Vidaurri was more than anxious to establish friendly relations with the Confederacy.  Friendly relations, however, couldn’t stave off export and import duties imposed on the outbound cotton and inbound military supplies, not to mention the storage fees, transport fees, outright bribes, and extorted tariffs from border warlords who sometimes seized the shipments.

Another important figure in the cotton trade was Confederate Major Simeon Hart, the Trans-Mississippi Department’s purchasing agent.  An El Paso native with a Mexican wife, Hart had extensive connections in Mexico. Hart’s palatial home eventually became El Paso’s famed La Hacienda Cafe.  Unfortunately, it’s closed.  It was Hart that helped supply Texas’ ill-fated expedition into New Mexico.  While working every branch of his network to get arms, Hart would sometimes impress civilian cotton bales to pay for needed supplies, causing a huge uproar among Texas planters.

Eventually, President Lincoln had to act.  As a further inducement, France occupied Mexico after President Benito Juarez suspended foreign debt payments.  Afraid of a possible alliance with the Confederacy, Lincoln felt a Union presence on the Rio Grande would deter any French meddling.  In November, 1863, ten thousand Union troops under General Nathaniel Banks landed near Brownsville and occupied the city.  Hundreds of cotton bales were put to the torch to prevent their use by Federal forces.

Union forces slowed the cotton trade but didn’t completely stop it; the cotton routes were simply moved west to Eagle Pass and Laredo.  Banks simply didn’t have the manpower to cover the entire length of the Rio Grande.  In addition, South Texas had an ally in Union Army Chief of Staff Henry Halleck who felt the invasion was too difficult to maintain in far off South Texas and wouldn’t accomplish anything.  Instead, he favored an expedition up the Red River in Louisiana and entrance into East Texas via Shreveport.  New England politicians, such a Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, wanted East Texas cotton for their states’ idle textile mills.  Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant had the final word on the matter; he ordered Banks to leave five months after he landed.  What forces remained in Brownsville were shoved off the mainland by Colonel John S. (Rip) Ford’s “Cavalry of the West.”  For the remainder of the war, Texas was Union free and the cotton trade continued.  The Union maintained a presence on Brazos Santiago, a five mile stretch of sand in the Gulf near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Despite their best efforts, the Confederacy still couldn’t obtain enough arms to outfit all their troops.  Some units in Arkansas and the Indian Territory had no arms whatsoever; the demand greatly exceeded the supply.  After the Confederacy fell, the cotton trade collapsed.  As a show of strength to the French, U.S. troops, under General Phil Sheridan, were rushed into the border region.  Bagdad, which once had a wartime population of 15,000, was totally abandoned by 1880.  No structures stand today, just beach umbrellas, volleyball nets and vendor huts selling Coronas.  It is now a popular beach named appropriately Playa Bagdad.

"I'm gonna get you for nothing."

“If you don’t surrender, I’ll charge you with the Texas Rangers under the black flag.”

[General Nathan Bedford Forrest to the 9^th Michigan Infantry on July 13, 1862 at Murfreesboro, TN] 

The 9^th Michigan quickly surrendered.

Few Confederate units could generate more fear among Union troops than the 8^th Texas Cavalry Regiment, better known as Terry’s Texas Rangers.  Armed with shotguns, Colt revolvers and Bowie knives, the Rangers charged and shot their way into Texas legend.  One Union officer wrote, “The Rangers are as quick as lightning.  They ride like Arabs, shoot like archers at the mark, and fight like devils.  They rode upon bayonets as if they were charging a commissary department, are wholly without fear themselves, and no respecter of a wish to surrender.” 

                                                                                              
                                                           General Alexander Shannon

In July 1864, a special detachment of thirty Rangers was formed as a reconnaissance and commando unit.   Their mission was to conduct raids and gather intelligence on Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee.  Led by Colonel Alexander May Shannon, they killed over fifty Federal troops and captured over one hundred. 

