Ford rode out of Austin with only eight men, some six-shooters, a bag of grub, and not a dollar in public money. The treasury was bare. But on the way south he recruited certain men he knew he could rely upon, found wagons, and even secured a little money. He finished the five-hundred-mile trip at the head of fifty-three hard men. In such ways did the captains of the Rangers operate; it was a rough and ready force.
Ford arrived at Brownsville in time to hear the firing at the Ebonal but not to join the battle. Heintzelman and Ford immediately began a joint campaign, and Cortinas retreated west along the Rio Grande. The Mexican did not fight, but continually stayed ahead of the advancing Rangers and U.S. regulars. In the retreat there was much looting and burning of settlements and ranches by the Mexicans. The Neale ranch was destroyed, and the customs house and post office at Edinburg plundered. Smoke hung over the lower valley as the Mexicans burned or wrecked the American settlements in their path.
By the end of December, Cortinas had retreated upriver to Rio Grande City, then a small village. Ford and Heintzelman closed rapidly on him, and here Cortinas chose to fight. Ford and the Rangers rode down on his camp; the Cortinas army opened fire with its two cannon and attempted a set battle.
The Mexicans advanced against the Rangers with flags and bugle calls, but the Texan fire was deadly. Dozens of vaqueros were knocked out of the saddle.
Ford charged the Mexican line, and the fight broke up into the swirling, galloping melee in which Texan marksmanship with the pistol was so effective. In this kind of fight, Mexican vaqueros, like Comanche braves, were outclassed; they were not so well armed, nor could they handle six-shooters with the serious deadliness of Texans when they were. The three-hundred-man Cortinista army fled, leaving sixty dead behind. Ford suffered sixteen wounded.
Heintzelman's report to the U.S. Adjutant General was brief: "Major Ford led the advance, and took both his [Cortinas's] guns, ammunition wagons, and baggage. He lost everything." Although the Major's report did not specifically state, the regulars never made contact.
Cortinas and his bodyguard dashed for safety south of the Rio Grande. This ended the real rebellion, but the sanctuary of the border gave Cortinas the opportunity to continue his banditry. The long, open border, stretching from Eagle Pass to the Gulf of Mexico had already become a serious problem for Texas. The Mexican government, through most of the century, was caught up in civil war, too weak to enforce order in its northern states. Nor could the Mexicans effectively stop Indian raids, despite the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Bands of Kickapoos, Lipans, and Seminoles, allied with half-castes along the border, had found refuge south of the Rio Grande near Piedras Negras, across from Eagle Pass. These Indians caused serious depredations north of Laredo, and as far east as Nueces County (Corpus Christi) and Rio Grande City. Further, since the Mexican side of the border passed from the control of one petty caudillo to another, different regions were controlled by different warlords, in competition with each other. Mexican border commanders in the three major ports of entry—Mier, Camargo, and Matamoros—tried to lure American commerce away from each other through reductions in tariffs and bribes, and sometimes American merchants got caught up in their wars. As early as 1849, parties of Texas state troops had crossed the border to recover American merchandise seized by Mexican soldiers. This merchandise may have been smuggled in the first place. Rangers on temporary service were in constant, if rather inglorious action, along the river in the 1850s.
The case of J. H. Callahan's company of Rangers was not untypical. Callahan was supposed to operate in the area near San Antonio, but in pursuit of a band of Lipan Apache horse raiders he ranged all the way from Bandera to Eagle Pass, on the border. Callahan's men were unpaid, and not supplied by the state. They fell in with some adventurers under a man named Henry. In October 1855, a combined group of Rangers and adventurers pursued the Indians across the border, on what was more a filibustering expedition than genuine hot pursuit. This force fought a brief skirmish with a band of Mexicans and Indians, then seized the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, ostensibly as a hostage for delivery of the hostile Indians by Mexican army forces. However, the town was looted, and the local Mexican military, their pride stung, preferred to march against the Tejanos rather than help them round up Indians. Callahan set fire to Piedras Negras and retreated into Texas. He was dismissed for this act, but it was indicative of the general lawlessness, disorder, distrust, and hatred that prevailed on both sides of the river.
