Legends of the Old West - TEXAS RANGERS Ep. 4 | "Comanche Moon"

Episode Date: May 19, 2019

The end of the Mexican-American War brings great change to the Texas Rangers. Heroes have been buried; the old captains move on; and new leaders emerge. The U.S. army builds two lines of forts in Texas and finally creates a star-studded regiment of cavalry to battle the Comanches on the frontier. John "RIP" Ford becomes the preeminent Ranger captain of the age as he fights Comanches in the north and Juan Cortina in the south. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and

Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Albert James Meyer was a surgeon with the US Army who spent time on the Texas frontier in the mid-1850s.

He was stationed at Fort Clark on the Pecos River, Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande, and Fort Davis in far west Texas. Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande, and Fort Davis in far west Texas. During this time, he had become fascinated by the Army's communication system, or lack thereof. One of the many challenges on the frontier was the ability of units to communicate with each other over long distances. The Army had tried several systems over the years, but they proved to be difficult and complicated. Meyer thought he had a better idea. It's easy to picture him standing outside the gates of Fort Davis in West Texas, scanning an endless horizon. The Chihuahuan Desert would be spread out before him, the Davis mountains rising at his back it would be hot during the day glorious in the evening and peaceful at night

with the quiet broken only by the yip of a coyote or the howl of a wolf as the gates of the fort swung open behind him a patrol of soldiers on horseback would trot out and these were not the cavalrymen we've seen in Western movies. The U.S. cavalry as we think of it today did not exist yet. These were infantrymen on horseback and there was a big difference as the army would soon learn in Texas. Meyer would watch them ride off through the hills or across the barren flatlands and slowly recede in the distance. As he stood there, with no telegraph communication, he envisioned a new system of messaging that would allow soldiers to stay in touch over long distances. It was a signal system that would use easily recognizable flags during the day and torches at night.

As Meyer lingered at the base of the Davis Mountains in West Texas, maybe with the sun setting behind him and the coolness of the evening coming on, the idea of this new system solidified in his mind. He went on to create the US Army Signal Corps, which began with his idea of using flags to communicate, then evolved to oversee telegraph communications, and radio, and telephonic communication, and now it supervises the complex worldwide communication network of the American military. And the Signal Corps can trace its origins, at least in part, back to Meyer's time in Texas

And of course, during the two years Meyer was in Texas, he came in contact with the Texas Rangers Many years later, he wrote about one experience and said Now, don't picture to yourself the Ranger as as you read of him in newspapers, the personification of the brave and the reckless wild, but perhaps with a redeeming trait of lofty chivalry. But let me describe the animal, and trust that you may have little to do with him. Take one of the lowest canal drivers, dress him in ragged clothes, put a rifle in his hand, a revolver and a big bowie knife at his belt, utterly eradicate any little trace of civilization or refinement, and you have the material for the Texas Mounted Ranger. As Meyer wrote, it's probably fair to say that not all Rangers were cut from the noble, gallant mold of John Coffeehaze or Samuel Walker.

But Meyer did qualify his statement a little at the end. He finished by saying, There are exceptions. My invective is not meant for all. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business.

From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With the Internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify has allowed us to share something tangible with the podcast community we've built here, selling our beanies, sweatshirts, and mugs to fans of our shows without taking up too much time from all the other work we do to bring you even more great content. And it's not

just us. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Shopify is also the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Realm, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash R-E-A-L-M now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash Realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Season 5 of the Legends of the Old West podcast, presented by the Cowboy Lifestyle Network.

I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is the fourth episode of a five-part series on the Texas Rangers. Comanche Moon At the close of the Mexican-American War, a transition took place in the Texas Rangers. Two of the most prominent Rangers of the 1840s died in the fighting, Samuel Walker and Robert Gillespie another Ranger would only serve a couple more years and two more were about to leave immediately

John Coffey Hayes returned to a hero's welcome in San Antonio when he finally finished his service in Mexico in May of 1848 the city threw him a grand ball and he surely accepted the praise with the grace and modesty he was known for in civilian life. But his days as a Texas Ranger were now done. He resigned from the service and hoped his fighting days were behind him. He escorted a wagon train all the way to California and arrived at the peak of the gold rush. He moved to San Francisco and spent the rest of his life in Northern California. He was a county sheriff, a politician, and a businessman.