                                                                                                                                    
Their first objective was to reconnoiter a Union battery outside of Atlanta.  The scouts, disguised in Federal uniforms, completed their mission.  As a reward, each of them stole a horse from a Union stable.  Over the final months of the war, the Scouts gathered intelligence on Sherman’s army and fended off Union cavalry raids.  Of all their activities, their most noted was executing Union foragers or "bummers” in Georgia and the Carolinas.  Enraged over the ransacked homes of destitute Southerners, the Scouts often shot “bummers” and left their corpses by the road as a warning.  In one instance, twenty one were discovered with their throats slashed.  Others had the words “Death to all Foragers” carved into their bodies.  

As the dead “bummers” piled up, Union cavalry commander Judson Kilpatrick offered a $ 5,000 reward for the capture of Shannon.  When Shannon heard about the reward, he replied, “I want to thank you for the signal honor, but I’m going to go you one better. I’m gonna get you for nothing.” 

                                                              General H. Kilpatrick                         

Like a Turkish pasha, Kilpatrick had a passion for lavish meals, musical serenades, and prostitutes; he kept one named “Charley” in his headquarters tent and had her wear a Federal uniform as a disguise.   Because of his penchant for getting men killed in reckless charges, he was referred to as “Kill-Cavalry” instead of Kilpatrick.  His career took a serious dip when he authorized an ill-fated cavalry raid against Richmond, Virginia in March, 1864.  The raid’s commander, Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren, was killed.  As a result of the raid’s failure and ensuing controversy (papers found on Dahlgren’s body called for the execution of Jefferson Davis and his cabinet), he was transferred to the Western command of General William T. Sherman.  Kilpatrick’s cavalry gained everlasting notoriety for burning and looting property during "Sherman’s March." 
                                                                                                              

Kilpatrick’s nemesis, Alexander Shannon, had actually voted against secession before the war.  Nevertheless, he volunteered for Confederate service and raised a cavalry company.  Gaining a solid reputation for bravery, he quickly rose to the rank of captain in the 8^th Texas Cavalry.   

At dawn on March 9, 1865, Shannon almost made good on his offer.  Near Fayetteville, North Carolina, Confederate troopers under General Wade Hampton approached Kilpatrick’s camp.  Shannon’s men took out the guards.  When the Union bugler blew “Reveille,” the Confederate cavalry blew in.  Complete pandemonium broke out as Union troopers, in various stages of dress, ran about like jackrabbits in a grass fire.  Clad in his long johns, Kilpatrick emerged from his tent and was confronted by a Confederate cavalryman.  In breathless excitement, the Confederate asked, “Which one is General Kilpatrick !”  Kilpatrick cleverly pointed to a distant Union trooper.  “There he goes. The one on the black horse,” he replied.  The cavalryman rode off and Kilpatrick ran off into the woods to avoid capture.  His current paramour, Marie Boozer, hid his battle flag under her dress.  Kilpatrick lost his sword and wardrobe, but the flag and mistress were saved.

The Rangers never surrendered before the end of the war, but made their way home in small undetected groups.  Shannon became a successful businessman in Galveston.  He proposed the building of the famous seawall to protect the city from hurricanes.  He died in 1906 and is buried in the Episcopal Cemetery in Galveston.

The Shoe Shine Hero

Since 1883, the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts launched naval ships into the open sea.  After a brief introduction of dignitaries followed by an impassioned speech, a champaign bottle was broken on the ship’s hull.  The vessel slipped stern first off her moorings and went crashing into the water.  Unlike previous launchings, this one was different.  For the first time, the U.S Navy was paying homage to an African American sailor by naming a warship after him.  The young sailor’s mother, Naunita Harmon Carroll, christened the new destroyer U.S.S. Harmon.  Like many who made the ultimate sacrifice during World War II, Texas native Leonard Roy Harmon made his with an unflinching sense of duty to his country; a country where discrimination was still practiced in the military.

Leonard Roy Harmon was born on January 21, 1917 to Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Harmon.  Leonard grew up in the small Southeast Texas town of Cuero.  Like many Texas boys, he loved to hunt and fish.  He also had his own horse named “Chicken.”  To earn money, young Harmon did yard work and shined shoes on the downtown streets.     
                                                                                             

                                                                                                 Leonard Roy Harmon

Few opportunities existed in the late 1930’s for small town, African American men.  Paying jobs were scarce due to the Great Depression and college tuition was out of reach.  For those seeking a way out, adventure and opportunity could be found in the military.   Harmon joined the Navy on June 10, 1939.  He served as a mess attendant, one of the very few positions available to African Americans on naval ships back then.  Not many honors and recognition came your way; you prepared food, served food, washed dishes, and maintained the ship’s galley.  You also served the officers by making their beds, cleaning their quarters, and like Harmon’s job in Cuero, shining their shoes.  For most enlisted personnel, mess hall or K.P. (Kitchen Police) duty was something you tried to avoid or were punished with for committing an infraction.  For Harmon, it was a full-time job.

