Red River Rifles (Wilderness Dawning—the Texas Wyllie Brothers Series Book 1)
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Red River Rifles
WILDERNESS DAWNING - The Texas Wyllie Brothers Series, Book 1
Dorothy Wiley
Contents
Other Titles by Dorothy Wiley
Praise for Dorothy Wiley’s books
Cast of Characters
Preface
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Facts and Inspirations Behind the Story
Dear Reader
Also by Dorothy Wiley
About the Author
Connect with the Author
Acknowledgments
Red River Rifles
Copyright © 2019 by Dorothy Wiley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form, printed or electronic, without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials, in violation of the author’s rights.
eBook ASIN: B07P83YV62
Paperback ISBN-10: 9781798642696
Red River Rifles is a fictional novel inspired by history, rather than a precise account of history. The characters are entirely fictional and names, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Each book in the series can be read independently.
For the sake of understanding, the author used language for her characters for the modern reader rather than strictly reflecting the far more formal speech and writing patterns of the early 19th-century.
Cover Design and Interior Format by The Killion Group Inc.
To Samuel Wiley
Circa 1805 – December 24, 1890
A veteran of the battles of Goliad and San Jacinto
and
Texas Ranger
Other Titles by Dorothy Wiley
WILDERNESS TRAIL OF LOVE
NEW FRONTIER OF LOVE
WHISPERING HILLS OF LOVE
FRONTIER HIGHLANDER VOW OF LOVE
FRONTIER GIFT OF LOVE
THE BEAUTY OF LOVE
* * *
LOVE’S NEW BEGINNING
LOVE’S SUNRISE
LOVE’S GLORY
LOVE’S WHISPER
Praise for Dorothy Wiley’s books
“The only thing I don't like about Dorothy Wiley's books is that at some point I finish them.” – J. Collis
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“I am in LOVE with Dorothy Wiley’s novels! Amazingly believable and heartwarming tales. BRAVO, Dorothy!”– L. Ratterman
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“This book is so beautifully written it’s hard to believe it’s actually fiction! Wonderful, heart wrenching, and honest this book is amazing!” – C. Nipper
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“I love this series! It’s about time to reread them all!!” – T.C. Herrera”
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“Dorothy puts it all down on paper—love, sorrow, fighting for your rights. My very favorite author.” – J. Bailey
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“Wonderful story and series. I LOVE her writing! You can’t put it down.” – G.P. Lewis
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“My FAVORITE author!” – K.S. Williams
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“Every single page was packed with great reading. I stayed on the edge of my seat from the first page till the very last. I've read thousands of books in my lifetime, but these rank right up there with the best I've ever read.” – J. P. Meeks
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“Absolutely the very BEST historical romance series ever—and I’ve read hundreds of them! I highly recommend this series! Excellent!” – J. Blaylock
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“Like stepping into a time machine, this book swept me back to the American wilderness from page one. Beautifully written, well-searched, and riveting.” – A. Hughes
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“The people in these books are as real to me when I read them as they are on any drama series on TV!” – S. Vestal
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“There are a lot of writers out there, but few great ones like Ms. Wiley.” – A. Foster
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“This author and series deserves 20 stars! The writing and the storyline are outstanding.” – PJSM
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“I absolutely enjoyed both series! Every free moment and late into the night I read your books because I could not put them down. Your storytelling captivated me and made your characters so real I felt like I personally knew them all.” – K. Smith
Cast of Characters
Stephen Wyllie – One of the first settlers of Texas and father of six, age 52 (hero of WILDERNESS TRAIL OF LOVE)
Stephen Wyllie’s sons:
Samuel – owner of Red River Cattle Company, age 21
Thomas – age 19
Cornelius – age 17
Stephen “Steve” Jr. – age 16
Jason ‘Baldy’ Grant – Ordained minister and physician, age 48 (a major character in LOVE’S GLORY)
Melly Grant – Baldy’s wife, age 40
Louisa Pate – age 18
Adam Pate – age 8
John R. Pate – Adam and Louisa’s father, age 38
Alex Wetmore – trading Post owner
William Mabbitt – trading Post owner
Mathew Hardin – veteran rifleman Battle of Tippecanoe
Herman H. Long – filibuster and Commander of forces at Camp Freeman at Nacogdoches
William ‘Old Bill’ Williams – trapper and translator
Kuukuh – Caddo Indian brave
Capitán Tomás Fernández – Spanish Royalist Army officer
Claude O’Neil – drunken fiddle player
Petition to the Senate and House
of Representatives of the State of Texas
“Stephen Wiley came to Texas at a time of imminent peril and he and his family endured great hardships and sufferings, nevertheless he was ever ready to face danger when necessary and a frontier life in a new country for the purpose of securing for himself and his family and those that should come after him the blessings of civil and religious liberty as well as the temporal comforts desired by all…
* * *
Remember with grateful emotions the day that they pitched their tents and identified themselves with the then wilderness of Texas.”
