Don't Fence Me In: the Texas Fence-Cutter War

(photo with permission from Darius Norvilas)

Don’t Fence Me In: the Texas Fence-Cutter War

By Kathleen Rice Adams

“I’m Going to Leave Old Texas Now” (The Cowman's Lament)

I’m going to leave old Texas now.

They’ve got no use for the long-horn cow.

They’ve plowed and fenced my cattle range,

And the people there are all so strange.

I’ll take my horse and I’ll take my rope,

And hit the trail upon a lope.

Say adios to the Alamo,

And turn my head toward Mexico.

The hard, hard ground shall be my bed

And my saddle seat shall hold my head.

When I waken from my dreams

I’ll eat my bread and my sardines.

When I die, please bury me

In a narrow grave just six by three.

I’ll tell Saint Peter that I know

A cowboy’s soul ain’t white as snow.

Yet in that far-off cattle land

He sometimes acted like a man.

(Texas folksong, source obscure)

In the late 1860s and early 1870s, Texas saw a massive influx of former Confederates dispossessed by the Civil War and seeking a place to start over. Texas seemed like a good spot: The state offered plenty of open range and brimmed with feral cattle called longhorns. Many a man with nothing more than guts and grit built a fortune and a legacy by shagging longhorns from deep scrub and driving the tough, stubborn, nasty-tempered critters north to the railheads in Kansas and Nebraska. Others pushed herds to Montana and Wyoming to begin new lives where the West was even wilder.

Between 1866 and 1890, cowboys drove an estimated twelve million longhorns and one million horses north. A crew of twelve to twenty men could push a herd of 2,000 to 3,000 beeves about ten to fifteen miles a day, reaching Kansas railheads in three to four months.

The development of barbed wire in the mid-1870s—along with an incursion of sheepmen and farmers—put a crimp in the cattle drives by crisscrossing Texas’s wide-open spaces with miles and miles and miles of fence. To protect themselves and their herds from the yahoos who would use Texas range for something besides Texas cattle, wealthy ranchers strung wire around the land they owned or leased, often extending their fences across public land, as well. What once had been open range across which cowboys drove enormous herds of beef on the hoof became parceled off, causing no end of frustration and unfriendly behavior.

Fence-cutting began almost as soon as the first wire went up. Small confrontations over “the Devil’s rope” happened frequently, with wire-nipping taking place in more than half of Texas counties.

In 1883, the conflict turned deadly. Instead of merely cutting fences that got in the way during trail drives, bands of armed cowboy vigilantes calling themselves names like Owls, Javelinas, and Blue Devils destroyed fences simply because the fences existed. Fence-cutting raids usually occurred at night, and often the vigilantes left messages warning the fence’s owner not to rebuild. Some went so far as to leave coffins nailed to fenceposts or on ranchers’ porches. During one sortie, vigilantes cut nineteen miles of fence, piled the wire on a stack of cedar posts, and lit a $6,000 fire.

In response, cattlemen hired armed men to guard their wire…with predictable results. Clashes became more violent, more frequent, and bloodier. In 1883 alone, at least three men were killed in Brown County, a hotspot of fence-cutting activity, during what came to be known as the Texas Fence-Cutter War.

The bloodiest period of the Fence-Cutter War lasted for only about a year, but in that period damages from fence-cutting and range fires totaled an estimated $20 million—$1 million in Brown County alone.

Although politicians stayed well away from the hot-button issue for about a decade, in early 1884 the Texas legislature declared fence-cutting a felony punishable by a prison term of one to five years. The following year, the U.S. Congress outlawed stringing fence across public land. Together, the new laws ended the worst of the clashes, although the occasional fracas broke out in the far western portion of Texas into the early part of the 20^th Century.