Harmon’s ship was the heavy cruiser U.S.S. San Francisco.  While docked at Pearl Harbor, she miraculously avoided the bombs and torpedoes.  On October 31, 1942, she was dispatched to the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal, the beginning of the U.S. island hopping campaign against Japan.  The Japanese were building an airfield on the island and were not willing to give it up without a fight.  U.S. Marines secured the airfield and fended off a series of desperate Japanese counterattacks.  The U.S. Navy, however, received a painful lesson in Japanese naval tactics; they were driven away from the landing areas after the “Battle of Savo Island.”  For awhile, the Marines had to consume captured Japanese rations until supply ships could return.

The San Francisco was part of a naval task force of 5 cruisers and 8 destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral David Callaghan, a former naval aide to President Franklin Roosevelt. The task force was sent to protect the U.S. landing beaches and airfield on Guadalcanal.  To counter U.S. efforts, a Japanese task force of warships and troop ships was dispatched to shell the airfield and reinforce Japanese troops already on the island.  Japanese battleships were armed with high explosive shells designed to destroy U.S. planes on the airfield with massive bursts of shrapnel.  The attack was to commence during the late evening of November 13, 1942.  Equipped with huge searchlights, the Japanese Navy had mastered the art of naval warfare at night.  Unlike their U.S. adversaries, they drilled extensively at it.  

In one of the most confused naval battles in U.S. History, the Japanese task force of 2 battleships, 1 cruiser and 12 destroyers sailed head-on into the American naval force north of Guadalcanal.  Firing was at point blank range.  One U.S. Navy officer recalled, “It was like a barroom brawl after the lights had been shot out.”  The ships became so intermingled that U.S. ships sometimes fired on each other.  Admiral Callaghan became so confused he ordered, “Odd ships fire to starboard, even ships fire to port.”  The problem was none of the ships had received a numerical designation.  How do you know if you are an even number ship or an odd number ship, especially at night?

The San Francisco took a pounding from four Japanese warships. Admiral Callaghan and most of his staff were killed.  Shrapnel was flying everywhere because of the Japanese shells.  It was suicide to go out on deck.   As San Francisco’s wounded began piling up, Harmon assisted in carrying them across the deck to the infirmary or dressing station.   While assisting Pharmacist’s Mate Lynford Bondsteel, he spotted a shell heading toward them.  “Look out Doc!” he shouted while pushing Bondsteel through an open deck hatch to safety below.  Harmon followed, but he was too late.  Riddled with shrapnel, he later died from his wounds.  Harmon was buried at sea the following morning.

The battle lasted 40 minutes.   Afraid of being attacked by American planes at daylight and having expended most of their ammo to bombard the airfield, the Japanese withdrew.  Guadalcanal would eventually fall to U.S. forces.

Mrs. Carroll said, “Oh, I just know my son is dead,” when she first heard about the battle.  Official notice came a few weeks later along with a medal, the Navy Cross - the Navy’s highest decoration for valor.  Because of Harmon’s courage, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox authorized the naming of a U.S. destroyer after Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon.  Harmon’s mother, stepfather and two sisters boarded a train for Quincy to dedicate the ship named after their Leonard Roy. 

The U.S.S. Harmon served out the war and participated in the invasion of Iwo Jima.  She was awarded three battle stars for service in the Pacific. 

Gano's Big Haul

It was the Confederacy’s most successful operation in the Indian Territory (now present day Oklahoma); Texas and Native American cavalry captured a “mother lode” of Union supplies at the Second Battle of Cabin Creek.  Valued at a whopping $1.5 million, the captured wagon train breathed new  life into the Confederate cause in the Indian Territory, a critical link in the defense of North Texas during the Civil War.  What is even more amazing is how two brigades of ragged, poorly armed, ill-tempered, and undisciplined troops pulled it off.