The governments of each republic, Mexico and the United States, abetted the disorder by not providing adequate forces for policing. But if Mexico was guilty of failing to do anything about deliberate depredations from its side, the state of Texas, especially during the 1850s, out of haphazard military policy and the usual bankruptcy, enlisted and dismissed a series of extremely dubious and damaging so-called Rangers in its service. The quality of these irregulars was entirely dependent upon the quality of their leadership, and of the captains of this era, such as Robinson, Neill, Carmack, Connor, Callahan, Frost, and Tobin, the record shows much bad and little good. Robinson, Neill, and Carmack did nothing on the Indian frontier. Frost spent more time feuding with Indian Agent Neighbors than hunting hostiles; Callahan and Connor were dismissed, the last by Rip Ford. Only when Runnels made Ford Senior Captain, later Major, did matters improve, and then Ford was still handicapped by holdovers like Tobin on the Rio Grande.
Cheno Cortinas set up a headquarters in Mexico in January 1860. He was able to do so because the local authorities were too weak to control him; further, few Mexicans believed that a man who was fighting Texas could be really bad. A crisis came on February 4, 1860, when a detachment of Ford's Rangers stopped a Cortinista band trying to move some plunder across the river. In the fight, one Ranger was fatally shot.
It was known that Cortinas had fortified a bend in the river some thirty-five miles above Brownsville and would attempt to capture the King-Kenedy steamboat Ranchero from the Mexican side. The Ranchero was carrying valuable cargo, including $60,000 in specie. Ford, Tobin, U.S. Army Lieutenant Loomis Langdon, who commanded the small army detachment aboard Ranchero, and Captain George Stoneman of the U.S. Cavalry, all gathered on the Texas side across from Cortinas's camp at La Bolsa.
When Langdon queried Ford if he intended to follow Ranger custom and cross into Mexico, Ford said, "Certainly, sir." Here again was a typical situation. No effective action could be taken against Cortinas without crossing the Rio Grande. It was difficult for the federal forces, who more often than not were spoiling to do so, to invade Mexico without approval from Washington; no matter how bad things were on the border, Washington was wary of international incidents. Washington, naturally enough from the national viewpoint, was usually willing to sacrifice a few Texas cows in lieu of starting a war, or even lacerating the touchy Mexican pride. The Texas troops regarded this not only as colossal cowardice but a mistaken policy. History does record that strong action, more often than not, produced results on the border, because American diplomacy never secured the return of a single bandit, horse, or cow. History does not record quite so clearly, but does indicate, that Rangers and U.S. Army units were often able to arrive at a tacit understanding. The Texans would ride into Mexico; the Army would remain at the river's edge, but provide enormous moral support.
Ford crossed the Rio Grande via the Ranchero with thirty-five of his own men, and about ten of Tobin's warriors. Immediately, he became engaged with Cortinas's emplaced troops, while Lieutenant Langdon, aboard Ranchero, supported him by fire from the steamboat's two small cannon. In this fire-fight, several of the Rangers became demoralized, and one raced back to the river. Ford, pistol in hand, loudly announced that the next man who tried to race would have to outrun a Texas bullet. As one Texas historian described the scene, he "restored morale."
Ford then flanked Cortinas's breastworks and led a six-shooter charge. The watching Americans on the Ranchero could hear the "Texan yell" shrill and clear above the other screams a
nd shooting. This high-pitched battle-cry, which the Texas Rangers had already made famous, probably was adopted in response to the Indian war whoop and Mexican grito. It was soon to be transmitted to history as the "Rebel yell." Southerners who had served in Mexico in 1846–48, and later along the Rio Grande, picked it up.
Cortinas commanded at least two hundred men, perhaps four hundred, of which sixty were mounted. He himself fought bravely, but was utterly unable to contain his army when the screaming Texans burst into the Mexican perimeter. His cavalry fled. Cortinas emptied his own revolver, then spurred away. A Texas bullet struck his heavy Mexican saddle. Another clipped his hair, and one smashed his belt. But much to Ford's disgust—Ford had detailed three men to pick him off—the Mexican leader escaped. Ford had one man killed and four wounded. The Mexicans, as nearly as could be told, suffered about thirty dead and forty injured.