The Texas Rangers were assigned to stop several fence-cutting outbreaks, and being the Texas Rangers, they proved remarkably effective…with one notable exception. In February 1885, Texas Ranger Ben Warren was shot and killed outside Sweetwater, Texas, while trying to serve a warrant for three suspected fence-cutters. Two of the three were convicted of Warren’s murder and sentenced to life in prison.

In 1888, a brief resurgence of fence-cutting violence erupted in Navarro County, prompting famed Texas Ranger Ira Aten to place dynamite charges at intervals along one fence line. Aten’s method was a mite too extreme for the Texas Adjutant General, who ordered the dynamite removed. The mere rumor of the explosive’s presence brought fence-cutting to a rapid halt in the area, though.

In my debut novel Prodigal Gun, a barbed-wire fence touches off a war in the Texas Hill Country, bringing an infamous gunman to Texas for the first time since he left to fight for the Confederacy sixteen years earlier.

To celebrate the book’s release, I’ll give an e-copy in the winner’s choice of formats to one person who comments today!

Prodigal Gun

A dangerous man. A desperate woman. A love no war could kill.

Widowed rancher Jessie Caine buried her heart with the childhood sweetheart Yankees killed on a distant battlefield. Sixteen years later, as a Texas range war looms and hired guns arrive to pursue a wealthy carpetbagger’s agenda, Jessie discovers the only man she ever loved isn’t dead.

At least not yet.

Embittered by a brother’s betrayal, notorious gunman Calhoun is a dangerous man, come home to do an unsavory job. A bushwhacker’s bullet nearly takes his life on Jessie’s land, trapping him in a standoff between the past he tried to bury and the infamy he never will. One taste of the only woman he ever loved puts more than his life and her ranch in the crossfire.

With a price on his head, a debt to a wealthy employer around his neck, and a defiant woman tugging at his heart, Calhoun’s guns may not be enough to keep him from the grave. Caught between his enemies and hers, Jessie faces an agonizing choice: Which of her dreams will die?

LINKS:

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Paperback will be available Thursday, Nov. 20

 Kathleen Rice Adams

A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperados. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks…even Kathleen’s good guys wear black hats.

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DEAD BUT NOT GONE by Kathleen Rice Adams

Dead but Not Gone

By Kathleen Rice Adams

Every year at Halloween, people dredge up every ghost story, spooky campfire tale, and urban legend they can find. Something draws humans to the supernatural, the unexplained, and the patently creepy, even though most of us fervently hope we’ll never experience the phenomena in person.

Ghost stories are nothing new. Neither are ghosts. In fact, quite a few of America’s most famous…and notorious…former citizens reportedly still inhabit their favorite “haunts” a century or more after their corporeal forms left the building.

Abigail Adams

John and Abigail Adams not only left their mark on history as the second President and First Lady, but also as the first residents of the White House. The presidential mansion was still under construction when the couple moved out after John’s single term as President, but Abigail—a tidy, down-to-earth woman—reportedly lingers yet. During the Adams’s tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Abigail hung her wash in the East Room because she found that to be the driest, warmest place on the property. During the Taft administration, the East Room became a popular spot for hosting receptions. That’s when the President, guests, and staff began reporting a ghostly Mrs. Adams, clad in a mop cap and lace shawl, sauntering through with armloads of spectral laundry. To this day, guests sometimes report a soapy fragrance in the room.

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton

The third Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr is best known for the duel in which he killed Alexander Hamilton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Although Burr was acquitted of murder in the incident, both he and Hamilton appear to have been so scarred by the bitter political rivalry that haunted them during life that they stuck around after death to do a bit of haunting of their own. The owners, staff, and guests at a New York restaurant located in what once was Burr’s carriage house have attributed flying dishes and moving chairs to Burr’s unseen hand. Similar poltergeist activity has been reported in the Greenwich Village house in which Hamilton died.