By the summer of 1864, the eastern half of the Indian Territory was divided by Union and Confederate forces along the Canadian River.  The war had ravaged the northeast region, especially the Cherokee Nation.  Attacks by Confederate cavalry, Union cavalry, and bandits kept the region virtually uninhabitable.    Burned-out ruins that were once prosperous farms dotted an ashen, ghostly landscape.  Confederate refugees fled south of the Canadian River to the Choctaw Nation and North Texas.  Union-supporting Native Americans were forced to camp around Union forts for food and protection against Confederate guerillas.  For Native American males on both sides, it was safer to be in the army than it was to stay at home. 

For the Union Army to maintain a hold over the Indian Territory, it was vital to maintain a garrison at Fort Gibson, a key defensive position on the Arkansas River.  Due to the lack of railroads, the shifting depth of the Arkansas River, and the destruction of local farms, wagon trains were the only available means to supply Fort Gibson.  The problem was getting the wagons there unscathed.

In prior months, poorly equipped and unreliable Confederate forces had been unsuccessful in capturing Union wagon trains.  In 1864, their luck changed as Union troops were spread thin due to the capture of Fort Smith, Arkansas and Union operations during the Red River Campaign.  The Ft. Gibson garrison was forced to send out detachments to cut hay for the fort’s horses and protect its supply line.  This made them easy targets for Cherokee General Stand Watie, whose brigade excelled in ambushing Union troops not ensconced in a fort.

                                                                                                                   Stand Watie

Based solely on appearance, Stand Watie was not the most inspiring of Confederate generals.  He was three quarters Cherokee, barely over 5 feet tall, had bowed legs from years in the saddle, and a reserved demeanor.  Most of his followers were Half-Bloods (Cherokee and Anglo parents) who embraced the Southern Planter lifestyle.  They attended colleges back East, attended church, wore the White Man’s clothing, established Masonic lodges, and owned slaves.  Watie’s uncle, Major John Ridge, signed the 1835 Treaty of New Enchota which led to the removal of the Cherokee Tribe from their lands in the Southeast to the Indian Territory.   Native Cherokees were outraged and     assassinated Ridge and Watie’s brother Elias Boudinet over the removal.  Watie himself was attacked with a bullwhip (not the best weapon for an assassination), but managed to shoot his assailant dead.   When the Civil War began, years of inner-tribal hatreds boiled over.  Most Native Cherokees opposed slavery and sided with the Union.  The Half-Bloods formed their own Confederate regiment under Watie.  The result was a tribal conflict fought against the backdrop of the American Civil War.  Because of the murders of his uncle and brother, Watie had personal scores to settle.  In time, he became a lethal guerilla fighter and a holy terror to Union-supporting Cherokees.   

The commander of Confederate forces in the Indian Territory, General Samuel Bell Maxey, gave approval for a Watie plan to attack Union supply columns north of the Arkansas River.  On September 14, 1864, a combined Native American and Texan force, under Stand Watie and Richard Gano, set out for the Northern Indian Territory.  Gano was anxious for a fight to give his unruly command something to do.  In a letter to Maxey, he wrote, “It’s true that many of my men are dismounted, barefoot, and unarmed, but they would be better satisfied if actively employed, than idling in camps.  And there would be a pretty fair chance to capture arms, horses, and clothing.  We ought to be up there now.”  All combined, the Confederate force numbered two thousand. Despite their equal ranks, Watie deferred leadership of the expedition to Gano, a wise move considering the attitude Texans had toward their Native American comrades. 

Gano’s Texans consisted of several North Texas regiments that signed up mainly to avoid the draft rather than support a heartfelt cause.  Most of them worried about Comanche raids and the safety of their families back home.  Desertions were common; they hated the Indian Territory, hated Native Americans, and hated Stand Watie’s newly awarded rank of brigadier general.  Colonel Charles DeMorse of the 29th Texas Cavalry Regiment refused to serve under him. 

