Eighteen-year-old Napoleon Augustus Jennings came to Rexas in
1874 and joined a special force of Texas ranger charged with border
patrol under the command of L.H. McNelly. At this time the South
Texas region was home to hundreds of outlaws and riffraff, and some
three thousand Mexican guerrillas under Juan Cortina and others
were raiding settlers on both sides of the Rio Grande. McNelly's
Rangers stormed into this lawless area for two reasons, according
to Jennings: "Two have fun, and to carry out a set policy of
terrorizing the Mexicans at every opportunity," which would gain
them the reputation as "fire-eating, quarrelsome daredevils" and
make their job of subduing the guerrillas an easier prospect.
Within a short time the Rangers had arrested more than eleven
hundred men and reputedly killed many more. Jennings records many a
fight with the Mexican guerrillas, including the time when McNelly
defied the United States government, crossed the Rio Grande, and
fought Cortina and his raiders at Las Cuevas. Jennings also gives
accounts of scrapes with King Fisher's outlaw band, John Wesley
Hardin, and the families involved in the Taylor-Sutton feud.
Originally published in 1899, "A Texas Ranger" was reprinted in
1930 with a foreword by J. Frank Dobie, who defends the veracity of
the account despite the fact that Jennings was not, as his story
claims, a member of the company in its earliest years. In a new
introduction of this edition, Stephen L. Hardin explores the
authenticity of Jennings account and imparts the story of the feud
that erupted between Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb over the
publication of "A Texas ranger."
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