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Daniel Daily, for Samuel and John Wiley,
September 4, 1851
Foreword
Those readers who have read my previous ten novels, know that although they were entirely fictional, they were “inspired” by my husband’s ancestors. This book goes beyond the first two series—American Wilderness Series and Wilderness Hearts Series—and incorporates actual family history into the stories. Although this series is also largely
fictional, it is based on the real-life of Stephen Wiley (born about 1758 and died December 1826) and his bold decision to bring his four sons to the Province of Texas. That decision would change our family’s history forever.
Noted historian Rex Strickland cites sources verifying that Stephen Wiley (current spelling of the last name) and four sons were indeed on the south side of the Red River in 1818, well before Stephen F. Austin brought colonists to the Province of Texas in 1824. So 2018, the year I researched and wrote most of this novel, was the 200th anniversary of Stephen and his sons’ arrival in Texas! I am so honored to celebrate, with my husband and our family, this important anniversary with the publication of this book dedicated to Stephen Wiley’s eldest son, Samuel Wiley.
The twenty-one-year-old Samuel in this book was my husband’s third great-grandfather (who was actually born about 1805, likely in Kentucky, and died 1890, in Wilson County, Texas, just a couple of miles from our ranch). In real life, Samuel would go on to live an extraordinarily heroic life that included fighting at the first Goliad battle, combat at the Battle of San Jacinto (the battle that brought victory against the Mexican Army and gained Texas), and later service for a period of time as a Texas Ranger against an Indian threat.
For this novel, there was no way of knowing, of course, what these men and women were truly like. From genealogical and historical research we know their names, where they lived, and when. We also have military, land, and tax records. But knowing the strength of their character, the depth of their faith, their dreams, and who they loved is another thing entirely. However, having had the pleasure of knowing my husband’s grandfather and father, and my husband for more than forty years, I believe I can safely assume the first Wileys in Texas were men and women of honor and strength. And so, the characters in this book, Stephen, Samuel, and the rest of his family are modeled after the Wiley men I’ve known and researched. Everything else is simply a story meant to bring history to life—to bring the reader to the edge of the West.
There is perhaps no part of American history that is as enthralling as the dawning of the American West. The men and women who came west were responding to not only a desire to better themselves and their families, they were answering a deep-seated westward call that spoke to their very souls. A call which could not be denied despite the risks to life and family in a new, lonely land.
Here, in the Wilderness Dawning Series, in the company of Stephen and his four sons, the reader can experience what it might have been like to be one of the first families to settle in the wild and fresh land that would become Texas!
The following short Prologue will bring readers up to speed on what happened to Samuel and his immediate family in the years between the last book, LOVE’S WHISPER, set in 1811 and this novel, RED RIVER RIFLES, set in 1818. Then, in Chapter 1, the story really begins!
Dorothy Wiley
March 2019
Prologue
The years immediately after Samuel Wyllie left Kentucky were not peaceful ones. With his heart hammering with excitement, Samuel, along with his father, three brothers, and their good friends Baldy and Melly Grant, left Kentucky in the spring of 1812. With heavy hearts, they’d said goodbye to his older sisters and their husbands, their Uncle Sam and Aunt Catherine, and their two sons, Little John and Rory. Goodbyes had already been said to their other uncles—William, Edward, and Bear and their families.
Their horses had barely stepped away when Martha ran after Samuel for one more embrace. Since their mother’s death soon after Stephen Jr. was born, when Samuel was about five, Martha had pretty much raised them. She’d held him in her arms and wept aloud as she told him she would never see him again on Earth. Their father had gently scolded her saying he’d already promised they would all return to visit every other Christmas.
Samuel guessed that Martha had been closer to the truth because they had yet to return to Kentucky for a visit. They were still too occupied with trying to get settled and staying alive.
They intended to settle in the new lands of the Province of Texas. Their journey took them first to Louisiana, recently purchased by the United States from France. By the time they’d traveled the long, overland journey of seven hundred miles to get there, the War of 1812 raged. The country’s second bloody war with the British lasted nearly three years—June 1812 – February 1815—and delayed their planned move to the Province of Texas.
Many of their family members contributed to the war effort in one way or another. Only fifteen when the war started, Samuel and his father, Stephen, both experienced cattlemen, supplied beef for troops. A graduate of a Virginia medical school, Baldy became a U.S. Army surgeon during the war and served at the Battle of New Orleans. Melly, a nurse, worked alongside him.