DeMorse was a powerful newspaper publisher in his hometown of Clarksville, Texas.  His newspaper, “The Northern Standard,” was the largest in North Texas.   Before the war, DeMorse helped organize the Democratic Party in Texas and was known as the “Father of the Texas Democratic Press.”  With such stature back home, it’s not surprising he wasn’t happy about being a mere colonel; he wanted Gano’s job.  Gano, on the other hand, wanted a transfer out of the Indian Territory.

                                                                                             Richard Gano

Richard Montgomery Gano, a native Kentuckian, had served under Colonel John Morgan during his successful forays into Tennessee and Kentucky.  Because of a lingering heart ailment, he returned home to Grapevine, Texas for several months of recuperation.  Upon his return to duty, he was sent to the Indian Territory.  Serving with Morgan’s Raiders aptly prepared him for the hit and run warfare in the Indian Territory.  It didn’t prepare him for the incessant supply and manpower problems.

 Most his new command had no shoes and a laughable array of firearms, usually antiquated hunting rifles and shotguns brought from home.  Some had no arms at all.  New uniforms were often obtained by simply exchanging clothes with Union prisoners.  What uniforms they did receive wouldn’t clear the waist of a New York fashion model.  General Maxey remarked, “The lady or man that cut these clothes never saw a naked man.  I got a pair of pants long enough, and there is a great deal of longitude about me, and they were not large enough around the waist for a ten year old boy.”  It was so bad that Maxey placed ads in the “Dallas Herald” for clothing.  There were no tents, which led to Watie’s men departing ranks during the winter months for the warmth of their homes, a real problem if there was sudden Union attack.  As if things weren’t bad enough, there were starving refugees to feed and shelter.  Massive supplies of arms, food, and clothing were needed and needed fast, but where to get them ?

On September 12, a Union train of 300 wagons, under the command of Major Henry Hopkins, departed Fort Scott in Southeast Kansas.  A Kansas cavalry detachment of 260 guarded the train.  Upon its approach to Cabin Creek in the Indian Territory, several companies of Union Cherokees numbering 310 reinforced the guard.  It wouldn’t be enough.   

During the raid, Gano’s men pounced on a detachment of Ft. Gibson troops cutting hay near Prairie Springs; thirty four were killed.   Most of the killed were African American.  At the Battle of Honey Springs, these same Texans were defeated by African American troops; something that didn’t sit well with their pride and reputations.  From the Union prisoners they took alive, Gano learned about an approaching wagon train.  Watie’s men smeared war paint on their faces in anticipation of an attack.

At Cabin Creek, Hopkins’ wagons were driven into a stockade for overnight protection.  Because of the dense woods and evening darkness, his troopers didn’t have a clear view of the approaching Confederates.  Gano brought up his artillery (something Hopkins didn’t have) and began shelling the post and wagons.  Pandemonium set in.  A number of the teamsters panicked, cut the mules from their wagon traces, and galloped off.  Gano’s troopers closed in on the post’s perimeter.  Outnumbered and surrounded, Hopkins was forced to surrender. 

It was a spectacular success.  130 wagons and 740 mules were captured for the Confederacy.  The rest had been destroyed during the battle.  Enough food, clothing and arms were obtained to keep the Indian Territory's Confederate forces in the field for several months.   So long in the field in fact, that Stand Watie would be the last Confederate general to surrender after the war.  General Maxey issued congratulatory orders and the Confederate Congress sent a note of thanks. 

After the war, Gano became a Disciples of Christ minister (his great grandfather was a chaplain for George Washington during the Revolutionary War) and got rich in the real estate and banking business in Dallas.  His homestead was on the present day site of the DFW Airport.  He died on March, 27, 1913 and is buried at Oaklawn Cemetery. 

Gano’s “dog-trot” house can now be viewed at Dallas’ Heritage Village at Old City Park.   It’s part of a garden-studded, frontier learning exhibit called simply “The Farmstead.”   I’m all for learning, but because of Richard Gano’s significance in Texas History, I believe it deserves a more honorable exhibit as opposed to being a set piece for “Little House on the Prairie.” 

The Law and Miss Lillie

Judge Roy Bean

In a state brimming with eccentric notables, few stand out more than Judge Roy Bean.  For twenty years, the “Law West of the Pecos” brought order to the remote, arid Trans-Pecos region.   His quirky sense of justice assures him an honored place in Old West lore and history.

