On December 11, 1871, General Ord took command of the Department of the Platte and moved into his headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. He inherited a department that had been actively engaged with Indian affairs under his predecessor, Christopher C. Augur, and would also be so under his successor, George Crook. That left General Ord little to do except ensure the protection of the Union Pacific Railway. The army forts in the towns spaced along the road needed little oversight and were usually self-regulating. Much as during his years in San Francisco, Ord and his family pursued an easy, pleasant life in Omaha.
In January 1872 Ord enjoyed a bit of diversion, as General Sheridan organized a buffalo-hunting excursion for the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia on the plains of southwestern Nebraska. The party included Sheridan and his staff, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Buffalo Bill Cody, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickock, and other celebrities. The affair was a grand success, thanks in part to Ord’s organization of logistics in Omaha.5
In 1874 Ord took the initiative in a humanitarian task to relieve the hardships resulting from the drought that had swept the southern plains in summer 1874 and the clouds of grasshoppers that subsequently denuded the crops on which the settlers relied. In winter 1874–75 poverty and acute hunger afflicted the population. Joining with General John Pope, commanding the Department of the Missouri, Ord secured the secretary of war’s permission to distribute thousands of blankets, greatcoats, boots, and other clothing items to needy settlers. Sheridan opposed food issues, but in February 1875 Congress authorized the army to distribute food, thanks largely to Ord’s effective publicity campaign. From February to May 1875 the army issued nearly 2 million rations to 107,535 people in the plains states and territories. However thankful the settlers were, Ord’s action did not endear him to General Sheridan.6
DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS
Four years of relative tranquillity in Omaha for General Ord would contrast with his next command, the Department of Texas, to which he moved in 1875. Army politics rather than a routine change of assignment governed the transfer, as General Sherman remarked to Sheridan: “You know of course that Ord was sent there without my assent by President Grant, but the immediate motive was of course to make a place for Crook, and also to have Augur at New Orleans.”7 Crook received the Platte in time for the Great Sioux War, and Augur received the Gulf to aid Sheridan, whom President Grant had sent to New Orleans to quell political violence.
Ord moved his family to San Antonio and assumed command of the Department of Texas on April 6, 1875. Under his predecessor, General Augur, Indian hostilities had occurred both in northern Texas and along the Rio Grande frontier. The Red River War of 1874–75 had removed the menace in the north, and Colonel Ranald Mackenzie’s bold raid into Mexico in 1873 had quieted the threat to Texas cattle ranchers from Indian raids from Mexico (see chapter 2). Coincident with Ord’s arrival, however, the Mexican tribesmen resumed their depredations in Texas and outlaws from both sides of the border plundered the cattle herds.
Ord promptly toured the lower valley and observed the troublesome situation, an inspection that led to a trip to Washington to plead with the secretary of war for more troops. His tour also aroused his contempt for the black infantry regiments that garrisoned the lower Rio Grande. He regarded them as useless and the district commander, Colonel Joseph H. Potter, as physically broken down by age and war wounds. In letters to General Sherman, Ord displayed the racism that he had carried with him into the Civil War. Emphasizing that in Texas the white population was bitterly prejudiced against black soldiers, he appealed to Sherman to withdraw the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry and send him two white regiments. Sherman reminded him that he should address Sheridan, his superior, and quit writing long letters to his old friend at the head of the army. Ord ignored him and continued to write directly to Sherman.8
Ord also provoked criticism for his visibly friendly disposition toward former rebels. He attended Confederate veterans’ reunions, stood in review of local militias, aided the cause of former generals, and openly cultivated the governor and the Texas congressional delegation. That had a purpose beyond good fellowship. Democrats had seized the House of Representatives in 1875 and were resentful of military employment during Reconstruction. They also resented the use of the army as strikebreakers as well as in the contested election of 1876. As a result, they intended to cut the size of the Regular Army drastically. If Texas Democrats would break with their party, the army might be spared the trauma. Ord’s close cooperation with the Texas delegation promoted that end. He enjoyed the support of the people of Texas, moreover, which was not lost on their members of Congress.
