The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (35 page)

I shall send these men at the bar to jail to await trial for as wicked and cowardly a murder as ever disgraced this State. It is but the beginning. Others will soon follow them. The reign of the lawless in DeWitt County is at an end!

Lieutenant Hall, clear the room, sir!
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Because of legal maneuverings, the cases dragged on for years. Charges against Meador were finally dropped in 1894. Cox, Ryan, and Sitterlie were convicted, but the convictions were overturned on appeal. Cox, Sitterlie, and Jim Heister moved to New Mexico, where Sitterlie became a leading citizen and worked to live down his past. Dave Augustine ultimately was convicted, but on October 30, 1899, thirty years after the feud began and twenty-three years after the Brassell murders, he received a governor’s pardon. The Taylor-Sutton Feud was finally over.

WHILE LEE HALL
rounded up feudists in DeWitt County, McNelly had most of his company on the Mexican border, where, according to Wilburn King’s Ranger history, they “proved so active, vigilant, daring, and successful, in dealing with lawless characters and with hostile Mexicans, as to secure a permanent good name for themselves and beneficial results to the border, by their gallant and zealous performance of duty.”
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This, of course, is a matter of opinion. Trouble did indeed exist on the Mexican border. Nevertheless, McNelly’s efforts, while effective, were sometimes criticized as high-handed even in his own time, and there is some evidence tha the was not always particular about whether his bandit-hunting turned up the right people.

The lawless area was the Nueces Strip, in the southernmost part of Texas, a region of almost impenetrable brush between the Nueces River in the north and east and the Rio Grande in the south and west. Settled by the Spaniards in the 1700s, it originally was part of the province of Nuevo Santander, and later the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Texas did not gain permanent and official possession until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and even then and for many years afterward, some Mexicans were ready to fight about it. Banditry and cattle rustling were major industries in the Strip, with the close proximity of the Mexican border aggravating the situation.

The Mexican government inadvertently contributed to the discord by creating the
zona libre,
or free zone, a narrow strip of land running along the Mexican side of the border where foreign goods—specifically from the United States—could be imported without paying the exorbitant duties levied throughout the rest of the nation. Although the zone was designed to alleviate the problems of the border people who routinely acquired goods in the United States that were prohibitively expensive or unavailable in Mexico, it also provided a cover for bandits transporting stolen American goods and livestock into Mexico.
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The generally unstable conditions became worse after 1870 when Juan N. Cortina—the same Cortina who had created so much mayhem on the border in the late 1850s—became governor of Tamaulipas and from his position of authority orchestrated cattle raids as far north as Corpus Christi. Adjutant General Steele believed Cortina controlled the entire cattle-stealing industry between Camargo and the mouth of the river and accused him of shipping stolen Texas cattle from the Rio Grande to Cuba. Brig. Gen. Edward O. C. Ord, commander of the army’s Department of Texas, agreed, but was restricted by government policy from retaliating. In 1873, units of the Fourth United States Cavalry created an international incident by striking sixty miles into Coahuila in an unauthorized but tacitly approved raid. Since then, however, the federal government had tried to avoid affronts to Mexican sovereignty. Rangers, though, did not always observe such restrictions, and it was in response to border cattle thievery and banditry that McNelly was ordered to the border.
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ON MARCH 26,
1875, bandits raided practically to the Nueces itself, attacking settlements within a few miles of Corpus Christi. More raids were reported in early April, prompting Nueces County sheriff John McClure to telegraph Steele:

Is Capt. McNally [
sic
] coming[?] we are in trouble[.] five ranches burned by disguised men near Laparra last week[.]
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McNelly, however, was already on his way. He had reorganized his company on April 1 and left for the Nueces Strip on April 10. Arriving in Corpus Christi, he found that his first priority was to bring the local population under control. Many depredations had been committed not only by Mexican bandits, but by Americans, either desperadoes or self-appointed “posses” and vigilance committees.

“The acts committed by Americans in this section are horrible to relate,” he reported to Steele, “many ranches have been plundered and burned, and the people murdered or driven away; one of these parties confessed to me in Corpus Christi as having killed eleven (11) men, on their last raid.”
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Clamping down, he published a special order in the local newspaper stating:

In consequence of the recent outrages committed in this portion of the country by armed bands of men acting without authority of law, I find it necessary to notify all such organizations that after the publication of this order I will arrest all such bands and turn them over to the civil authorities of the counties where they are arrested, and nothing but the actual presents [
sic
] of some duly accredited officer of the County or State will protect them from arrest.

L. H. McNelly

Capt Co A Vol Mil
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The order created a furor, not only in Corpus Christi, but elsewhere in the state. It was called “the McNelly Pronunciamento,” and the San Antonio
Daily Express
went so far as to call McNelly the “captain of a Corporal’s guard” who presumed to issue orders “like an emperor.” Unconcerned by the public reaction, McNelly rode on toward Santa Gertrudis, headquarters of the near-legendary King Ranch, where Capt. Richard King was building one of the greatest cattle empires in the world. The ranch had always been a target for attack, and Ranger George Durham noted that the main house

was more like an army arsenal inside. In one big room there were eighty stands of Henry repeating rifles and maybe a hundred boxes of shells. Two men stood in the lookout tower day and night and there was always a man at the ready for each of those rifles. But that didn’t stop the raiders.

The Rangers rested for a few days enjoying the hospitality of the ranch. Noticing the poor quality of horses the state provided, Captain King gave them fine blooded remounts, pointing out that if he didn’t, the bandits would probably steal them. “Most of those rascals are mounted on my stock, and I at least want to do as good by you,” he told McNelly.
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CONTINUING SOUTH TOWARD
the Rio Grande, McNelly found that raids by “posses” and vigilantes had forced the Mexican and
tejano
populations to band together “for their own protection and under the orders of the Deputy Sheriff. . . . Mexican citizens have no security for life or property in this section whatever.”
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The Rangers ran into one such posse, a rough-looking, undisciplined group whose leader informed McNelly they planned to ride with him.