Back in Kentucky, Uncle Sam and his oldest son Little John supplied trained horses. Uncle William, Uncle Bear, and his brothers-in-law, Gabe and Liam, all served in the militia, while Uncle Edward became an officer in the army. The Kentucky Militia, with 24,000 Kentuckians serving, played a vital role. Of those Kentuckians, newspapers reported 1,200 casualties, more than any other state. This was likely because Kentucky was the site of continuing warfare between settlers and Indians backed by the British.
Men like his Uncle Bear and Uncle William, well used to using Kentucky longrifles with a range of a hundred to two hundred yards, were effective fighters against the British. The British fought old style, marching in mass and armed with Brown Bess muskets with a range of only fifty yards or so. It was a style of warfare dying fast, and England learned too late the superiority of American rifles and grit.
Liam, the husband of his sister, Polly, and Gabe, the husband of his eldest sister, Martha, paid the highest price in the war effort. Weakened by freezing temperatures and inadequate winter shelter, Liam became ill but recovered in a few months. It took nearly a year for Gabe to fully recover from a severe wound.
When the war ended, his father and Baldy decided to wait a few years in Louisiana until it would be safe to settle in the volatile Province of Texas. His father bought five-hundred acres, seventeen miles above Campti, on the east bank of the Red River, in the Natchitoches Parish. But after enduring both a drought and a flood in the same year, the constant harassment of mosquitos, and the threat of feisty alligators, both of which were the major inhabitants of Natchitoches, his father had had enough. Baldy and Melly wholeheartedly agreed and the seven of them decided it was time to leave a land that produced forty bushels of frogs to the acre.
It was time to relocate to the Province of Texas. All those who had already traveled there told newspaper writers the same thing—it was impossible to exaggerate the pleasant character, the natural beauty, and the fertility of the land called Texas.
And so, on February 6, 1818, a Sunday, the day generally chosen to commence a journey, Baldy said a prayer asking Providence to bless the second leg of their trek to the Province of Texas. Bundled up in heavy woolens against the cold, they set off with Melly driving their horse-drawn wagon loaded with needed supplies. The rest of them rode fine, sturdy horses and guided their fifty head of cattle.
From Campti, they followed the old road south toward San Augustine, the site of an old Spanish Presidio and the only entryway into the interior of Texas from the east. To the south lay the Big Thicket, a nearly impenetrable densely wooded barrier to travel. To the north, predatory and sometimes hostile tribes held the country.
When they reached the Sabine River, they took Herman Gaines’ ferry across. Almost at once, the landscape opened up to rolling hills and valleys. On a luxurious carpet of winter grass, rose magnificent trees—oaks, elms, hickories, and other hardwoods. Clear, cold streams provided all the water they needed and, except for one bad storm, they were blessed with favorable traveling weather.
Between San Augustine and Nacogdoches, John Maximillian made them welcome at his ranch at Lobanillo. But anxious to be on his way, his father insisted they leave the next morning.
At Nacogdoches, one of three Spanish se
ttlements in the Province of Texas, they stopped for the evening at the Old Stone Fort, an impressive two-story structure built from native iron ore. The other two settlements in the Province were at San Antonio de Bexar and Presidio La Bahia at Goliad, far to the west and south. Called La Casa Piedra by the Spanish, the Old Stone Fort was a mercantile house and a seat of civil government for Nacogdoches. At the fort, they were able to find beds and a good Spanish meal made of goat and vegetables.
The next morning Samuel observed that Nacogdoches, situated about sixty miles west of the Sabine River, sat in a small valley surrounded by woodsy bluffs. A branch of the Neches made a semicircle around the scenic settlement. Someday, he hoped the cattle operation he planned would bring him back to the pleasant little town.
Over the next few days, they traveled due north. They forded minor rivers, slogged through mud in creeks, and skirted around canebrakes. Several times they had to use all their horses and ropes to pull the stuck wagon free.
After their journey of nearly three hundred miles, they finally arrived at their destination—a little settlement on the south side of the Red River named Pecan Point. His father and Baldy believed that the remote outpost would one day become the front door to a new land called Texas.
For the first time, Samuel saw land so beautiful it rivaled even the most glorious parts of Kentucky. The grass looked like emerald-green velvet, the air smelled clean and sweet, the river shimmered, and the land south of the Red River was well-watered with springs, creeks, and bayous. Close by, near the Pecan Bayou, grew woods containing fully mature, virgin timber, some greater than three feet in diameter. The old-growth timber of these trees—shortleaf pine, white oak, loblolly pine, red oak, red maple, and hickory—made a cathedral-like canopy that Samuel loved to ride under. And beneath these magnificent trees, grew a lower story of dogwood, beautyberry, mulberry, and farkleberry.