Ord quickly jumped to the conclusion that the only way to combat raids across the Rio Grande from Mexico was to pursue the raiders into Mexico as Colonel Ranald Mackenzie had done in 1873. Early in 1876 Ord issued orders for units pursuing raiders on a “fresh trail” to follow it across the Rio Grande. As he later explained in a House hearing, his order was not disapproved when he submitted it for higher approval, so he regarded it as tacitly approved.9
Ord had an aggressive like-minded officer at Fort Clark and a uniquely qualified unit for operations against Indians. Lieutenant Colonel William R. Shafter of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry (“Pecos Bill”) had a bright reputation as an explorer and Indian fighter, despite a conspicuously well-padded frame. At nearby Fort Duncan was the company of Seminole-Negro Scouts, commanded by First Lieutenant John L. Bullis. A mix of Florida Seminole Indians and escaped slaves, they excelled in every measure of desert campaigning and were devoted to their commander.10
Under Ord’s order, Shafter and Bullis twice led troops across the Rio Grande, not following fresh trails but in search of marauding Lipan Apaches. In June 1876 Shafter found the Apaches near Zaragoza and struck hard, killing or capturing nineteen Indians and seven horses and destroying the village. A detachment of his command seized two hundred stolen horses. Local authorities, Shafter noted, granted permission to cross.11
These local permissions came from officials of the government of President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, whose weak regime contended with a revolution led by General Porfirio Díaz. Díaz’s coup triumphed in November 1876 and assumed the presidency of Mexico on May 12, 1877. Díaz would rule Mexico for thirty years, and he and his border governors opposed any border crossings by the Americans.
In fact, even as the civil war in Mexico raged on, the governor that Díaz installed in Coahuila, Hipólito Charles, arrested and threatened to hang Shafter’s two Mexican guides for treason. Ord reacted at once. His department adjutant general happened to be at Fort Clark, and Ord telegraphed him to join with Colonel Shafter in crossing to Piedras Negras to liberate the guides. At dawn on April 3, 1877, both infantry and cavalry surrounded the town, only to discover that the prisoners had been spirited out during the night. An embarrassed Shafter turned back to the U.S. side, but the incident, carried out on Ord’s orders, provoked a diplomatic uproar, as Díaz’s foreign office launched undiplomatically worded protests. What happened to the guides is not apparent.12
The border incursions as reported by Shafter and Ord stirred up the new administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes. A cabinet meeting supported his determination to take harsh action, especially since Díaz craved American recognition of his legitimacy. The deliberations in Washington led to what became known as the Order of June 1, notifying Mexican border officials that, if the Mexican government continued to neglect its responsibility to prevent border raids, the U.S. government would undertake that task. “You will, therefore,” George W. McCrary, secretary of war, wrote to General Sherman, “direct General Ord that in case the lawless incursions continue he will be at liberty, in the use of his own discretion, when in pursuit of them or upon a fresh trail, to follow them across the Rio Grande, and to overtake and punish them, as well as retake the stolen property taken from our citizens and found in their hands on the Mexican side of the line.”13
The Order of
June 1 outraged Díaz, because his foreign minister had informed the American minister in May 1877 that a high-ranking general would be sent to the border with a sufficient force to cooperate in suppressing the problem. On June 15 General Ord crossed to Piedras Negras and met General Gerónimo Treviño. Two days later Treviño and two of his staff crossed to Eagle Pass and were met by Ord. From Fort Duncan they moved up to Fort Clark and conferred for two days. The two generals established a close personal rapport as well as an understanding of mutual obligations pursuant to the Order of June 1.14
Treviño and Ord had established a warm and lasting relationship, but they could not make it officially effective because of constraints on the Mexican general. Lacking the troops to quell both Indian and Mexican raiders, Treviño had to rely on locally raised militia that rode stolen American horses and traded for the Indians’ plunder. In addition, the Mexican minister of war subjected him to crippling edicts and public opinion opposed cooperation with the Americans. Díaz bitterly resented the Order of June 1.
