Who is my granddaddy?

Dear Kinfolk,

In 1860 the Anderson family was living in Fort Belknap, Texas.  Belknap was established in 1851 by General Wm.G. Belknap to protect the Texas frontier against raids by the Kiowa and Comanche Indians.  Prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War the post was abandoned, partly as a pullback of Federal troops to the north, and partly due to the fort’s unreliable water supply.

Fort Belknap

Fort Belknap

In February 1861, the Texans voted 171-6 in favor of secession from the United States.  Three months later the Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter in the Charleston Harbor, signaling the start of the Civil War.  Like thousands of men in the Confederate states, the Anderson  boys responded in anticipation of a “brief and  glorious war”.   Only Phillip Jefferson Anderson, age 9, would have been left home with his mother and sisters to fend for themselves——in Comanche country. The mens ages at the beginning of the Civil War were, Henry M. 52, Albert 24, Mitchell 23, John Henry 22, and William Walter 16.

We know that Mitchell (1) and William Walter were Texas Rangers.  There is a strong possibility that some of the boys served both as Rangers and Confederate Soldiers.  A Henry M. Anderson  was listed in Company E., 6th Infantry, Texas.  I have found records of A.J. Anderson in the 3rd Texas Cavalry, Confederate States Army.  The 3rd Cavalry was organized in Dallas, June 13, 1861.  Another record shows Albert J. Anderson in Capt. J. Raven Mathewes Co. Heavy Arty, South Carolina Vols.  Further research required to decide the Anderson families exact participation as either Texas Rangers, Confederate Soldiers or both.

Texas Ranger history is fascinating.  The first serious challenge to the Comanche rule for the Texas plains were men that belonged to no army, wore no uniforms, made cold camps on the prairie and were intermittently paid.  They owed their existence to the Comanche threat:  they fought and behaved like the Comanches.  They were called by many different names including “spies, mounted volunteers, and gunmen”.  It was not until around 1835-40 that they finally had a name everybody could agree on RANGERS.  

Texas Ranger

They furnished their own horses, equipment and food.  Pay was set at $30 a month “when it arrived at all”.  Each Ranger had a rifle, two pistols and a knife.  A blanket secured behind his saddle and a small container of salt, flour and tobacco.  They moved lightly over the prairie, just as the Indians did, without a tent and a saddle for a pillow at night. (2)   The Anderson boys had to be mighty strong to survive the life of a Ranger!

Texas Ranger

According to our distant cousin, Archie Anderson Brewer (3),  “John Henry Anderson was a soldier in the Civil War 1860-64.  He fought in the Confederate Army along all his brothers.  He was in the Texas Campaign and Western Campaign and later scouted for the United Sates Army in Oklahoma Territory”.  

Archie wrote an interesting story about Cynthia Ann Parker, her son Quanah, and our great Uncle John Henry Anderson.  On December 1860, while the Anderson family  lived at Fort Belknap,  a Comanche expedition was mounted consisting of forty Rangers, twenty army soldiers and some seventy local volunteers.  According to Archie, John Henry Anderson was part of this expedition (possibly other members of the Anderson family were involved).  During a raid on a Comanche village, John Henry Anderson found Cynthia Ann Parker with her baby (Prairie Flower) in her arms and he noted the freckles on her arms and knew she was a white woman. 

He turned her over to the Commanding Officer.   In the book EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON, there is a different story.  The book gives credit to Commander Sul Ross for discovering Cynthia and her baby.  The book goes on to say Ross was a “wiry, ambitious young man”.  Cynthia’s son, Quanah Parker, had left the village prior to the attack.  Quanah became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.  I am not sure which story is correct, but I like  Archie’s, John Henry’s discovery best.

Next chapter we will visit life after the Civil War at Fort Davis, Texas.

Jim Lee

Reference;

(1) Cousin  Barbara Close great grandfather’s was Mitchell Anderson.  She advised that he was a Texas Ranger.

(2)  Ranger history taken from the book EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON  by S.C. Gwynne.

(3) Archie Anderson Brewer was a cousin in our lineage.  She did extenive research in the 1950-60’s.  She passed away in the 1980’s.

Just like a scene from the movie, LONESOME DOVE.   Two cowboys throw a rope over a tree limb, a few words spoken to the third cowboy about to be  hanged,  a sad ending for a cattle thief.

Except this is a real true life story about the hanging of our great or great-great Uncle James Anderson, that takes place in the year 1860.  James Anderson, our Albert’s brother, had been caught stealing cattle and changing the brand to his marking.  The cattle were stolen from his brothers John Henry and Mitchell Anderson.  They took the law into their own hands and hung James, their oldest brother.

