Lone Star

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  Cattle theft in the Brownsville area stopped. A few more raids were attempted, but McNelly now had his own informants and spies. The mere word that the Rinches were riding out caused at least two parties to abandon their loot far north of the river and flee for Mexico for their lives.

  The testimony of General E. O. C. Ord of the U.S. Army, in a report of this affair is perhaps significant: "The officer of the State troops in command had learned the whereabouts of this raiding party by means which I could not legally resort to, but which were the only means of getting at the actual facts. . . . No other official records refer to the torture or execution of prisoners." But whatever was thought of McNelly's methods on the Rio Grande, they were effective.

  The period to October 1875, passed quietly. But Mexican rustling operations had moved westward, upriver, and McNelly moved to follow them. He recovered some cattle eighty miles up from Brownsville. Then, the country being quiet, he left the border on a furlough to his home in Washington County. McNelly was actually dying of consumption, or tuberculosis, at this time, though no one knew it.

  The theft of some 200 cattle from Cameron county soon brought him back. McNelly's actual thinking and planning in his next service will never be fully known, but the pattern of his actions was clear. McNelly did not believe all raiding could be stopped by passive measures, or counteraction, above the Rio Grande. Apparently, he actually planned to foment a war with Mexico, or at least that part of Mexico lying along the river. The United States had sent a gunboat to the border river, the Rio Bravo under Commander Kells, an old comrade of the filibuster, Walker. Kells apparently had latitude, and he and McNelly talked the same language. But Kells was in no position to do much, and the Army, under Ord and Colonel Potter, was wary of McNelly and all "State troops." However, reports of imminent action badly frightened officials on the Mexican side. They sent promises that the raiding would be stopped.

  McNelly discounted this, because cattle now brought $18 per head on the Cuban market, a great sum of money for impoverished Mexico. He talked with Major A. J. Alexander, the senior cavalry officer along the border, and apparently got some kind of assurance that Alexander "would follow raiders anywhere" McNelly himself went. McNelly knew that an order had been placed for 18,000 head in Monterrey, and that the temptation to fill part of this order in Texas would be almost irresistible for Cortinas. He openly told his men that with a little luck he would get some of the next band of thieves on the other side of the river.

  When Mexican bandits did cross in November and pushed about 250 head south at Las Cuevas—known as a notorious headquarters point for stolen cattle—McNelly wired the Adjutant General of Texas he planned to go after them. He also said the Army refused to cross the border without further orders, but he would cross "tonight" if he could get any support.

  He was attempting to get state officials to pressure Washington to release the Army.

  Then, on November 18, he telegraphed Austin that he "commenced crossing at one o'clock tonight—have thirty men. Will try to recover our cattle. The U.S. troops promise to cover my return. . . ."

  Las Cuevas lay about ten miles below Rio Grande City on the Mexican side, and about three miles back from the river. Between it and the Rio Grande was another ranch, called Las Cucharas, or "Cuchattus" in American accounts. Rancho Las Cuevas was presided over by General Juan Flores, who sold an immense number of cattle south and on the coast; there is no question whatever that thousands upon thousands of Texas beeves passed up the sandy banks onto Flores's pastures. Observers, both neutral and biased, left accounts of the brands seen on Las Cuevas cattle, most of which were registered Texas marks. McNelly intended to strike to the heart of the problem; his orders were to clean up the Rio Grande Valley; and if he had to start a war in the process, so be it. McNelly—and virtually everyone in Texas—felt he was in the right, and the Ranger code was that a good man who knew he was in the right could not be stopped if he "kept coming."

  Interesting events led up to this crossing of Texas troops into Mexico. Shortly before, it became known to the Army command that Mexican rustlers were operating on the Texas side across from Las Cuevas. There were U.S. forces at Rio Grande City, at Edinburg to the north, and at Brownsville, many miles to the southeast. The detachment of 8th Cavalry at Edinburg was ordered into the field.

  Colonel Potter at Brownsville ordered Captain Randlett, D Company, 8th Cavalry, to support the Rangers, to hit the cow thieves hard, and "if you come up with them while they cross the river, follow them into Mexico."