And in 1860, he was called on to lead a volunteer militia against a band of Paiutes in Nevada. It was the final military action of Hayes' life, though he lived another 23 years. John Coffey Hayes passed away April 21, 1883, and is buried in California. He only spent 11 of his 66 years in Texas, but he made as big a mark as anyone. Ben McCullough followed his old friend Jack Hayes out to California, but he didn't have as much success as Jack. He also arrived in 1849 and tried to strike it rich in the gold fields, but it didn't work out.

He became sheriff of Sacramento County in 1850, at the same time Jack was also a sheriff in the area. So two famous Texas Rangers were on patrol in Northern California at the same time. But McCullough didn't like the job, and he returned to Texas in 1851. A couple years later, he was appointed a U.S. Marshal by President Franklin Pierce, but his story really comes back into focus in 1855 at a pivotal moment for the U.S. Army,

and we'll get to that in a little bit. Bigfoot Wallace had fought in Peter Bell's ranging companies on the Texas frontier during the second stage of the Mexican-American War, but by the early 1850s, his time as an official ranger was winding down. He battled Apaches and Comanches in South Texas, and in the fall of 1850, we gained some valuable insight into the makeup of a ranger company. Wallace's unit had 88 men in total, and it was comprised of 11 Germans, 3 Irishmen, one Canadian, and one Scotsman. Eleven men were from Tennessee, 51 were from other southern states, and only four were from Texas. In 1851, Wallace had stumbled into a new trade. He became a stage driver for the U.S. Postal Service. He made regular trips from San Antonio to San Elisario on the Rio Grande, just south of El Paso. And even though he wasn't a ranger anymore, he still had to fight off plenty of attacks by Comanches and Apaches on his mail route.

tax by Comanches and Apaches on his mail route. So while three well-known Rangers finished their time in the service, another was just beginning for all intents and purposes. John Salmon Ford had fought with Jack Hayes in Mexico at the end of the war, and when he returned to Texas, he resumed his position as publisher of the Texas Democrat newspaper in Austin. But he quickly grew bored with the routine. In the spring of 1848, he joined Major Robert Neighbors on an expedition to scout a road from San Antonio to El Paso.

He was easing back into a life of adventure, and those adventures would take him to the usual hotspots of chaos in Texas, the Nueces Strip and the Western Frontier. While the war raged in Mexico in the second half of the 1840s, three forces were at work on the Texas frontier, the Ranger Companies under the command of Peter Bell, Major Robert Neighbors, who was named Indian agent for Texas in 1845, and a peace commission led by the younger brother of famed explorer Meriwether Lewis. The peace commission began talks with the Texas tribes in 1846 and resulted in a treaty signed by the president in 1847. Between the treaty, the rangers, and the work of Robert Neighbors, who was widely recognized as one of the few honest Indian agents,

Comanche raids on the settlements were scarce for a couple years. But that all changed in the summer of 1849. That summer, epidemics of cholera and smallpox decimated the Comanches. The tribe had been largely free from disease because their homeland was so remote. But now, as white civilization encroached on Comanche lands, the white man's diseases burned through the Comanche camps like wildfire. Nearly all of the Comanche leaders were wiped out. It's estimated that as many as half the members of the Comanche tribe

died as the diseases ravaged village after village. In the aftermath, the survivors became more remote and more hostile. They punished settlements on the northwest frontier and raided the southwest relentlessly, both out of hatred and star hostile. They punished settlements on the Northwest frontier and raided the Southwest relentlessly, both out of hatred and starvation. For the next few years, at least 100 white settlers died at the hands of the Comanches each year. In the fall of 1849, an editorial appeared in the Texas State Gazette newspaper that stated plainly the thoughts on the minds of many Texans. It read, The Indians must be pursued, hunted, run down, and killed.