“I’ve got all the men I need,” McNelly replied. “I’m going to disband and disarm these men and return them to their homes.”

“They won’t do that,” the posse leader said.

“Then I’m ordering you to. Disband and disarm them.”

“They won’t do that for me,” the man told him.

“They will for me,” McNelly snapped. He had been chewing the end of an unlit cigar, which his men recognized as a sign he was growing impatient.

When the posse leader said they would have to vote on it, McNelly gave him ten minutes, but added, “If you don’t vote to lay down those arms and surrender to the regular law of Texas, my Rangers will move on you and lay them down for you.”

“Meaning we’re the same as outlaws?” the man asked.

“I can’t prove you are right now,” McNelly said. “I don’t know what all you posses have been doing. But at the end of ten minutes you will be. You will be reckoned as armed outlaws. And we’ve been sent in to kill them.”

With that, he took out his watch. As time passed and the posse members argued among themselves, he took his pistol from his holster, and the other Rangers followed suit. Finally, the posse leader rode up and handed his own pistol to McNelly.

“You may keep it,” McNelly told him. “But use it only to defend your home.”
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THE RANGERS WERE
now deep into an area where they could expect a fight. In camp one night, McNelly lined them up and told them that soon they would go out on scouting details of two and three men each.

“There are only two kinds of people for us—outlaws and law-abiding,” he said. “Treat these law-abiding folks with all respect, regardless of color or size. Don’t enter a house unless the man invites you in. Don’t take a roasting ear [of corn] or melon unless he tells you to. If his dog barks at you, get away from it. Don’t shoot it. Let them know we’re their friends sent down to help them.

“As for the others,” he continued, “place under arrest and bring into camp everybody else. Horseback or afoot, singly or in groups. Arrest them, fetch them into camp.

“Until further orders, all prisoners will be put under the old Spanish law—
la ley de fuga
—which means the prisoner is to be killed on the spot if a rescue is attempted.”

McNelly made it clear that the bandits did not fight by any accepted rules of civilized warfare and neither would he. He had no compunction about killing, and saw no need to keep prisoners alive if they made nuisances of themselves. Ranger Durham later admitted that he had misgivings about McNelly’s methods, calling them “too harsh. But,” he added, “those were orders.”
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In Edinburg, McNelly’s company relieved Capt. Neal Coldwell, who had established a solid reputation as an Indian fighter and bandit hunter on the northern frontier but had been unable to control depredations along the Rio Grande. Soon afterward, McNelly established a base camp at Las Rucias, about midway between Edinburg and Brownsville, before continuing downriver to Brownsville. There it was learned that a buyer for the Cuban market had arranged to purchase two thousand head of cattle from Cortina, most of which had American brands. A ship was lying offshore in Mexican waters to take them on board. Meanwhile, American cattle on the Mexican side were driven back away from the river, probably in fear of the Rangers, whose arrival had created a minor panic in Mexico. Ranchers upriver from Matamoros were organizing to repel what they believed was an impending invasion, sentinels were posted at the crossings, and women and children were being sent away from the houses at night.
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THE BREAK CAME
on June 5, when McNelly learned sixteen Mexicans had crossed the river eight miles below Brownsville on a cattle-stealing expedition. He dispatched Pidge Robinson with eighteen men to the crossing of the Arroyo Colorado on the north side of the Rio Grande delta to scout the area and locate them. Three days later, Pidge reported he had captured one of the band, and McNelly joined him with the main company.

McNelly’s method of interrogating prisoners—confirmed by recollections of Rangers Durham and William Callicott—was simple, brutal, and effective. A
tejano
member of his company, Ranger Jesús Sandoval, had an affinity for hanging and, in fact, had once hanged four Mexicans for stealing cattle on his ranch. Sandoval, whom the Rangers called “Casuse” in a vague attempt at the Spanish pronunciation of his first name, lashed the prisoner’s hands behind his back, put a rope around his neck, and dragged him to the nearest tree. The rope was thrown over the branch and the prisoner was hoisted up until he almost strangled. If the prisoner proved stubborn, he would be jerked up and then allowed to fall, repeated several times until he talked.

Subjected to the Sandoval third degree, Pidge’s prisoner told McNelly that the raiders consisted of sixteen men, sent by Cortina to the vicinity of the oft-raided La Parra Ranch to round up cattle for Cuba. He was standing rear guard when the Rangers caught him.

McNelly sent a scout to follow the trail of the main band and deployed his men to guard every crossing of the arroyo for twenty miles. A second prisoner was taken and, after a few minutes under a tree with Jesús Sandoval, said the bandits planned to drive three hundred head of cattle across the arroyo that night and push on to the river the next day. The prisoners were turned over to Sandoval, who rode away with them and shortly afterward returned alone. The members of the company later learned that he had completed the job of hanging them, something that undoubtedly McNelly already knew.

NOW THAT HE
had his information, McNelly stationed his men on top of a knoll overlooking the stream and remained there until 2
A.M.
, when a scout rode in and reported that the bandits had crossed four miles to the east earlier that night. The Rangers mounted immediately, riding south-east toward the bay, hoping to either find the trail or get in front of them. About 7
A.M.
, they spotted the bandits with the herd about eight miles away. Seeing the Rangers, the thieves began running the herd. After a three-mile chase, they drove the cattle to a little island in a marsh, known locally as a resaca. Then they moved to the opposite side out onto the plain of Palo Alto, east of the field where General Taylor had defeated the Mexican army almost thirty years before, and prepared to fight.
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