  Randlett did catch up with some Mexicans crossing Texas cattle, fired on them and killed two, but then seems to have had a failure of nerve. He failed to cross in darkness, waiting until morning. With dawn, a superior officer, Major Clendenin from Edinburg, came up to him, approved his report, but countermanded the instructions to enter Mexico. Clendenin said this would be a warlike invasion of a peaceful country. Clendenin's real reason, apparently, was that he had opened negotiations with the alcalde at Las Cuevas and thought a crossing would show bad faith. Clendenin now received orders from Colonel Potter to do nothing until Major Alexander, from Ringgold Barracks, brought up more troops. The Army considered any move into Mexico as a major operation, requiring maximum force, though apparently all the officers involved did want to recover the stolen cattle.

  In this situation McNelly, with thirty Rangers behind him, rode into the Army camp. He found the Army in paralysis, with two Gatling guns positioned to cover a crossing, but doing nothing. McNelly's troop covered sixty miles in something under five hours, and when they arrived next to the 100-odd regulars, McNelly sent one man to fetch a few muttons, while he tried to talk "the U.S. Captain" into doing something. The "U.S. Captain" refused to act, and McNelly said to his men, "We are going over if we never come back."

  McNelly was about as foolhardy as a fox. His plan was simple: he would launch a foray into Mexico, seize a position in Las Cuevas, and force the Army to come to his assistance. McNelly did not believe the Army could stand by and let his men be slaughtered by the approximately 3,000 vaqueros and Mexican troops in the area. There is no question that Major Clendenin, although he was under orders not to cross until Alexander came down from Ringgold Barracks, promised McNelly this support. As his report to the Adjutant General read, he said, ". . . If you are determined to cross, we will cover your return. . . ."

  McNelly's own report makes it clear he believed he had a firm promise of assistance in case he got cut off in Mexico, which, though he did not say this to the officers, he intended to let happen.

  McNelly mustered his thirty at midnight. "Boys, you have followed me as far as I can ask you to go unless you are willing to go farther. Some of us may get back . . . but if any of you do not want to go over with me, step aside. . . . You understand there is to be no surrender—we ask no quarter nor give any. If you don't want to go, step aside."

  All thirty shouted to go.

  "All right, that's the way to talk," McNelly said mildly. "We will learn them a Texas lesson that they have forgotten since the Mexican War. Get ready." Then he gave his battle instruction, clear, complete, and simple, as McNelly's battle orders always were. On the Mexican side, when they arrived at Las Cuevas, designated men had designated jobs. He ended, "Kill all you see except old men, women, and children. These are my orders and I want them obeyed to the letter."

  Everything went perfectly—except the Rangers descended on Las Cucharas by mistake. They struck a surprised group of Mexicans chopping wood for breakfast fires at dawn, and shot down everyone in sight. "We killed all we saw in the ranch," one of McNelly's people said later. But then, McNelly learned his mistake; he had hit an unimportant rancho, the real target was half a mile away.

  "Well, you have given my surprise away," he said. "Take me to Las Cuevas as fast as you can," he told a Mexican guide. But at Las Cuevas, 250 Mexican soldiers had already assembled—the private, though official, army of Juan Flores. To attack this force, ensconced behind buildings, was
suicide. Balked, McNelly took his Rangers back to the river.

  But he did not cross back to the American side. L. H. McNelly was a determined man. He threw out pickets and began to fortify a position from which the Rangers could fight with rifles.

  This caused the Mexicans, pursuing from Las Cuevas, to make a grievous error. Flores led some twenty-five horsemen at the gallop to the river, thinking that McNelly's men were swimming across, and hoping to catch them in midstream. The Rangers opened fire from the thickets, then advanced in line, shooting steadily. The Mexican force retreated in confusion, but not before General Flores took two Springfield balls. Marching in perfect battle order, four feet apart, McNelly led his men past Flores's body, picking up a gold-and-silver-plated Smith and Wesson revolver as he passed. Sandoval, with some awe, identified the body.