Killed until they find out we are in earnest. To that end, the U.S. Army came to Texas. After the Mexican-American War, Texans wanted to settle on the millions of acres of land that had been taken from Mexico. And the government of Texas badly wanted to sell those acres because, as always, it was in desperate need of money. But sales and settlements couldn't happen as long as the Comanches prowled the area. So the army came to Texas and began constructing forts in an arc along the western frontier to protect white settlements. frontier to protect white settlements. The line of forts was anchored in the north by Fort Worth,

and in the south by Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande, which became the present-day city of Eagle Pass. But as the army and the settlers immediately learned, there was a major problem with this arc of forts. They were too close to the settlements. By the time the soldiers in a fort could act on a Comanche raid, the Comanches were already past them and attacking the settlements. So in the early 1850s, the army pushed the line of forts farther west, and it was this line of forts that would become famous in western lore and immortalized by Hollywood 100 years later. They had names like Fort Belknap, Fort Phantom Hill, Fort Clark, Fort Stockton, and Fort Davis. But while the army succeeded in moving its forts westward, it grappled with still more problems. The forts were too far apart. Comanche raiders could slip between them without being detected. They were understaffed, even though the army had dedicated 2,400 troops to the effort,

which was a third of the entire force. 19 of the army's 109 forts were in Texas. But the soldiers who were sent to the Texas frontier were often the lowest quality. And most of them were infantry, stationed out there on the vast Texas plains and expected to compete with the greatest horse soldiers in the world. And if the soldiers weren't infantry, they were dragoons, the forerunners of the cavalry. The dragoons were the last holdovers of a bygone era of military horsemen. They had loud uniforms, heavy equipment, and heavy saddles, and they were woefully outmanned. One Texas Ranger put it bluntly, the Indians were in no danger from the dragoons unless their gaudy appearance and clumsy horsemanship

caused them to laugh themselves to death. But help was on the way. The new Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, understood the need for change. He was about to create the first U.S. Cavalry Regiment with the express purpose of fighting on the Texas frontier, and Texas Ranger Ben McCullough badly wanted to lead it. Jefferson Davis, the hero of the Battle of Buena Vista, became Secretary of War in 1853. He successfully lobbied Congress to let him create four new units in the Army, two regiments of cavalry and two regiments of infantry. The first regiment of cavalry was supposed to be an elite unit specifically designed for work in

Texas. Davis would handpick the officers. The soldiers would be armed with new breech-loading Springfield rifles and 36-caliber Navy Colt pistols. They would take 12-pound howitzers into the field. No expense would be spared to make this unit the best in the country, and Ben McCullough wanted to command it. He lobbied his influential friends to help him get the appointment. He enlisted Sam Houston, who was now one of two U.S. Senators from Texas. He enlisted his old friend and former commander, Peter Hansborough Bell. Bell had commanded the Ranger companies on the frontier during the Mexican War. Then he became governor after another former Ranger, George Wood, left office.

Now he was a U.S. Congressman from Texas. McCullough had the support of both men, but the other Senator from Texas favored a different candidate. The Senator was Thomas Rusk, who had been the first Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas. He supported General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had been the Secretary of War under the second President of the Republic, Mirabeau Lamar. Johnston was a West Point graduate, and that likely tipped the scales in his favor. Johnson was a West Point graduate, and that likely tipped the scales in his favor. Davis gave him command of the unit, but he offered the position of second-in-command,

Lieutenant Colonel, to McCullough. McCullough said he would have to consult with the legislators from Texas, Houston, Rusk, and Bell, and that sealed his fate. When he returned to Davis the next day to accept the offer, Davis told him it was no longer available. The position had been filled by a rising star in the army, an engineer who had also made a name for himself in Mexico, Robert E. Lee. McCullough likely left dejected and angry, but he would eventually get his chance to command troops in battle. Jefferson Davis would give McCullough another opportunity six years in the future, though it would be in the Army of the Confederate States of America, not the United States.

