Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
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, enjoyed 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.
Díaz was to rule Mexico until 1911. The dominant view in Texas, then and for many years later, was that this rule was a golden age. Frank C. Pierce, a historian of the lower Rio Grande Valley, summed up the Texan attitude accurately and honestly with these words:
. . . He ruled Mexico with great wisdom, foresight, and patriotism. At the beginning of his administration he caused to be executed all those who in any manner attempted to foment an uprising, and even went to the extent of imprisoning those who criticized his administration. But, experience had taught that there was but one way to rule a people of whom 80% were ignorant, uneducated barbarians, and that was WITH THE IRON HAND. Under him the country soon took a place among the nations of the world. Every branch of industry was stimulated. The army was brought up to a high standard of patriotism so that when, during his old age when his enemies sought to depose him the entire army stood loyal to him preferring death to dishonor. He granted concessions to foreign capital to build up railroads and kindred institutions of progress, just as the State of Texas had done and was doing at the very time. The indebtedness of the Nation was reduced to a minimum. . . . In fact, during the 31 years in which Don Porfirio administered the affairs of the Republic, every change which took place was destined to the uplifting of his people.
This statement should be read as revealing of dominant Texan attitudes, not as a description of Mexico in the 19th century. It was widely shared across the world, and by the upper classes, in Mexico itself. The choice in Mexico was not between freedom and tyranny at the time, but between order and chaos.
There was one final footnote to the McNelly Las Cuevas war. General Juan Flores, the
mayordomo
of Las Cuevas, had been considered a great man in northern Mexico. He had much of the same standing as a Goodnight, a Kenedy, or a King had in Texas. Up from the banks of the river where he fell, the citizens of Las Cuevas, later known as San Miguel, erected an elaborate, fifteen-foot monument, surmounted with a cross.
Its inscription read:
To Citizen
JUAN FLORES SALINAS
Who Died
Fighting for his Country
The 19th of November
1875
McNelly's Rangers returned some of King's cattle to the ranch at Santa Gertrudis. They said they had shot a cow thief, one of the worst of the lot. The real tragedy of the border country in those years was that both the Rangers and the words of the monument were right.