  While this happened, Captain Randlett, figuring the McNellys were being massacred, plunged forty troopers over the river. McNelly tried to get him to resume the attack toward Las Cuevas, but Randlett refused. Soldiers and Rangers together took up a desultory battle with sniping Mexicans, and so the day passed.

  Large bodies of Mexican soldiery were now arriving, with a flag and communication from the Chief Justice of Tamaulipas. A parley was arranged, but the request to vacate Mexican soil was so "mildly put" that neither McNelly nor Randlett saw fit to accept. Then, Major Alexander at last arrived from Ringgold. He shouted across to Randlett to "get out of Mexico at once."

  Now, in negotiations with the Mexican authorities, the "officer commanding the forces invading Mexico," as communications to McNelly were addressed, displayed an audacity and coolness almost beyond belief. When asked to depart, McNelly stated he would go back only with the stolen cattle and the thieves. This prompted a request for a truce through the night, which McNelly refused unless his demands were granted. He then stated he would give an hour's notice before attacking, which was gratefully accepted.

  It must be understood that the Mexican leaders were badly rattled. They had seen U.S. soldiers in regular blue fighting alongside the Rangers; the guidons and colors of the cavalry were clearly visible on the American side. McNelly had only a handful of men, but no Mexican could be sure that the U.S. Army was not poised for a major invasion, with the Rangers assuming their old chores as advance guards and scouts. There were veterans of the Mexican War along the river; and if in national mythology the word Ranger automatically conveyed the meaning hero to Americans, it symbolized monster to the south.

  At 6 p.m. on November 19, 1875, the thirty Rangers were alone on the bank, calmly eating a cold supper, while the Mexicans took advantage of their promise not to attack. McNelly was by now disgusted. "Boys, it's all off. The U.S. Captain [a term McNelly used for all Army officers, regardless of grade] won't let me have any of his men and I know of no other Rangers in Texas except Major Jones's Rangers on the northern Indian frontier and they are too far away to get here. But we'll stay for awhile."

  He had his men dig in thoroughly during the night and praised their work as equal to the Confederate army. He put pickets out in the bloodweeds, and counseled each man completely. It must be recorded that most of the Rangers were far from sanguine, as most later admitted, but the Captain was so cool and confident that the whole company would have followed him to hell if he had asked for it.

  He professed to be more afraid of the Gatling guns that the cavalry might turn loose than of the Mexicans.

  The next morning he sent the Adjutant General of Texas a telegram by runner. He stated the general situation, repeating the fact that the U.S. troops would not help, then asked: "What shall I do?" The wire was sent collect, datelined Mexico, and this document still rings with audacity and the roar of admiring amusement it brought from Texas can not now be fully understood.

  But other wires were clicking the keys, from the border to Washington. Fort Brown queried San Antonio, and General Ord there requested enlightenment from the Potomac. He got it quickly: to carry on as if only cattle stealing were going on, and to inform the Mexicans that U.S. troops had orders not to cross the border.

  With this instruction, Colonel Potter at Fort Brown sent a message to Alexander, "Commdg in the front," to advise McNelly to return, and to inform him that he was strictly ordered if McNelly were attacked by Mexican forces on Mexican soil not to render him assistance. The message ended, "Let me know whether McNelly acts upon your advice and returns." Potter was beginning to wonder.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. Consul at Matamoros had been alerted. This man sent a representative to McNelly, advising him to surrender to "Mexican Federal Authorities," and that an American agent would stay with him for his protection. McNelly merely said, "The American consul at Matamoros arranged for our surrender . . . but I couldn't see it." The evidence indicates that the Consul was more terrified during these hours than the Captain.

  Now, advised by the Army to retreat, and ordered by the State Department to surrender, McNelly took the action that would make him live forever in Texan, if not in all American, history.

  He advised the Mexicans in front of him, who numbered at the least 400, as follows:

  So about 4 oclk (20) I notified them, that unless they accepted my proposition to deliver such of the cattle and thieves as they had on hand, and could catch, to me at Ranch Davis, without waiting for the tedious legal forms that always ended in our receiving magnificent promises, in lieu of our property, that I would at once make an advance.