For now, Davis filled the ranks of the officer's corps with more West Point graduates. George Henry Thomas was a major. Thomas had been an instructor at West Point as well as a graduate. Two of his students were John Bell Hood and Jeb Stewart, both of whom would become famous in the Confederate Army several years from now. In one of the many sad overlaps in the Civil War, Thomas, who fought for the Union, crushed Hood's army in Tennessee after the fall of Atlanta in 1864, and effectively ended the career of his former student. But at the moment, they were on the same team, and they were headed to Texas. Throughout the early 1850s, while the Army built two lines of forts on the frontier and began to reorganize itself, Ranger Captains Bigfoot Wallace and John

Ford patrolled West Texas and the Nueces Strip. The Nueces Strip, the portion of southwest Texas between San Antonio and the Rio Grande River, remained a hotbed of lawlessness. No matter how many Ranger patrols scoured the area, it seemed it was never enough. The area was just too big, and there were too many places to hide. enough. The area was just too big and there were too many places to hide. But Ford and his men spent a year and a half in the sweltering South Texas heat and humidity as they battled every type of criminal known to man. And for a man who began his professional career as a doctor, a politician, and a newspaperman, he was proving to be a fierce fighter and a reliable commander. and a newspaperman, he was proving to be a fierce fighter and a reliable commander.

And it's time we start calling him by the name that is most commonly used in Texas Ranger tradition, Rip Ford. There are three main stories behind the nickname. First, and most widely known, is that he was given the name during the Mexican War. He was responsible for writing condolence letters to the families of fallen rangers. He would end the letters by writing, Rest in Peace at the bottom, and over time, he abbreviated the words, R.I.P. It's a nice story, but it probably wasn't true to that extent. He did write Rest in Peace next to the names of fallen Rangers in reports and letters, so that's probably where the nickname comes from. But the image of Ford sitting in an army tent in the wilds of Mexico scribbling letter after

letter by candlelight to the point where he has to save time by using abbreviations is probably not accurate. In reality, the Rangers suffered relatively few losses compared to the regular army, so Ford likely would not have spent long hours writing letters to families. A more humorous version is that he fell asleep on duty one time and his men began calling him Old Rip after Rip Van Winkle. And the third version states that he was so vicious while fighting his enemies, he used to rip into them. But whichever version you choose to believe,

after the war, he was known as Rip Ford. So as Comanche raids ramped back up again after that terrible summer of 1849, Ford was in the thick of the fighting, at least until he left the Rangers for a couple years to become the mayor of Austin. He would return again at the end of the 1850s, when he fought in two big engagements that brought him major notoriety, but between now and then, the elite U.S. Cavalry arrived on the scene. The volume of Comanche raids rose and fell from the 1840s through the mid-1850s. It fell during the Mexican war years, in part because of the ranger companies commanded by Peter Bell and captained by men like Ben McCullough, Henry McCullough, and Bigfoot Wallace, and in part

because of a peace treaty that was signed in 1847. But after the awful summer of disease in 1849, the volume rose again, and seemed to stay fairly steady through the early 1850s, even while the army constructed two lines of forts to protect the western frontier. By 1851, Indian agent Robert Neighbors was pushing for reservations to be created in Texas. Many Texans were opposed to bringing the system to their state, but in 1854, the Texas Congress gave Neighbors what he wanted. Two reservations were created on forks of the Brazos River near Fort Belknap. In February 1855, neighbors moved bands of five tribes onto the reservations.

But the experiment would be short-lived, and it did not bring peace. If anything, you could argue it created more problems. There was hostility toward the reservations and the people who lived on them. The people were continuously blamed for raids in the area, even though neighbors vehemently defended them. And then the reservations themselves became targets for raids, since they had stockpiles of food that could be easily stolen. Most Comanches refused to live on the designated lands, and they took their aggression out on the reservations as well as the white settlements.

And that summer, as Texas struggled with the new reservation system, the nation's attention turned northward. Increasing violence on the plains shocked the country, and as events accumulated, they became known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. At the same time, the Rangers suffered a setback. A Ranger captain named James Callahan marched his company into Mexico to fight a band of Apaches. He ended up facing off with hundreds of Mexican troops and burned part of the town of Piedras Negras to the ground. The embarrassing and destructive mission

forced the state of Texas to pay $50,000 in damages to the people of Piedras Negras. But things started to change in 1856 as the new elite cavalry regiment arrived on the Texas frontier. General Albert Sidney Johnston, Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, Major George Thomas, Lieutenant John Bell Hood, and the rest of the men of the cavalry proved to be quick learners. They split their headquarters between Fort Mason and Fort Belknap and began patrolling the area. Their orders were simple. Engage any native person who was not on a reservation. Anyone not on a reservation was considered hostile.

