Fort Worth: A Frontier Triumph

19. Vexations of 1860

CHAPTER 19 Vexations of 1860 INDIANS CAME suddenly, stole horses, and were gone without mo~ lesting the settlers if the women gathered their families into the house, closed the shutters and quieted the children. There was trouble only when the savages encountered the settlers in the field or when the white people fired upon them. By 1856, the constant dread of Indian massacres had been stricken from the list of frontier problems for the inhabitants of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. Cattle thieving was the extent of Indian hostilities, and those were desultory affairs, because the swift vengeance of the Volunteer Guard of the White Settlement was an accepted fact in the red men's camps. After 1856, there were other reasons for the lessening of Indian hostilities . The Second Cavalry of the United States Army was in charge of Texas defense, and never in the annals of our army in the West did the roster of officers include so many famous warriors: Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, George H. Thomas, George Stoneman and John B. Hood. Another reason for the surcease from Indian troubles was the chain of forts west of Fort Worth swinging like an arch from Red River to the Rio Grande. Then, too, Texas in cooperation with the federal government had removed Texas Indians to two reservations. One was at the junction of the BOOKIV Brazos and Clear Fork rivers on which lived the remnants of friendly red men: Caddo, Anadarko, Ioni, Waco, Tonkawa, and other small tribes. On the Clear Fork in present Throckmorton County, was the second reservation for the Penateka Comanches, although only half of that tribe lived on the reservation. However the calm was brief. Indian affairs began to deteriorate in 1858, and again there were reasons. Part of the United States Second Cavalry had gone to Utah the previous year while outlaws had increased in numbers; and those Texas Indians who had refused to live on reservations , joined with the northern Comanches. Hostilities multiplied. In the spring of 1858, John S. Ford with 100 Texas Rangers and a band of friendly Indians from the Brazos reservation, crossed into Indian Territory and inflicted defeat on the Comanches. Red men under the command of white men frightened their Indian brothers. White men, quick to forget their promises, had attacked them on their hunting grounds. These incidents provoked Indians to greater fury. Frightened settlers, believing that the reservation Indians were joining their brothers in the raids, demanded that they be removed from Texas, even threatening- to massacre them on the reservations. The issue became current politics on Fort Town's public square, as there were divided opinions. Angry tension mounted, until in August of 1859, the Indians were moved from Texas reservations to Indian Territory. In consequence , Texas law made it illegal, with the exception of a few remnant tribes in East Texas, for any Indian to roam in Texas. But could Indians be expected to understand the law? They continued to hunt on Texas plains, to the confusion of the sedentary ones. Some in their perplexity joined the warriors. Indian terror from the Red River to Corpus Christi marked the year 1859-one of the factors that defeated Runnels and elected Houston governor. The year 1860 did not improve affairs. In December 1859, the Comanches raided Parker County, scalped alive and shot with arrows Mrs. Sherman of Weatherford. Several whites were killed in the counties of Palo Pinto, Young and Jack. Faithful to his campaign promise of a hard-hitting Indian Policy, Houston authorized the raising of Texas Ranger companies. Each frontier county was empowered to raise a company of not more than twentyfive men each. He called upon his old friend Colonel Johnson, the father of Tarrant County, on March 17, 1860, "to organize a sufficient number of mounted rangers to repel, pursue, and punish the Indians now ravaging the north and northwestern settlements of Texas." These Rangers were to volunteer for three months' service and were to cooperate with the federal troops stationed at Fort Belknap. Houston's CHAPTER 19 171 program was applauded in Ft. Worth's paper, Mr. Norton's Whig Chief. The nation's economy in 1860, if not in a slump, was certainly static, and such conditions were felt on the frontier. It was election year, and the choice of a president for the United States would mark a turning point in national affairs...