Texas Cowboy’s Journal: Up the Trail to Kansas in 1868 by Jack Bailey (review)

This trail diary by Jack Bailey, who apparently was a settler in Jack County, Texas, is currently the “the earliest known day-by-day account by a Texas cowboy of a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas during the period just after the Civil War” (xx). The rare glimpse into a seldom recorded world is a short and interesting read that covers his trip up the trail and back home again during the early post-war drives.

David Dary’s introduction grounds the reader in the time period and provides some background information about Bailey. The daily log transcribed by Charles E. Rand follows Bailey’s original spelling, abbreviations, and format. Dary’s editorial notes add pertinent and interesting data about the many names and places mentioned throughout the three-month excursion from August 5 to November 7, 1868.

As several historians have noted, there were many black cowboys who rode the trails during the post-war cattle drives. Bailey’s outfit had two in the ranks, and he witnessed other black men on the trail who were traders and soldiers. Bailey’s attitude was that of a former slaveholder and Confederate soldier in the post-war era. Despite those obvious sentiments, Bailey did not write anything negative about the abilities of the two black cowboys, Ben and Lewis. As a post-war source, this journal serves as a valuable record of this interaction, one that is rarely documented, and it provides credence to those historians who have previously recognized the value of black cowboys on the trail. On the other hand, he did write negatively about American Indians. His dislike and distrust of Indians can be attributed to living in Jack County, where tension between settlers and the reservation Indians were commonplace.

In addition to the valuable notations about race relations, the journal is a fine record of daily events on the cattle trail. Bailey wrote about difficulties with health, the weather, traveling, and the trials of men who worked alongside each other day in and day out. He observed and wrote about the women and children who rode with them and how much he missed his own family during his three-month venture. He also wrote about interactions between other cattle drivers they met en route to the Kansas markets, and how many of them were familiar to him, as they came from the northwestern frontier of Texas where he lived.

Cowboys were notoriously reticent when it came to writing journals. Compared to the number of men and women who went up the trail, the scant accounts that exist are important records that describe a life that has been romanticized and exaggerated. This paperback reprint of Bailey’s journal is the third volume in the popular Western Legacies Series for the University of Oklahoma Press. As such, it is a welcome addition to a limited field for historians and layman alike.