Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-10-28
FRONTIER FIGHTERS
The Texas Rangers and Some Of
Their Daring Deeds.
CARRIED ON A SlITY-YEhR War
Many a Battle With Cattle Thieves
and Other Oesperadoes.
ALWAYS IN THE SADDLE

Written for The Evening Star by n. A. Jennings.
The Texas Rangers. an organization made
up of former members of various COM
panies of the lone star state, famous from
tier fighters, viii meet in San Antonio,
Texas, November 2. 1t is likely that many
hundreds of eX-Rangers will be at the
meeting, for about three thousand of these
men are still alive, and they all take
great pride in the organization. Some Of
the eX-Rangers are old, white-haired men
who fought the murderous Apaches, CO.
manches and KioWas in the 40's and sos,
but the greater number are those who saw
equally dangerous service on the Texas
frontier in the fifteen years Immediately
following the civil war, whose principal
duty it was to drive out the Mexican raid
ers from across the Rio Grande, and to
overcome the white desperadoes who band
ed together and terrorized the settlers of
the border counties.
In all truth it may be said that no body
of frontier constabulary in the history of
the world ever held such record for bra
very and effective work as the Texas Ran
gers. They have been magnificent fighters
ever since the time when forty of them
fought their way through Santa Ana's
army to the Alamo to join its little band of
desperate defenders, and there gave up
| their lives with Davy Crockett, Sam Bowie
| and Travis.
Those men were the original Texas Ran
gers. and their example has ever been in
| the minds of their successors, apparently,
| for it is matter OF common knowledge in
Texas that no Ranger ever Shirked his duty
| or turned his back to the enemy, no mat
| ter what were the odds against him.
| In the war for the independence of Texas,
| in the Mexican war and in the civil war
! the Texas Rangers did notable service.
Many Of them Joined the Rough Riders
when the Spanish-American war was de-
clared, and of them Col. Roosevelt has
written:
RooseveIfs Estimate.
I'VE drew a great many recruits from
Texas, and from nowhere did we get
higher average, for many of them had
served in that famous body of frontier
fighters, the Texas Rangers. These needed
no teaching. They were already trained to
obey and to take responsibility. They were
splendid shots, horsemen and trailers. They
were accustomed TO living in the open, to
enduring great fatigue and hardship, and
to encountering all kinds of danger
But wars have been but incidents in the
career of the Rangers, for they have been
lighting a war of their own on the Texas
| frontier for over sixty years. During all
| that time they have fought against the
enemies of law and order in their state and
have had hundreds upon hundreds Of bat
| ties and skirmishes with the enemy. The
work of wrestling Texas from the control of
the lawless element which formerly reigned
supreme along her borders has been slow,
but it has finally been accomplished by the
Rangers, fighting for every foot of ground
| throughout the long years.
The Writer a Ranger Himself.
1t was my high privilege to be a Texas
Ranger for nearly three years-from 1875
| to 1S7S-and l therefore feel qualified in a
measure to act as their historian, although
| the limits of this article are far too cir
cumscribed to admit of any but the briefest
reference to the work of the Rangers, as a
whole L shall rather confine myself to
telling of some of the exploits of my i'm
mediate comrades in the service of the
state and endeavor to give in sketchy out
line idea of our life from day to day in
camp and in the saddle.
Capt. l.. H McNelly, who had achieved
fame throughout the southwest a leader
of Irregular cavalry in the confederate
service during the war, was in command of
the Ranger company which l Joined at the
age of nineteen on the Rio Grande border.
There were but little more than forty men
in our company, but the first work We Were
set to do was to put an end to the cattle
stealing by thousands of Mexican raiders
along the Rio Grande a task. which had
proven too great for the many United
States troops stationed along the river The
raiders were well organized and had carried
on their depredations for years. They were
fine horsemen, expert plainsmen and cour-
ageous fighters when cornered Their lead
ers were notorious bandits, who had fought
their way to their places of command.
A Fearless Body of Men.
But although the Rangers in our troop
were little more than boys-they ranged
| from eighteen to twenty-three years of age,
and McNelly himself was under thirty-they
did not shrink from the work ahead of
| them. rhe captain had picked his men
from thousands of applicants, and the re-
| suit proved how splendidly he could Judge
men. 1 doubt IL such a fearless body of
young daredevfls ever took the saddle in
the service of any state were McNeIly's
Texas Rangers But there was nothing of
| the border ruffian, cowboy element in the
makeup of the troop. They were all we'll
educated young fellows. many of them col
| lege graduates, in whose veins flowed the
best blood of the south and southwest. They
were real gentlemen adventurers''-not of
| kind however with those who sailed the
Spanish main.
| They had sought excitement out on the
open prairies, where wild cattle and wild
horses still roamed at will, and where the
| last herds of the buffalo yet graZed, but
the Ranger company offered superior in
ducements for such as they, and it was
| with zeal and enthusiasm they entered the
| services of the state.
Thirty Battles in Three Years.
Under McNelly we found all the adventure
we sought and to spare. In the three years
| I was with the company we had nearly
thirty open battles with Mexican raiders
and Texas desperadoes and any number of
| minor encounters with them. We arrested
over two thousand outlaws in that time
and broke up gang after gang OF horse
| thieves and cattle thieves and murderers
who roamed over the western part of the
state.
We literalls lived in the saddle. We car