As the troops learned the terrain and the abilities of their horses as well as themselves, they began conducting longer and longer patrols. Soon, a patrol could last 30 days and cover 600 miles of territory. They became really good at fighting Comanches, and they fought almost continuously. The number of successful Comanche raids against settlements fell, and the cavalry actually brought to an end 100 years of Comanche raids into Mexico. By 1857, it was virtually impossible for any sizable Comanche force to make it all the way from their camps in northern Texas and Oklahoma

to the Rio Grande River without getting intercepted by the cavalry. The cavalry had so much success that a predictable irony happened. They were sent away. For more than a year, the cavalry patrolled north central Texas and reduced the number of Comanche raids on white settlements. But then the cavalry's benefactor, Jefferson Davis, left the office of Secretary of War. He became a U.S. Senator from Mississippi, and the new man in the War Office decided that Texas was now under control. He ordered most of the cavalry to go north to deal with growing violence around the Mormon community in Utah. General Johnston led most of his troops north, and Ben McCullough went with him to try to broker peace between the Mormons and the U.S. government. And, as you probably guessed, when the army went away, the number of Comanche raids rose.

The new Texas governor, Hardin Runnels, felt bombarded by the reports from the frontier of fresh Indian depredations, as they were often called. In January 1858, he pushed a bill through Congress that would pay for four companies of rangers, 100 men total, and he put John Rip Ford in command. In his official orders, Runnels wrote, I impress upon you the necessity of action and energy. Follow any and all trails of hostile or suspected hostile Indians you may discover, and if possible, overtake and chastise them.

It was a perfect example of an order from this time period. It was specific enough to get Ford to move, but vague enough to give him the leeway to basically do whatever he wanted. In essence, the order said, find Indians and kill them. What followed were two of the bloodiest years in Texas since the Revolution 50 years earlier. In March 1858, Rip Ford rode north out of Austin with 100 heavily armed men. Each ranger had a rifle and a pair of Colt pistols.

A newspaper article said the unit could fire 1500 rounds before any man had to reload. That was a serious amount of firepower, especially when used against people who still relied on bows and arrows to a large degree. And then the size of his force doubled. When they reached the reservations on the Brazos, Ford enlisted Indian agent Shapley Ross.

Ross recruited 113 warriors from the reservation who were eager to fight their ancient enemies, the Comanches. At the end of April, Ford, Ross, and their 200 men began the hunt for hostile Comanches. They headed north and crossed the Red River into what was then called Indian Territory and is Oklahoma today. And this action was significant. Governor Runnels had asked the commanding U.S. General in Texas if he wanted to put Ford's expedition under federal control and the general said no so in theory the Rangers and their allies should not have been able to take action in Oklahoma but boundaries and borders

rarely troubled the Rangers or anyone else in America after crossing into Oklahoma the column turned toward the Ouachita River in early May and discovered a trail leading into the Antelope Hills. The signs indicated there was a camp in the area. As the sun rose on May 12, 1858, Ford arrayed his 200 men for an attack on the camp. At 7 a.m., they charged. The Rangers and the Warriors opened fire and quickly destroyed the tiny camp of five lodges. But two Comanches escaped the fight, and now they galloped toward the Canadian River. The Rangers and the Warriors galloped after them. The chase lasted three miles until the two Warriors raced into a larger Comanche camp

on the banks of Little Rogue Creek. The Rangers reined in. They saw at least 70 lodges and somewhere between 300 and 600 Warriors. The leader was Chief Ironjacket, who liked to wear an old coat of Spanish armor in battle. The two running Comanches hurried into the camp and shouted the alarm. Braves streamed out of the lodges. They hustled the women and children away from the rangers.