On July 16 an emissary from Treviño arrived in San Antonio with a letter from the general and the mission of explaining to Ord a directive from the Mexican minister of war. Clearly embarrassed at the peremptory tone of the minister’s letter, Treviño had to concede that he would oppose any American border crossings with force. He asked, therefore, that both sides confine their operations to their respective sides of the border until a treaty could be concluded. No treaty was possible, of course, so long as the Order of June 1 remained in effect and the United States declined to recognize Díaz. Ord was directed to continue to be guided by that order.15
As directed by Ord, Lieutenant Bullis on August 12, 1877, led a force of ninety-one cavalry and Seminole-Negro Scouts in a reconnaissance out of Fort Clark up the Rio Grande to near the mouth of Devil’s River. Here they lay in camp scouting the Rio Grande for an Indian trail to justify crossing into Mexico. Not until September 29 did the lieutenant lead his men into Mexico. On September 30 he found a Lipan Apache camp five miles from Zaragoza. The occupants hastily abandoned their lodges as Bullis crashed among them. The troopers captured fifteen stolen horses and two mules, burned twenty-seven lodges, and made haste to return to the border, where Shafter waited with another command. One hundred Mexican dragoons followed Bullis, who turned and formed a line of battle. The Mexican colonel did the same. Neither side wanted a fight, and Bullis withdrew across the Rio Grande.16
Ord’s volatile character and his continued correspondence with General Sherman angered General Sheridan, who blamed Ord in part for the border crossing troubles. On November 24, 1877, Sheridan expressed his frustration to Sherman:
If you will permit me I will say that it is my belief that we cannot have any quiet or peace on the Rio Grande, so long as Ord is in command of Texas. I have lost confidence in his motives, and his management of his department is a confusion which is demoralizing to his subordinates. If he could be sent somewhere else and a good man put in his place, we could bring quiet to that frontier. I am sorry that it is my belief that Ord is the trouble down there.17
Sherman agreed:
I have been conscious for some time that you attribute much of the clamor on the Texas border to General Ord. . . . To change Ord now under pressure might damage him, but I am more convinced that a cool and less spasmodic man in Texas would do more to compose matters on that border than mere increases of cavalry, for which now is the cry.18
The cry was answered immediately. Responding to Ord’s repeated pleas, Sheridan directed Colonel Mackenzie and part of his Fourth Cavalry to report to Texas for service on the Rio Grande. Mackenzie had led the raid into Mexico in 1873 and stood ready to repeat the performance again.
Aside from his eccentricities, Ord had worked closely with the Texas congressional delegation. His appeals for more troops resonated with Texan members of Congress, as Sherman admitted to Sheridan in November 1877: “The Texas members claim that we of the Army owe them a debt of gratitude for saving the Army Bill this Extra Session, which is true for the Democrats had the power and were resolved to cut us down to 20,000 this session and to 17,000 in the Regular Term. There is some force to this claim, and unless we can reconcile the Texas Democrats in the House, we will be slaughtered this winter.”19 Thanks to the Texas Democrats, the army was not slaughtered during the winter session of Congress. Much of the credit could be attributed to General Ord’s amicable relations with the Texas members of Congress.
On April 9, 1878, the Hayes administration extended diplomatic recognition to the Díaz government, but that only slightly alleviated the border tensions because the Order of June 1, 1877, remained in force. Lipan and Mescalero raiders continued to inflame the border, and Mexican military forces did little to prevent them. In summer 1878 Mackenzie determined to demonstrate American resolve. Ord seems not to have been eager for as large an operation as Mackenzie intended but at length provided what the colonel deemed sufficient authorization.