  The Mexicans capitulated. They agreed to all McNelly's terms. With that promise, McNelly peacefully withdrew to Texas. Then, although the cattle had been promised, the Mexican officialdom resorted to further promises and delays.

  Some cattle, not all the last-stolen herd but about half of it, were rounded up and driven to the river opposite Rio Grande City. Here, Mexican officials refused to see McNelly, and sent messages that they were too busy to move the cattle immediately to the American side. There was not only a real reluctance to return the property, but a determination to maintain Mexican dignity in the process, but this took forms that Texans found infuriating.

  McNelly took ten volunteers and went armed over to the Mexican shore.

  A Mexican official, backed by twenty-five heavily armed men, informed McNelly that the cattle could not be shipped across without inspection. McNelly, through Tom Sullivan, told the officer that the cattle had been stolen from Texas without inspection by him, and they could damn well be returned without it. The official was insulted, but McNelly was finished with Byzantine politics, parleys, and devious duplicity. He ordered his ten men to form a line and ready their rifles. What happened next was told by one of the ten: "The Captain then told Tom to tell the son of a bitch that if he didn't deliver the cattle across the river in less than five minutes we would kill all of them, and he would have done it, too, for he had his red feather raised. If ever you saw cattle put across the river in a hurry those Mexicans did it."

  So ended another confrontation of Teutonic directness and Latin subtlety, leaving a sour taste on each side. But McNelly left a stark and lasting memory on the border, for he got back the only stolen cattle ever returned to the Texas side.

  The McNelly Rangers put a halt to wholesale stealing in the valley. But Washington's view that the solution was political rather than military proved true. However, Texans had more to do with solving it than the government of the United States.

  The real problem was the governmental chaos in Mexico, that allowed men like Cortinas to hide behind border antipathies, and justify robbery with Mexican indignation toward Texans. Benito Juárez held a great reputation in the United States, but he was a disastrous President of Mexico. He was never able to rule the nation, and he died of apoplexy in 1872. His secretary, Lerdo de Tejada, took his place, during months of increasing disaffection. One of the greatest Mexican heroes of the French and Imperialist wars a Oaxacan named Porfirio Díaz took refuge in Brownsville. Díaz, who had defeated the French in 1862 and who had commanded all Mexican armies in title later, enjoye
d enormous support among the professional military.

  Díaz pragmatically understood that Mexico needed good relations with its colossal neighbor; Mexico was too far from God and too close to the United States, as he said. His views were known to the prominent men in southern Texas. In his brief exile, the leading landowners, merchants, and political chiefs of the Rio Grande region of Texas sanctioned, abetted, and even financed his planned seizure of power in Mexico. This group included both Anglo- and Mexican-Americans. Their names are not important; Díaz rewarded some of them well in later years.

  In April 1876, Porfirio Díaz crossed over to Matamoros; the garrison had already been subverted by prominent Mexicans operating out of Brownsville. Some 1,300 Guardia Nacional and regular soldiers declared for Don Porfirio, as he was called, and Lerdo de Tejada fled. Díaz entered Mexico in triumph.

  Whatever the regime of Porfirio Díaz meant for Mexico, its effect on Texas was entirely good. Díaz, like Santa Anna, understood the church and landed interests were too powerful still to be abolished by Liberal ideology; like Santa Anna, he turned from liberalism to practical alliances. Unlike Santa Anna, this caudillo knew the balance of power in North America was irrevocably turned in the United States' favor. He began a centralization and consolidation of Mexico, a destruction of the still wild Indians, and the imposition of his power in all parts of the country. These measures, for the first time, brought an end to raiding by Indians and Mexican bandits north of the Rio Grande, and brought about a situation in which Mexican soldiers and American forces actually took the field together on several occasions, as allies. Díaz's handling of Juan Cortinas was significant. Although Cortinas declared for the new President, Díaz arrested him and ordered him shot. Strangely enough, his life was spared through the intervention of Rip Ford; but Díaz placed Cortinas, who was now a wealthy man, in virtual house arrest in the City of Mexico. Here, he could do no harm, either to Díaz or Texas, and he died in comfort in 1892.