Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century

7. “Rip” Ford’s Indian Fight on the Canadian

142 ★ 7 ★ “Rip” Ford’s Indian Fight on the Canadian W. J. Hughes T hroughout the year 1856, settlers on the northwest frontier of Texas found it possible to till their fields and graze their herds with comparatively little interference from Indian attack. So tranquil appeared the situation that the War Department began a series of transfers of the Regular Army contingents from the northwest garrisons, dispatching them to Utah, Kansas, and other territories where graver problems seemed to threaten. Into the defensive void thus created the Comanche horsemen swept during 1857, and the reeking casualty lists and tolls of vanished or destroyed property again began to mount. The whites fought back desperately, but so futilely that the entire year witnessed not one successful punitive expedition against the painted marauders.1 Frontier people, for several years irritated at the federal government’s policy of placing part of the Penateka (Honey Eater) Comanches and the remnants of other tribes on two northwest reservations , now were vociferously angry, as incidents seemed to implicate the reservation Indians in collusion with the hostile bands.2 The harassed settlers called on Governor Elisha M. Pease for more protection; he, in turn, called on the military. Responsibility for protecting the region lay with Brevet Major General David E. Twiggs, commanding the Department of Texas “Rip” Ford’s Indian Fight on the Canadian ★ 143 (the Eighth Military Department). In a plaintive letter to Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, in the summer of 1857, Twiggs pointed out the impotency of his departmental strength to meet the red challenge and passed on a suggestion from Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston of the Second Cavalry that the Comanches be sought out and attacked on the buffalo ranges. Twiggs also included a suggestion that troops other than his own must be found for such an operation.3 Receiving no encouraging reply, Twiggs wrote again, this time suggesting to Secretary of War John B. Floyd the propriety of congressional authorization for the creation of a regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers, to be sworn into federal service. His suggestion included the recommendation that this force, if created, should be commanded by the indefatigable John S. “Rip” Ford, a Texan prominent not only in private and political affairs but also one proved in battle as Colonel Jack Hays’ chief of scouts during the Mexican war and by two years of Ranger command along the turbulent Rio Grande border.4 The general’s suggestion concerning a volunteer regiment was embodied in a bill introduced into Congress , and Texans kept an anxious and hopeful ear cocked toward Washington.5 While an economy-minded Congress vacillated, the frontier situation injected itself as a popular issue into the state gubernatorial campaign of 1857, between Sam Houston and Hardin R. Runnels , a wealthy Red River planter behind whom the Democrats had rallied. With the Whig party destroyed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act which he, as senator, had steadfastly opposed, Houston campaigned as an independent. Apparently reluctant to commit himself to any positive stand against the Indians, he “was accused . . . of blaming the frontier settlers for the Indian outrages. . .”6 Runnels, on the other hand was vehement in his demands for increased frontier security, and the resulting vote from the frontier districts was a considerable factor in his election.7 144 ★ Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century When Runnels assumed office it was apparent that there would be no immediate congressional action on the volunteer regiment bill, generally referred to in Texas as the Ranger Regiment Bill, but the frontier situation could not wait on legislative discussion. While congressmen debated in Washington, men, women and children died beneath Comanche lances in Basque, Erath, Brown, and other counties on the fringe of settlement, and the executive file of incoming correspondence bulged with petitions for aid bearing the signatures of the irate, fortunate survivors.8 Accepting his election as a popular mandate to solve the Indian problem, Governor Runnels in his first annual message to the Texas legislature urged immediate action to relieve the frontier.9 Appropriate legislation was difficult to achieve because the legislature too was economy minded and certain East Texas members were apathetic toward western frontier problems, but the diligent and persistent efforts of State Senator George B. Erath on behalf of his frontier constituents finally obtained success.10 A bill entitled “An act for the better protection of the frontier” passed the legislature and went to Runnels...