Mackenzie assembled an expedition, consisting of three battalions of infantry under Colonel Shafter, eight troops of cavalry, three batteries of artillery (including one of Gatling guns), Lieutenant Bullis’s Seminole-Negro Scouts, and a train of more than forty wagons. Clearly the objective was more than Indian raiding parties. The command crossed above the mouth of Devil’s River on June 12, 1878. Twice, near Remolino on June 19 and 21, Mackenzie faced formidable battle lines of Mexican troops drawn up to contest his advance. Both Mexican colonels vowed to resist, but the Mexicans withdrew when Mackenzie pressed forward with Shafter in the center and cavalry on both flanks. Having made his point, Mackenzie returned to the American side of the Rio Grande.20
Mackenzie had blatantly violated Mexican sovereignty and provoked public outrage and diplomatic protests. In the months following the Mackenzie operation, however, General Treviño mustered significant forces along the border and made progress in quelling Indian raiding. Also, Treviño and thirteen staff officers crossed the Rio Grande in November 1878, met with Colonel Shafter at Fort Clark, then proceeded to San Antonio to socialize with General Ord. The Ord-Treviño entourage next traveled to Galveston and were richly feted by the city fathers. Treviño’s genial personality appealed to Texans and made him immensely popular. The visit further so much cemented his friendship with Ord that in 1880 Treviño married Ord’s eldest daughter.
The Mackenzie expedition marked the high point of border troubles. As Generals Treviño and Ord deepened their friendship and cooperation, Treviño’s forces brought more and more of the raiding Indians under Mexican control. By October 1879 Ord could report that Mexican officials had demonstrated their intent and ability to suppress the incursions that had led to the Order of June 1, 1877, and recommended that it be suspended.21 On March 8, 1880, President Hayes withdrew the order.
But Ord still bore Sheridan’s animosity, as Sheridan made plain on December 12, 1879:
General Ord’s eccentricity of character and the devious methods he employs to accomplish his ends, some time since forced me to doubt his motives in some of his official actions and so much has this impression gained on me that for a long time I have reluctantly avoided any personal correspondence with him. I have doubted his motives in some of his recommendations for expenditures of public money and even in his calls for and disposition of troops; and the facility with which revolutions, raids, murders and thefts are generated on the Rio Grande border whenever an emergency demands the temporary withdrawal of troops or even a special officer from the Department of Texas is somewhat remarkable.
All of these circumstances have occasioned in my mind a distrust of Ord’s management of affairs in Texas and I feel that we want there an officer free from schemes and with such as officer I believe the constant irritation represented as existing on that frontier would be to a great extent modified if not wholly allayed.22
This was only the latest—and most damning—of Sheridan’s appraisals of his subordinate, which would have doomed most officers. Sherman agreed, at least
in part, with Sheridan’s indictment and had already conceded that Ord was not a good fit for Texas. But an abiding friendship that extended back to 1847 made it almost impossible for Sherman to act against Ord. Indeed, unexpected events in 1880 compelled him to come to his old friend’s defense. On October 18 Ord reached the age of sixty-two. With forty years’ service, he was eligible for retirement, but it was not mandatory until age sixty-four. The election of 1880 had ended Rutherford B. Hayes’s presidency, but he remained president until inauguration in March 1881. If he wished, he could forcibly retire General Ord and General Irvin McDowell, both of whom were sixty-two. As Sherman wrote to General Alfred Terry:
The moment I heard that the President had called Miles here I saw that Ord’s commission was in danger. I was Ord’s chum at West Point, served with him side by side ten years in Florida, the South, and California, and am familiar with his career since. He is a rough diamond, always at work, on the most distant frontier; has a far better war record, and is a harder, stronger soldier than McDowell [in] every way; he is as poor as a rat, having been all his life taxed with the care of parents and a large family. I was, therefore, bound as a man to go to his rescue, when I feared that neglect would result in an act of palpable gross injustice. I put it in writing that if the President would retire McDowell and Ord, I and all would say amen, but if Ord alone would be forced out, I believed the Army and the world [would] cry shame.23
Much of the army did cry shame, for on the next day, December 6, 1880, President Hayes forcibly retired General Ord and nine days later promoted Colonel Nelson A. Miles to brigadier general. Texans made certain that Ord received a consolation prize: two days after Miles’s promotion, on December 17, Senator Samuel B. Maxey of Texas introduced legislation to place Ord on the retired list as a major general. The bill easily passed both houses on January 28, 1881. As Sherman wrote in thanking the senator, a former Confederate major general: “It actually seems ‘funny’ that I should be forced to appeal to you, a ‘rebel,’ to protect my oldest and best friend against the action of the union President; but such is the fact. ‘Tempora mutantur’” (The times are changing).24
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