Roy Bean’s beginnings go back to the mid 1820’s in the backwoods of Mason County, Kentucky.  Facing abject poverty at home, he left at fifteen, hit the Santa Fe Trail, and ended up running a trading post in Northern Mexico with his brother Samuel.  After getting into trouble with Mexican authorities, Bean fled to Southern California.  He worked at the “Headquarters Saloon” owned by his brother Joshua, who became the first mayor of San Diego, California.  Supporting a flashy vaquero look, young Roy Bean became something of a ladies’ man.  Such posturing led to altercations.  In one of the biggest social events in early San Diego, he took on John Collins in a pistol duel.  Like a Medieval joust, both participants dueled on horseback with Bean getting the upper hand.  He wounded his adversary in the leg and killed his horse.  In 1852, Joshua Bean was murdered and Bean took over his brother’s saloon.  His troubles continued after killing a man in a duel over a woman.  Avoiding the hangman’s noose, he left California.
                                                                                                                           
Bean journeyed to Mesilla, New Mexico and the new home of his brother Samuel.  Elected Sheriff of Dona Ana County, Samuel also had a saloon.  It seems saloons were in the Bean family blood.  Mesilla was an enclave of Confederate support before the war.  When Union forces occupied New Mexico, Bean retreated with the Confederate Army to San Antonio.  He tried his luck in the freight business, but that proved more laughable than successful.  A Uvalde sheep rancher recalled, “Roy Bean’s freight outfit to haul my wool was the sorriest I have ever beheld.  The six wagons were rickety.  The teams to draw same were an equal number of jackass and emaciated horses that had seen better days.  The harness consisted of ropes, leather, and raw hide thongs, chains, and ill-fitted collars for the jackasses.”  When he wasn’t trying to coax an extra mile out of his badly worn animals, Bean courted a 15 year old Mexican girl named Virginia Chavez. Three years later they married and had four children. 

In 1882, the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad began laying track between San Antonio and El Paso.  Bean saw an opportunity.  Tired of married life and the freight business, he divorced his wife and headed west toward the railroad camps near the Pecos River. Upon arrival, he set up a tent saloon and started serving drinks to the railroad workers.  Railroad camps in the Old West were havens for gamblers, drunks, opium addicts, thieves, and murderers.  In the tent city of Vinegarroon, a boxing ring was set up where workers bet drinks while watching bare knuckle fights.  For food and sport, workers dynamited fish out of the Rio Grande.  Accidents were common, violence was rampant, and graves were unmarked.   Texas Rangers were dispatched to keep the camps in line and protect nearby residents.   In dire need of local law enforcement, the Rangers tabbed Bean for the job of Justice of the Peace.  Probably impressed with his commanding presence in the camps, the Commissioners of Pecos County officially appointed him.  Bean held the office (with interruptions in 1886 and 1896) from 1882 until his death in 1903.


The Jersey Lilly and Courthouse

In 1886, Bean moved to the town of Langtry, named after railroad foreman George Langtry.  He later claimed he named the town after Lillie Langtry, a stunning British stage actress Bean became infatuated with.  Bean built a saloon and named it “The Jersey Lilly” in her honor.  Proclaiming himself the “Law West of the Pecos,” Bean dispensed justice while dispensing whiskey in his saloon.  Lacking a jail, Bean kept drunken rowdies handcuffed to a mesquite tree.  Law was interpreted through a single book, the 1879 “Revised Statutes of Texas.”  Fees ranged from 5$ for weddings to 10$ for divorces.  All weddings ended with the death sentence passage, “and may God have mercy on your souls.” 

A popular story involved the murder of a Chinese railroad worker by one of the many Irish workers.  The worker was brought before Judge Bean while his fellow Irishmen threatened to riot if their friend wasn’t exonerated.  Bean carefully scanned his law book then declared, “It don’t say nothing in here about it being against the law to kill a Chinaman. Case dismissed.”  