Benjamin Franklin

Possibly one of the most brilliant intellects ever to roam the planet, Founding Father, writer, inventor, philosopher, and scientist Benjamin Franklin was more than a bit eccentric. Among his favorite earthly haunts during life was the library of the Philosophical Society he helped found in Philadelphia. After Franklin’s death, the society erected a statue to his memory. Perhaps they shouldn’t have bothered. Reports of his “free spirit” roaming the halls are legion. Less common, but no less credible, are sightings of the statue dancing through the Philly streets.

Andrew Jackson

The seventh President of the U.S., Andrew Jackson could be boisterous, argumentative, and temperamental. (While in office, he beat a would-be assassin to the ground on the steps of the Capitol building.) Old Hickory died in June 1845, but as large a presence as he was in life, nobody should have expected him to leave and be done with it. He didn’t. In 1865, Mary Todd Lincoln reported confronting a “cantankerous” ghost she insisted was Jackson’s swearing and stomping about the second-floor Rose Room, which had served as Jackson’s bedroom. Stomping, cursing, and loud laughter occasionally echo in the space even today, earning the Rose Room a reputation as the most haunted location in a structure with more than its share of resident ghosts.

Jesse James

One of the most notorious outlaws in the American West, Jesse James’s motives remain the subject of debate. Perhaps the American imagination’s unwillingness to let James go is the reason he hasn’t gone. Since the day he died more than 130 years ago, folks have reported unearthly goings-on at the Kearney, Missouri, farm where James grew up. Now a museum, the property is subject to doors opening and slamming all by themselves without setting off security alarms. Lights move inside and outside the buildings, and on foggy mornings, the pounding of hooves, muffled shouts, and gunfire can be heard in the nearby woods.

Thomas Jefferson

Enigmatic third U.S. President Thomas Jefferson embodied the clash between American ideals and the reality of the American experience. In the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” yet he owned slaves and was outspoken in his belief that Negroes were an inferior race. Today, phantom footsteps and happy, if mysterious, humming and whistling at Jefferson’s home, Monticello, are attributed to his presence. Mary Todd Lincoln (who seemed prone to ghost sightings), reported seeing Jefferson in the Yellow Oval Room at the White House. In addition, hauntingly beautiful violin music sometimes emerges from the Oval Office while it is unoccupied. Jefferson was fond of playing the violin while relaxing in the room.

Marie Laveau

The truth about Marie Laveau is so buried in legend as to be indecipherable. Born a free woman of color, she’s often called the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, but it’s more likely she was a devout Catholic who embraced some African and Creole traditions in her role as a healer. Regardless where she stood on the mystical, Laveau was a beautiful, wealthy woman who remains a source of fascination more than 130 years after her death at the age of 98. People visiting her grave to seek a variety of intercessions have reported seeing the gauzy form of a woman wearing a tignon (a turban women of color were required to wear). The same figure has been seen at the New Orleans house where Laveau’s cottage once stood.

Robert E. Lee

Considered one of the most brilliant military tacticians in history, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led vastly outnumbered Rebel forces to a number of significant victories over better-equipped Union troops. Exhausted by the war and heartsick about the conflict’s toll on his beloved Virginia, Lee lived for only five years after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. At his death, it appears he regressed to happier times and returned to his family’s home in Alexandria, Virginia. There, the spirit of a young boy about four years old is thought to be Lee’s. Much like the general in his childhood, the boy is mischievous: He rings doorbells, moves objects, and giggles in the hallways. Occasionally he is seen romping on the lawn with a ghostly black dog and the specters of two young girls who are thought to be his sisters.

Abraham Lincoln

Possibly the most often-sighted ghost in the U.S. is reputed to be the sixteenth President. It seems only fitting that Abraham Lincoln would return from the Beyond, as he was a firm believer in the supernatural. Lincoln’s presidency during a pivotal point in American history and his tragic assassination seem to have bound him to the White House for good. Among those who’ve reported post-mortem encounters with Honest Abe are Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Dwight Eisenhower; First Ladies Grace Coolidge, Jacquie Kennedy and Ladybird Johnson; presidential children Susan Ford and Maureen Reagan; Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (who, in a tremendous breach of international protocol, encountered Lincoln fresh from the bath, nude). Lincoln makes his presence known in the Lincoln Bedroom, the Oval Office, the Rose Room, and the East Room, where his body lay in state. Lincoln’s ghost also has been reported in Springfield, Illinois—near his grave, walking the streets around the original courthouse, and wandering through his former home.