The year 1860 in west Texas is best described by S.C. Gwynne book  EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON,  “one of the bloodiest years in the frontier”.  Following many Comanche  raids, all hell broke loose.  People panicked and fled the frontier as fast as they could.  Within days there were hundreds of deserted farms in the area west of Weatherford, Texas.  The raids were remarkable because the panicked whites in that arc of settlement west of Fort Worth did not seem to be able to do anything to stop them.  Governor Sam Houston had authorized Colonel M.T. Johnson to raise a regiment of Rangers to punish the Indians.  It was a failure.

Yet not everyone was leaving. Our great-great grandfather, Henry M. Anderson and his sons James, Albert, Mitchell, John, William and Phillip were in the cattle business with no intentions of leaving.  In 1830 there were an estimated 100,000 head of cattle in Texas; by 1860 there were between four and five million.  The Anderson boys would round up the wild un-branded longhorn cattle and place their brand on them, all very legal.  Each boy had his own brand, grandfather Albert J’s brand was A J..  They would later drive them up the Western or Chisholm Trails to the railroads in Kansas where they would be shipped back East.

Back to the story of the hanging of James Anderson.  The following report was obtained with the help of Mr. Dorman Holub, a professional researcher and Ms. S. Krehbiel.  Facts of the inquiry were requested by our distant cousin, JoRetta Lewis, a descendant of Lucinda Anderson.  Lucinda was the sister of the Anderson boys.

In the Texas State Archives we find the following:

Young County district Court Records,  Vol. 1, page 53, no. 32. (1860)  The United States vs. James Anderson. Marking and Branding Cattle.

James Anderson had been stealing cattle from two men, then changing just a little slant on the cattle brand, to make the brand like his.  The two men’s brand was so close to James Anderson’s , making the change simple.  The Young County Sheriff caught James stealing cattle from the two men, and he was taken in.

In this case, the death of the defendant was suggested and the case abated.        (James had already been hung so there was no reason for the above case. Local rumor indicates that John and Mitchell Anderson, hung their brother.  Perhaps they didn’t want the community to hang him. Perhaps they didn’t want their brother James to face another trial. When the first jury could not decide, maybe they felt they should carry our justice themselves.  The true reasons we may never know).

Page 56, Thursday May 24, 1860.  Indictments of John Anderson and Mitchell Anderson. Assault with intent to kill.

Page 76 Friday, November 9, A.D. 1860.  Court met pursuant to adjournment present and presiding as on yesterday. Case 51

The State of Texas vs. John Anderson and Mitchell Anderson.  Now at this time came the district attorney presenting the pleas of the state and the defendants in person as well as by attorneys, and the parties announced themselves read for trial, whereupon came a jury to wit: M. A. Thompson and 11 others good and lawful men, who being men and truly sworn to the issue penned, return the parties and after hearing evidence, the argument of counsel and after our deliberation had thereon returned in to the court. “WE THE JURY CANNOT AGREE. M. A. THOMPSON, FOREMAN”.  It is therefore advised by the Court that the jury be discharged and that a mistrial be entered on record and the that the case stand continued until the next term of the Court.  Judge R. L. Waddell, district Judge, Young County, Texas.

Page 83, August 8, 1861.  Grand Jury. Mitchell Anderson, John Anderson

District Court would meet two more times before final dismissal: March 25, 1861 and August 8, 1861.  The jury was suspended and the District Court in Young County ended on August 8, 1861, DUE TO THE INDIAN UPRISING IN THE COUNTY.  Hence, the court case never came back up for continuance.

One of our cousins wrote “it would have been hard to get 12 Jurors to convict the Anderson brothers for killing a cattle thief, when the law in Texas was “hang a cattle thief”.

 We will probably never know how their parents, Henry and Sarah, took the loss of their son James.  Several years later John Anderson wrote his sister Lucinda and said “I will say this much that I will never come to Texas any more to live”.  The reason could not have been the dangerous life in Comanche country,  the boys were simply not afraid.  Our distant cousin wrote, “I now  feel that his memories of Texas and Young County and his brother so burdened his heart that he would never return to live there”.

I want to thank our distant cousin, Barbara Close of Berkley, California, for information that helped tell the story of John and Mitchell Anderson.  Mitchell would have been Barbara’s great grandfather.  Our next blog will cover the Anderson boys and the Civil War.

Jim Lee