Bean’s greatest achievement may not have been as Justice of the Peace, but as a fight promoter.  In February, 1896, a world title prizefight was to be held in El Paso between number one contender Bob Fitzsimmons and Irish champ Peter Maher.  Because both Texas and Mexico outlawed prizefighting, Bean came up with a novel solution.  Why not have the fight at Langtry in the middle of the nearby Rio Grande ?  The two fighters and paying spectators boarded a special train in El Paso for the fight in Langtry.  Spectators and residents swamped “The Jersey Lilly” while the fighters got dressed aboard the train.  A rickety footbridge had been constructed across the river to a sandbar and hastily assembled boxing ring.  Drunken fans watched Fitzsimmons knock out Maher within a few seconds from the opening bell.  Texas Rangers could only look on from the bluffs above the river; the fight was out of their jurisdiction.

Despite Judge Bean’s moodiness, revolting table manners and drunken tirades, he was basically a good soul that helped the poor and established a schoolhouse for the local children.  He never allowed children in the saloon.  Destitute mothers without a supporting husband were provided one of Bean’s rent homes free of charge.
                                                                                                                           Lillie Langtry

His obsession with Lillie Langtry never wavered.  In anticipation of a future performance, he built an opera house for the red-headed actress.  Bean wrote her a letter imploring her to visit the town he named after her.  The actress couldn’t make it but offered him a water fountain instead.  Bean later replied that it would be useless since the only thing the citizens of Langtry didn’t drink was water.  Unfortunately, the two would never meet.  Bean died on March 16, 1903 in his saloon.  He was buried at the Del Rio cemetery.

 Almost a year later, Lillie Langtry visited the town she thought was named after her.  While traveling from New Orleans to San Francisco, her train stopped for a short visit; the whole town turned out. A bugler and drummer provided musical accompaniment as Miss Lillie herself stepped off the train.  She visited the saloon and schoolhouse.  After being told about the school’s overcrowded condition, she donated fifty dollars to enlarge it.  Poker chips from the saloon, one of Judge Bean’s pistols, and of all things, a pet bear were presented to her.  Langtry recalled the bear presentation in her memoir, “The Days I Knew:”

 “They hoisted the unwilling animal on to the platform, and tethered him to the rail, but happily, before I had time to rid myself of this unwelcome addition without seeming discourteous, he broke away, scattering the crowd and causing some of the vaqueros to start shooting wildly at all angles.”

Lillie Langtry had a life that could be a guidebook for today’s Hollywood celebs.  She had a three year affair with the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward (Queen Victoria’s son and the future King Edward VII). The prince even constructed a retreat for the two of them called the “Red House.”  If that wasn’t enough, she had affairs with the Earl of Shrewsbury and Prince Louis of Battenberg (First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy) while still married to her husband Edward Langtry.  Lillie Langtry was one of the first actresses to be paid to endorse commercial products such as soap and cosmetics.  She also purchased the Langtry Estate and Vineyards in Lake County, California.  It is still in operation today and Langtry wines can be purchased online.  Lillie Langtry died in 1929 while living in Monaco.

Here is a favorite scene from the movie, “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” starring Paul Newman as the Judge.  In this fictional scene, Judge Bean demonstrates the Texas solution to global terrorism on mad, Albino outlaw, “Bad Bob.” This guy is so crazy and scary-looking, I think he would have been shot back then for just being crazy and scary-looking.  Check out the movie and read Jack Skiles’ wonderful book, “Judge Roy Bean Country.”

What the Heck Happened to the Karankawas?

If you travel extensively in New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Texas, chances are you will encounter a reservation, cultural center or hotel casino administered by Native Americans once indigenous to Texas.   One tribe will not be among them.  For decades, the Karankawas once flourished along the Texas coast from Galveston to Corpus Christi.  By the late 1800’s, they were extinct.

Most of what is known about them comes from the first person accounts of European explorers and missionaries.  The most vivid was from Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked Spanish explorer who lived among them for several years.  He describes a handsome race of nomadic hunters and gatherers that subsisted on seafood during the summer and deer meat during the winter.  Unlike their Plains Indian neighbors, these Native Americans were a staggering 6 to 7 feet tall.  The Karankawas also tattooed their bodies, pierced their breasts and chins with a piece of cane, and traveled coastal waters in dugout canoes.  Their preferred weapon was an extremely long bow that was as tall as or taller than the person shooting it.  Karankawa homes were similar to today’s camping tents.  Made of willow poles and animal skins, they were called wickiups.  For insect repellent, the Karankawas covered themselves with alligator grease.  Based on the eyewitness accounts, the smell of that stuff could knock the ticks off a bird dog. 