Dolley Madison

Wife of fourth U.S. President James Madison, Dolley Madison often is applauded for her social grace and elegant taste. The White House Rose Garden was her proudest accomplishment. Evidently, she continues to maintain a proprietary interest in horticulture. When First Lady Edith Wilson directed the staff to dig up the roses, a “very angry” apparition that looked a lot like Dolley chased them from their work. The project was abandoned. Others have reported detecting the scent of roses in several of Dolley’s favorite rooms.

Can you tell I’m fascinated by ghosts? When the opportunity to contribute to the Prairie Rose Publications anthology Cowboys, Creatures, and Calico, Vol.2 came along, I knew exactly what kind of Halloween creepiness my story would include.

“Family Tradition”

A failed bank robber and a phony psychic find their soulmates after she accidentally summons a pair of dishonest-to-goodness ghosts.

Haunted by his kin’s tradition of spectacular failure, bank robber Tombstone Hawkins is honor-bound to prove his family tree produced at least one bad apple. Carnival fortuneteller Pansy Gilchrist has masqueraded as a gypsy spiritualist for so long she’s started to believe her own spiel. When she accidentally summons a pair of real ghosts, dishonesty may not be the best policy…but it’s all they’ve got.

Excerpt:
She had no choice but to play out the con. “What question weighs your mind?”

“I’ve suffered a recent…setback.” A soft chuckle rippled across the space between them. “Ask your spirits how to remedy that.”

“The future is a vast, open plain. Without more to go on—”

“If you’re legit, they’ll know what I mean.”

As if maintaining the ruse weren’t difficult enough. She stalled for time with more deep breaths. “My guide wishes to know your name, so he may call upon the proper advisors.”

Silence expanded to fill the tent before he spoke. “Hawkins. Tombstone Hawkins.”

Her eyes snapped open. Finally, a chance to regain control of the dodge. “It’s not wise to mock the spirits.”

“Ain’t mocking nobody. That’s my given name.”

“Sounds like you should be contacting the Beyond yourself instead of inconveniencing me.”

The smirk she’d noticed earlier broadened into a full-fledged sneer brimming with sarcasm. “Please go on. I ain’t seen an act this entertaining since I was knee-high to a toad—and that’s been a mighty long while.”

The sparkle in dark eyes, the broad shoulders hunched over the chair, the amusement stretching his lips all spoke of a man for whom a rough-edged kind of charm came naturally. If pressed, she would admit this saddle tramp’s raw masculinity could enchant a less worldly woman. Cleaned up, he might even be attractive.

Too bad he was such an insufferable clod.

Directing her gaze to the crystal ball, she lowered her voice into the singsong rhythm that never failed to lull gullible marks into a trance of their own. “Spirits, Tombstone—” A giggle bubbled upward. She cleared her throat. “Tomb—” She nearly choked trying to catch a snort. Damn the man’s name anyway. “Mr. Hawkins seeks—”

His flattened hand crashed down on hers, practically pressing her palm through the tapestry. She glanced up.

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About Kathleen Rice Adams

A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperados. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks…even Kathleen’s good guys wear black hats. Find her online at:

Website: KathleenRiceAdams.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/kathleen.riceadams

Amazon: Amazon.com/Kathleen-Rice-Adams/e/B00GAI0L2I/

CONTEST!! Kathleen will be giving away a digital copy of the Halloween anthology, COWBOYS, CREATURES, AND CALICO, Volume 2 to someone who comments. Be sure to include your email address in your comment for a chance to win.