b'The Texas RangersPart Four: The Golden Years, 18361896 By Alan RockmanTHE TEXAS RANGERS IN THEto clear the Nueces Strip of banditos and secure themen a fresh horse, but he also plied the men with food D istraught by the slaughter ofborderlands) McNelly was a former Confederate officerand other supplies. The American and Tejano settlers and 1874 RED RIVER WARwho participated in several daring raids against Unionranchers north of the border between Brownsville and the buffalo, the Comanchecamps during the Vicksburg Campaign and wouldCorpus Christi had suffered greatly from the excesses of under Quanah Parker, thebe seriously wounded at the crucial battle of Sabinethe banditos, they had had enough, and didn\'t mind how Southern Cheyenne, and theCrossroads during the 1864 Red River Campaign. AtMcNelly put paid to the raiders, just as long as he completed Kiowa led by Santana and Littlewar\'s end, McNelly demonstrated character and personalhis work which he did. So by the end of the summer of 1875 Wolf took to the warpath oncourage when he chose to sign up as a captain of thethe vicious raids north of the Rio Grande had stopped.the bloodied plains of North Texas and descended uponhugely unpopular State Police. It is said he made that tough the isolated settlements, ranches, and buffalo camps in thedecision to protect those who would become persecutedCaptain McNelly knew, however, that the banditos could Stalked Plains region. As in the Mexican War, the affairby the Reconstruction authorities, and that may very wellfind shelter and sanctuary deep in Mexico, just as their was mostly and strictly a military one, with the Rangershave been the case as McNelly was able to slip into andprobable benefactor Cortina did just 15 years earlier and providing scouting expertise and logistical support, onlyaccept a commission in the revitalized Rangers - appointedthat there would never be peace in the border regions rarely seeing any kind of major action as the blue-jacketedpersonally by Richard Coke. so long as the threat of banditry existed. Therefore regular army columns of Colonels Miles and MackenzieMcNelly came to a bold decision. Taking a page from first eroded, then smashed for good the Indian threatIt was Richard Coke who, getting reports of the worseningColonel Ranald S. Mackenzie\'s successful raid against the to Texas. In the one instance where the Rangers, led bysituation in the Nueces Strip and the devastation causedKickapoo the previous year, he gathered together a force their newly-minted Major Jones DID see action on theirby the bandito raiding, contacted McNelly\'s superiors andof men willing to cross the Rio Grande and take the war own, it was almost their last. Major Jones himself led thespecifically asked for the consumptive captain to put paidto the banditos deep inside Mexico. It was 31 Rangers expedition, and while he may have been experienced into the unrest and the banditry along the Rio Grande. Itand Captain McNelly who on the morning of November matters of law and order, as an Indian fighter he was just aswas a wise choice, for if anything Leander McNelly was a18, 1875, rode across the Rio Grande - hell-bound for green as the greenest novice, ignoring all of the Indian signsmethodical man - methodical and ruthless. the sleepy border town of Las Cuevas. Behind them, on on the ground, and then leading his men directly into aAmerican soil, was a troop of American cavalry under the deadly Kiowa ambush in the treacherous ravines along SaltFirst, McNelly chose to suppress the banditry north of thecommand of Major (Brevet Colonel) David Clendenin, a Creek, losing two men and barely escaping the same kindborder. His ways were controversial to the extreme, usingveteran of the Shenandoah Campaign and a member of the of annihilation Custer would stumble into two years later attorture by rope to extract confessions from suspectedmilitary commission who tried and convicted those who Little Big Horn. It was only Jones\' coolness and his overallraiders, then their ultimate hanging by one of his chiefhad conspired with John Wilkes Booth to kill Abraham leadership that managed to succor his command - and ridelieutenants; an embittered Tejano named Jesus SandovalLincoln. Clendenin could not officially cross the border, free out of the Salt Creek ambush with minimal loss. aka "Old Casoose" whose wife and daughter had beeneven if McNelly encountered more than he could handle raped by the banditos. McNelly also received valuablein Las Cuevas, but he did feel that he had the authority LEANDER MCNELLY\'S INVASION OF MEXICO logistical assistance from famed rancher Richard King, ofto open fire on Mexican forces if they tried to prevent Juan Cortina was at it again. Fifteen years had passedKing Ranch fame. King not only gave each of McNelly\'sMcNelly from recrossing the Rio Grande.since Cortina and his bandits, routed by a combined force of Texas Rangers and regular U.S. Army troops, beat aJust before crossing into Mexico McNelly encouraged his hasty retreat across the Rio Grande and took to hiding in31 adherents with the following speech: Boys, you have the hinterlands of Mexico. Now an older, more corpulentfollowed me as far as I can ask you to do unless you are Cortina, supposedly now a regular officer of the Mexicanwilling to go with me. It is like going into the jaws of death Army but in reality just as opportunistic as ever, was said towith only twenty-six men (31 was the ultimate count) in a have encouraged incursions by Mexican banditos bent onforeign country where we have no right according to law stealing horses and cattle from the American ranchers in thebut as I have (gone) this far I am going to finish it. Some of Rio Grande region. If a few American ranchers were shotus may get back or part of us or maybe all of you or maybe down, Cortina wasn\'t going to shed any sincere tears overnone of us will get back. . . I don\'t want you unless you their demise. are willing to go as a volunteer. . .Understand there is no surrender in this. We ask no quarter nor give any. If any of It was 1875, and the entire Nueces Strip along the Rioyou don\'t want to go step aside (Ibid., p. 252).Grande was a tinderbox of burned buildings, of women and girls raped, of Americans shot at their ranches or inSHADES OF THE ALAMOtheir towns, of scores of horses and cattle being drivenBut McNelly had not read his maps well and encountered back across the Rio Grande deep into Mexico withoutresistance just three miles inland at a remote village. His any fear of retribution. Thing is, these raids of robberymen wiped out the small bandito force and proceeded just didn\'t sit well with the angry American settlersonwards towards Las Cuevas - but the element of surprise along the Nueces Strip. They demanded action, and itwas lost, and worse, over 250 Mexican Cavalry under was action they got, courtesy of the Texas Rangers and aGeneral Juan Flores Salinas, gathered in Las Cuevas with wiry, consumptive, fiery Van Dyke beard sporting Rangerorders to repel the hated Yankee invaders.Having got their captain. The stage was set for the greatest accomplishmentbearings right, McNelly and his men entered the village only of the Texas Rangers in the tenure of Major John B. Jonesto find themselves facing an overwhelming force of Mexican - besides getting Sam Bass and putting the cuffs on JohnRegulars eight times his force. McNelly ordered a retreat, Hardin - the daring and so audacious "invasion" of Mexicoand as Salinas and his men followed closely McNelly turned by 31 Rangers conducted by the head of the Ranger Specialhis men to face the oncoming Mexican Cavalry, and fired Force - none other than the Van Dyke sporting Rangera volley into them, toppling Salinas and quite a few of his captain by the name of Leander McNelly. men, but not stopping their advance. Finally, McNelly and his men reached the Rio Grande, when Clendenin and his McNelly himself was a man of unusual character.Leander H. McNelly, Confederate Armymen were waiting. Clendenin could not cross into Mexico, Tubercular, (in fact he was already dying from the diseaseofficer and Texas Ranger captain but he sent an officer across the river to inform the surviving when he assumed command of the Special Force taskedMexican officer that if he pushed onward and tried to 18 February 2022'