Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-04-24
THE RIO GRANDE.


Report of ex-Federals on the Charge
10 that the Raiders are Disguised ex-
Confederates.
BROWNSVILLE, April 10.-The fol-
lowing is the report ola committee APP
pointed by special mass meeting of
the citizens of Brownsville. The mem
bers Of the committee were all Union
men, and three of them are Federal
officers: Col. Hays, Collector of the
Port; Col. G. G. Davis, Deputy Col
lector; and Edward Downey, Postmas-
ter. The report was unanimously
adopted. The Hon. j. L. Haynes was
chairman, and VIM. Kelley secretary
of the mass meeting
Your Committee, to whom was re-
terred the subject-n after of the al
legged statement of Senior Marescol,
Mexican minister at Washington, in
regard to the border troubles on the
Rio Grande, that they are as much the
work of Americans as of Mexieans,
and that American citizens, disguised
as Indians and Mexicans, frequently
raid upon settlers, and that the more
daring of the parties engaged in these
frequent raids are ex-Confederate SOL
diers, who, ruined by the war and de-
prived OF the support of slave labor,
prefer the life they are leading to earn
ing an honest livelihood, is satisfied
that Senior Marescol has been misin-
formed and grossly deceived as to the
true condition of affairs on this. FROM
tier, and that he has, thus unintention-
ally probably, done American citizens
of this frontier a great wrong and in
justice, as can be easily proved by the
most undoubted testimony. The time
given your committee is too short to
prepare full refutation of the unjust
aspersions contained in the CORES
pondence of Senior Marescol, and your
committee would Recommend the APP
pointment of committee to collect
facts and submit them to the consid-
Grafton of the Honorable Secretary of
State, to refute the charges of the Mex
lean Minister. In the meantime, your
committee submits the following brief
resume of facts, which are susceptible
| OF the cleareSt proof:
First-That for at least ten years
since the close of our civil war, there
has not been single, act of hostility,
invasion or plundering, or fillibuster-
ing against the Republic of Mexico
from the Republic of Texas, nor an act
of single person even passing from
this to the other side ofthe Rio Grande
with any such intent, and we challenge
any scintilla of proof to the contrary.
Seeond-That for the last ten years,
since the close of our civil war, raids
of volunteering parties from Mexico
to this side of the Rio Grande have
been continuous and persistent, and
these plundering parties have drawn
from our stock ranches hundreds of
thousands of stock. They have COM
mitted murder, robbery and arson and
against repeated complaints made TO
the Mexican authorities for their rem
dition to the hands of justice, a deaf
ear has been turned.
We cite the following recent and no.
torious cases:
The robbery of store at Penescal
and the murder of the Morton
brothers.
The robbery of store at Los Almos
and the murder of Mr.. Fulton, post
master at Ell Sause, and his clerk in
Hidalgo county.
The murder of Vidal La Hille by
Ricardo Flores near Ell Pastill.
The attempted assassination OF Capt
King and party of his friends, near
San Fernando, and the the murder OF
one of his friends.
The murder of Alex. Morell in Starr
county, and many others which will be
detailed hereafter.
And lastly, the recent raid of forty
or fifty men in body, near Corpus
Christi, which band captured and held
as prisoners many persons, including
three ladies', and which finally sur
rounded the town of Roma, on their
return to Mexico, for the purpose Of
robbery, from which they were only
deferred by the presence of United
States soldiers.
The proofs of the extent of the rob-
berries committed by these plundering
raids exist in the report of the frontier
commission, to which additional evi-
dence can be added.
Third-The charge that these crimes
have been committed by Confederate
soldiers disguised as Mexicans and In
dams, and rendered desperate by the
loss of their slave property, is an alb
surdity on its face, into which the
Mexican Minister could only have been
led by ignorance of this part of Texas.
In the first place, there were never
any slaves west of the Nueces worth
mentioning, the census of 1860 show
ing a total number in this vast region,
equal to the State of Pennsylvania in
extent, to have been but 259, while
west of San Antonio river the number
did not exceed a thousand. There are
only eight Americans who were ex-
Confederate soldiers in the county of
Cameron, and west of the Nueces there
are probably not fifty ex-Confederate
soldiers, and those would hardly dis
guise themselves to prey on their own
stock. This charge is absolutely
false, for no American has ever been
caught among the many captures, nor
is their ever known to be a single one
in all the frontier States of Mexico,
and we challenge any proof or name of
single individual subject to the
charges.
| EDWARD DowNEY,
Chairman of Committee.
To Col. j. III. HAYNES, chairman
Of the mass meeting of the citizens of
Brownsville, Texas