In the aftermath, a number of shacks, called jacales, in the area were fired. In his official report, Major Heintzelman stated that this was done contrary to Major Ford's orders, and not by his men, which put the onus squarely on the Tobin Rangers. But regardless of who did it, a number of hapless Mexican peasants were made homeless in the February chill. Immediately afterward, the Tobin men recrossed the river and returned to Brownsville, possibly on Ford's request.
The following morning, February 5, Ford went back into Mexico with forty-seven mounted Rangers. He rode down the south bank of the river abreast of the Ranchero as it steamed downstream. The whole Mexican countryside was in alarm; women and children ran screaming from their huts as the Rinches rode past. At Las Palmas, a large body of Mexican soldiery appeared, led by the Prefect of that place. The Prefect asked Ford for a parley and demanded to know what he was doing in Mexico. Ford told him that he had come to wage war on Cortinas, and that he had secured permission first. As they talked, Ford counted approximately eight hundred men—soldiers, vaqueros, police—drawn up against him. He also saw about two hundred whom he was certain were Cortinistas. To his blunt query about this, the Mexican leaders shrugged and said, "Who knows?"
Now, what the Rangers called a "Mexican stand-off" developed. Outnumbered about sixteen to one, Ford camped, and spent the night, while the Mexican authorities awaited instructions from Matamoros. The next morning he again parleyed and stated that his mission was to protect the Ranchero and its cargo; if it were molested by anyone from the Mexican side, or depredations of the Texas side continued, he promised disastrous consequences for the Mexicans. The Mexicans promised that neither would occur. With such assurances, and with some relief, Rip Ford coolly rode back down to the river and recrossed into Texas.
Cortinas now retreated back from the river, into some mountains in the interior. But the Mexican authorities made no move to arrest him. Ford and Stoneman continued to patrol the Texas side, hopeful of catching him. On the report of an informer that Cortinas was at a place called La Mesa, Ford's Rangers and Stoneman's cavalry charged into Mexico on March 17. Reaching La Mesa, the Americans were fired on, and in a short gun battle, they took the town. Cortinas was not there. From a captured Mexican major, Ford learned that he had fought the local national guard.
"Shit," Ford is reputed to have said to Stoneman. "Captain, we have played Old Scratch—whipped the Guardia Nacional, wounded a woman, and killed a mule." Actually, it was a bit worse than that, because the woman, and five other Mexicans, were dead.
Back on the Texas side, Ford and Stoneman heard that the town of Reynosa, in a fit of patriotic outrage and fervor, had offered to pay $30,000 if any foreign troops "entered their town as the gringos had entered La Mesa." The two officers, who understood that pacification of the Texas side required that the Mexicans be afraid to aid or abet Cortinas, rode to Edinburg, across from the Mexican town. Here Stoneman halted, with a promise to cross the border if Ford got into a fight.
Ford, with his officers Littleton, Nolan, and Dix, boldly rode into the town plaza. They were surrounded by armed Mexicans on every side, but the Mexican officials came to parley. Ford bitingly stated he had come to collect the offered reward, and demanded the surrender of any Cortinistas in the town. He noticed several of his own men dropping their Sharps rifles, apparently hoping for an accidental discharge that would start a war. But no gun fired, and upon the Mexican assurance that there were no Cortinistas in Reynosa, Ford clattered back to the Bravo, leaving a badly shaken town behind.
Ford's and Stoneman's brand of border diplomacy was halted by the arrival of the new U.S. Army commander in Texas, the Virginian Robert E. Lee. Lee had been sent specifically to the Rio Grande to halt the trouble, and he carried authority from the Secretary of War, if necessary, "to pursue Mexicans beyond the limits of the United States." He was commended to Governor Houston as an officer of "great discretion and ability." He proved it, quickly bringing the Cortinas war to a quiet end.
Ford, Heintzelman, and Stoneman had already done the dirty work, but their results had not been decisive; Cortinas was still at large. Lee met Ford just as he arrived back from Reynosa, on April 7, 1860. He did not approve of the demonstration, but worked in his own way. He sent firm, courteous, notes to every Mexican official on the border; he explained in clear detail his own instructions. If Cortinas were held in check, there would be peace. If Cortinas were allowed to raid, there would be war. This dignified, utterly superior, beautifully self-controlled lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Army made an enormous impression on both sides of the river. The local chieftains explained the facts of life to the red-bearded hacendado hero, who was soon involved in much more profitable politics-cum-banditry on the Mexican side. Cheno Cortinas became a brigadier in the Mexican army, and soon afterward, the governor of Tamaulipas.