They leapt on their ponies and prepared for battle. Chief Ironjacket moved out in front. He believed he was invincible in his Spanish armor, and his warriors thought it had powerful magic that could keep him safe. If the armor had stopped bullets in the past, it didn't now. Rifle shots rang out from the Texan' line. Iron Jacket's horse screamed and jumped and then fell over dead. Iron Jacket crashed to the ground with gaping holes in his chest. He was probably dead before he hit the dirt, and the warriors stared in horror at their fallen leader.

A moment later, the Texans charged. 200 rangers and warriors flooded the camp. They slammed into as many as 600 Comanches who were demoralized by the loss of Chief Ironjacket and his invincible magic. The Rangers and their allies routed the Comanches. They killed 76 and wounded many more, while only losing two themselves. After the engagement that was called the Battle of Antelope Hills or the Battle of Little Robe Creek, Rip Ford made his report to the Governor. He said, The Comanches can be followed, overtaken, and beaten, provided the pursuers are laborious, vigilant, and willing to undergo privations. Governor Runnels was thrilled,

but Ford's strike into Oklahoma and the patrols by the Army still weren't enough. Reports of attacks all over the Northwest frontier continued to roll into the governor's office. Runnels authorized more ranger companies because there still wasn't a permanent force. So he sent Rip Ford and other ranger captains in all directions to hunt down any native person who wasn't on a reservation. He told them, pay no regard to treaty stipulations between them, the Indians, and the eyes of many people, Rip Ford was riding high after his work in the Nueces Strip in the early 1850s and his campaigns in 1858. He was even approached about running for governor, but he declined the offer. He had earned praise from all quarters for his actions, but in early 1859, he was rebuked by some people for his lack of action. Two days after Christmas, 1858, a group of white men ambushed 15 peaceful Caddo Indians west of Fort Worth.

The white men killed seven natives, including three women. Resentment of the people on the reservations had now boiled over to foul murder, indian agent robert neighbors called it a judge in waco issued arrest warrants for a gunman named peter garland and the other men who were accused of the crime the warrants were sent to rip ford for execution but ford pushed back refusing to serve the warrants he argued that he he was a soldier, not a peace officer. His job was to fight native warriors, not enforce civilian criminal statutes. And although he was correct in his strict interpretation of the law, many people, including the governor, were not happy. Ford and the prosecutor battled in the newspapers for weeks until Governor Runnels was forced

to weigh in. He issued an order to Ford that said, if you're told to serve an arrest warrant by a peace officer or a judge, do it. But after all this time, the warrants were never served, and the criminals never stood trial. The whole affair was dirty, and it left a bad taste in people's mouths And it was also the last straw for the reservation experiment in Texas That summer, the summer of 1859, Texas declared the reservation system a failure In September, Indian agent Robert Neighbors was forced to close the reservations he'd worked so hard to open.

He now had the awful task of marching nearly 1,500 people north to Fort Cobb in Oklahoma, 150 miles away. They were guarded by a company of rangers. Neighbors had devoted 15 years of his life to negotiating peace between Texans and Native tribes. It was a losing battle, and in the end, he lost. Not long after he returned to Fort Belknap, a man walked up to him and shot him in the back. The reason was never fully explained. Exactly two weeks after Robert Neighbors was murdered in North Texas,

Juan Cortina rode into Brownsville in South Texas and screamed, Death to the Americans, and took over the town. The trouble had begun in July when Cortina had witnessed the sheriff of Brownsville pistol-whipping a man in the street. The man was an aging vaquero who had worked for Cortina and he was possibly drunk and the sheriff was trying to make an arrest. Cortina shot the sheriff in the shoulder and escaped with his former employee. They fled to Matamoros on the other side of the Rio Grande River, and Cortina was celebrated as a hero. He was the son of a wealthy cattle ranching family who resented the American presence in South Texas. After he saved his old friend, fighters began to flock to his banner. Two months later, in September 1859, he stormed Brownsville with 70 men and took control of the town.