The treatment of Karankawa wives was like the way you would treat a fishing rod.  As long as she worked and bore children, everything was fine; you kept her around.  You might even loan her out to your friends.  Otherwise, you could simply divorce her and find a new one.  There was also an in-law taboo where the wife’s parents could not have any contact whatsoever with the husband or enter his wickiup.  It seems the Karankawas had a leg up on the in-law situation, long before we started making jokes about it. 

The Karankawas had some really strange and horrifying ceremonies called “Mitotes.”  During the ceremony, a drink made from Yaupon leaves was consumed by male tribe members.  Called the “Black Drink,” it produced a jolt more powerful than day old coffee at a truck stop.  Some of the Mitotes involved a ritualistic form of cannibalism.  Victims (usually prisoners of war) were tied to a stake near a roaring campfire.  The Karankawas would dance around the fire while brandishing knives.  As they passed the victim, they sliced off a piece of flesh, toasted it like a marshmallow in the fire, and then consumed it before the victim.  By doing this, they believed they were absorbing their enemy’s strength.   Unfortunately, the Karankawas got a bad rep for this practice, a common one actually among Gulf Coast tribes.  Anglo settlers, who had little regard for Karankawa customs, just assumed they included people on their daily menus.

The beginning of the end probably came in 1685 with the arrival of French colonists.  Sponsored by a French explorer named La Salle, the colonists landed at Matagorda Bay and built a settlement at nearby Garcitas Creek.  Everything that could possibly go wrong in a European colony went wrong at La Salle’s colony. Their supply ship wrecked off the coast, sending most of their essentials to the bottom.  In six months, disease, malnutrition and exposure reduced the population from 180 to 90.  To make matters worse, the colonists lifted a couple of Karankawa canoes.  Not ones to shrug off impoliteness, the Karankawas responded by relentlessly attacking them.  Usually successful when it came to Indian relations, the French failed miserably with the Karankawas.  Taking advantage of the colony’s decline, the Karankawas wiped it off the map.  Only a couple of children were taken into captivity.

Not thrilled with a French colony in their neck of the woods, the Spaniards countered by setting up missions near the Karankawa’s territory.  Despite their best efforts, the Spanish missions failed to convert the Karankawas; they simply weren't buying it.

Bringing disease with them, European colonists and missionaries infected the Native Americans along the Texas Gulf Coast.  The Karankawas began dying off in droves.  Warfare with Texas settlers, other Native Americans (mostly the Comanches), Mexican ranchers, and Pirates hastened their demise.  Before the American Civil War began, the Karankawas disappeared, never to recover.  Only the efforts of archaeologists, anthropologists and historians keep their story alive. 

 The plight of the Karankawas was best summed up by anthropologist, Dr. W.W. Newcomb, Jr., in his book, "The Indians of Texas" (1961, University of Texas Press):

"Our civilization is like a great blanket cushioning and protecting us from the raw world; the Karankawas blanket was thin and patchy.  Yet, they survived, even thrived, and were happy with their ways.  To Europeans and Texans it was astonishing and insufferable that such a people should prefer their own gods, food , and customs to civilization's blessings.  But they did, and they clung to these ancestral ways.  And for this they perished.  To persevere to such ultimate tragedy is a highway to continuing remembrance."

On a lighter note, here is a “You Tube” trailer for the 1966 Western parody film, “Texas Across the River.” It features Hollywood’s favorite Karankawa played by "Rat Pack" comedian Joey Bishop. Named Kronk, Bishop sounds more like a Chinese tourist than a Native American out of his element.  This is one those movies that is so goofy, it’s funny. The Karankawas, however, didn’t don the buckskin attire worn by Kronk.  They wore breech clothes.  After all, they lived on the beach.  Considering the attire or lack of attire on beaches today, that's not surprising.

Believe it or not, a few beers and this movie can make for a fun evening.  Check out Joey Bishop’s rain dance; that’s why you need the beer.