He did not give up sponsoring raids into his old homeland, but he was to have no further opportunity until the aftermath of the American Civil War.
On May 6, 1860, Lieutenant Colonel Lee left the border for San Antonio. Two enormously significant details stand out in his report to the Adjutant General of the Army: first, that 20,000 regulars were necessary to police the frontier adequately from Brownsville to Eagle Pass; and second, that most of the ranchos from Brownsville to Rio Grande City had been abandoned or destroyed. "Those spared by Cortinas have been burned by the Texans," Lee wrote.
In the aftermath of Cortinas's raids, the American population of the border made their own counterraids; a vicious, little-reported racial war ensued. Between Cortinas's banditry and Texan suspicion of all Mexicans, the delta was laid waste. Many ranchos were burned to the ground, and many ethnic Mexicans in Texas were intimidated into leaving their land.
Cortinas's mother, Doña Estéfana, was never molested by the authorities; in fact, she was treated as a great lady, with exquisite courtesy, by Majors Ford and Heintzelman. Cortinas was forever grateful to Rip Ford for this. It was known that Cortinas's mother did not support her son's actions. In fact, the two became estranged, not over politics but because Cortinas conveniently deserted his first wife in Texas when he fled south of the border.
In the Cortinas war fifteen Americans, one hundred fifty Cortinistas, and eighty Texas Mexicans, loyal or neutral, died. This toll was bad enough. But the evil that was spawned lived on; there was to be even more bloodshed on the Rio Grande.
Chapter 29
THE TERRIBLE YEARS
During the Civil War, the Indians, unrestrained by the United States Army, held carnival across the plains—north to south and east to west—looting, pillaging, and marauding over a wide area, especially to the west and south of the federal forces at Fort Leavenworth, burning out the stage stations and disrupting travel across the plains. Colonization receded; homes and fields were abandoned in north central Texas and settlers were withdrawn for over a hundred miles.
MILDRED P. MAYHALL, INDIAN WARS OF TEXAS
For a long time have this people endured an almost uninterrupted war-fare bloody and savage at the hands . . . of Indians. But sir those depredations have been growing from bad to worse until they are pe
rfectly alarming to our people. I might give your Excellency scores of instances of recent date of murder, rape, and robbery which they have committed alone in the counties composing my Judicial District. It has been but a few days since the whole Lee family consisting of six persons were inhumanly butchered, three of them being females were ravished, murdered and most terribly mutilated. Then Mr. Dobs, Justice of Peace of Palo Pinto County was but last week murdered and scalped, his ears and nose were cut off. Mr. Peoples and Mr. Crawford of said county met the same fate. Wm. McCluskey was but yesterday shot down by those same bloody Quaker Pets upon his own threshold. I write to your Excellency, as to one who from your Exalted Position in our nation can if you will protect us from this inhuman butchery . . . Your humble correspondent believes your Excellency to be endowed with at least a moderate amount of human feeling and a mind that cannot be trammeled by this one dread insane Pseudo humanitarian Policy: called the "Quaker Indian Peace Policy." Am I mistaken?
CHARLES HOWARD, JUDGE OF THE THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT,
TO PRESIDENT U. S. GRANT, JULY 1872
THE plight of the Texas frontier during and immediately after the War Between the States has tended to be obscured by the bigger guns, glamour, and gore of the greater war. The frontier was a secondary front while the bulk of the American people were deciding the course of their nation and the future shape of their dominant society. Several things occurred in the West. First, almost all regular troops, whether Union or Confederate, were withdrawn. In Texas—the only area where a large white population actually lay within reach of the horse Indians—the various expedients of minutemen and local militia were utter failures. Farmer militia could not fight Plains Indians on their own ground. Toward the end of the war, it was an axiom on the frontier that the state troops employed there were composed almost entirely of men who chose border service to escape the considerably greater dangers of death or dismemberment with Hood, Bragg, or Lee.
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