They killed five citizens in the attack and held the town for most of the day until they retreated to the safety of a nearby ranch. Two weeks later, a county sheriff rounded up a posse and went after Cortina. The sheriff captured that old vaquero who was now Cortina's top lieutenant. He took the man back to Brownsville, and Cortina threatened to burn down the entire town if the man was not released. The sheriff refused to let him go. Up in San Antonio, a 26-year-old businessman named William Tobin took it upon himself to raise 50 volunteers and ride to Brownsville. Governor Runnels found out about the militia while they were on their way,

so he authorized them to form a kind of unofficial ranger company. Tobin's volunteers arrived in November, and the problem immediately got worse. On November 13th, the old vaquero, Cortina's lieutenant, was taken from jail and lynched in the town square. After that, rumors swirled around Austin. People said Cortina had destroyed Brownsville in retaliation and he was now marching toward Corpus Christi with a thousand men. Governor Runnels ordered Rip Ford and a company of rangers to rush to Corpus Christi.

The same day, regular army troops began their march from San Antonio to Brownsville. Four days later, down in Brownsville, a company of rangers fought Cortina's men on the plain of Palo Alto, the site of the first big battle of the Mexican-American War. The next day, William Tobin and his volunteers tested Cortina's men and were met with heavy fire. Many of his undisciplined troops fled back to Brownsville. Two days after that, Tobin tried to attack Cortina again, this time at his ranch. Tobin quickly realized he was outnumbered and retreated back to Brownsville. At that point, many of his men decided they'd had enough of this business down in South Texas, and they headed home.

The army showed up ten days later and then Rip Ford and his rangers arrived. Now it was really a mess. There was a half-assed militia commanded by a weak leader in Tobin, there was the army, and there was a company of hardened rangers under the most respected captain in the state. It was Ford, with minor help from Tobin, who finally ended six months of fighting on the American side of the border that became known as Cortina's War. Two days after Christmas 1859, Ford and his 80 Rangers fought a heated battle with Cortina's men near Rio Grande City, about 100 miles upriver from Brownsville. The Rangers won a decisive victory. Cortina's men suffered heavy losses, and he and the survivors fled across the Rio Grande and into Mexico.

Now, he became a bandit captain and conducted raids into Texas over the next few months. Ford stayed in South Texas and fought Cortina in the new year of 1860. After almost nine months of fighting, the Secretary of War delivered an ultimatum to Mexico. Stop Cortina or the U.S. Army will stop him, and it'll march into Mexico if it has to. The man who delivered this message was Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was back in Texas with the cavalry. Ford and his Rangers dealt Cortina two more serious blows in early 1860 before Lee arrived on the scene to separate the two sides on behalf of the U.S. government. The Rangers beat Cortina, but never caught him.

A few years later, he became a general, and then a governor until he was thrown in prison by Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. By the time Cortina died in 1892, he had outlived many of the men who had fought him. But not John Rip Ford. And this is where we'll end Ford's story for the moment. After his service along the Rio Grande, his unit was disbanded by the new governor, Sam Houston. Houston still wanted a permanent ranger force, but he still didn't have the money to pay for it. Ford's Rio Grande squadron disbanded in the spring of 1860.

In the fall, there was one more noteworthy expedition by the Texas Rangers before the country became consumed with talk of civil war. That expedition proved to be one of this stretch of Texas Rangers history. It's a story I've been saving since the earliest days of the show, and it's time to tell it. It's the saga of the Parker family and the return of Cynthia Ann Parker by Texas Rangers Charlie Goodnight and Sol Ross. The events that inspired the movie The Searchers is next time on the Legends of the Old West podcast. The theme song Yellow Rose of Texas was arranged and recorded by the Mighty Orc in Houston, Texas. Much of the music for this show was produced by Rob Valliere in Phoenix. And a very special thank you to Matt Lowry in Ireland for producing color images

of these famous Texas Rangers for the first time. Matt is a world-renowned photographer whose project My Colorful Past breathes new life into old photos. Check out his Facebook page for more of his work. And as always, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please give it a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening. You can check out our website blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and follow us on social media for news of the show. Our Facebook page is Legends of the Old West Podcast and follow us on social media for news of the show. Our Facebook page is

Legends of the Old West podcast and our handles on Twitter and Instagram are at Old West podcast. Thanks again. We'll see you next week. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Sephora, Old Navy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.