Unknown Victim Falls in a Gun Fight at Dalhart
Prefatory
In offering this book to the public, I have not undertaken to present a history of my life. I do not consider my life of enough importance to warrant making a book about it. What I have undertaken to do is to tell some of the exciting experiences that have fallen to the lot of that noble band, the Texas Ranger force, of which I had the honor to be a member for twelve years. I had the leading part, it is true, in the incidents related, but the reader will see that I was not the whole show, there were others. I have prefixed some brief notes concerning my ancestry, and some incidents of my youth, and have followed with true accounts, written in my own plain way, of the principal events of my career as a sergeant of the Rangers.
I have introduced plates herein, made from photographs, showing the faces of some of the most noted criminals in the annals of Texas; also photo illustrations of some of my dear comrades—all of them, in fact, that I could procure for this edition of my book. In a future edition, I will probably, be able to add the likenesses of others.
For valuable assistance in the preparation of these pages, I am indebted to numerous friends, who I will not enumerate by name, but whose kindness will ever be remembered by me. I solicit their continued help, and will appreciate suggestions that may be made by these and other friends and patriotic Texans in general, for use in a contemplated future edition of this work.
With a respectful bow to my audience—the public—and a plea for their indulgence instead of their exacting criticism,
I am,Very cordially, The Author
W. J. L. Sullivan
My Ancestry
My father, Tom Sullivan, was born and raised at No. 99 Broome Street, New York City, where he engaged in business as a master mechanic. My grandfather, John Sullivan, was born in Ireland. He and my grandmother moved to New York City and settled on Broome Street, where my father, who was an only child, was born. My grandfather was a Mason by order and also by occupation. Just before my father’s death my grandfather wrote him that he was coming to him to bring him fifteen hundred dollars that he had collected from the rents of my father’s property, which was in the City of New York. He started out with the money, as he said he would, and has never been heard of up to seven years ago, when a bankbook of his was found in a savings bank in New York.
My father went to Perry County, Alabama, and met and married my mother, Summer McFarlen, and they moved to Winston County, Mississippi, where my father engaged in farming until his death.
I
A Runaway
I was born in Winston County, Mississippi, on the 10th day of July, in 1851. My father had died seventy-nine days before my birth, leaving my mother with three other children besides me. Later on my mother married a Mr. Presley, of Leek County, and two children were born to them. My stepfather moved with us to Bradley County, Arkansas, where my mother died when I was but eight years of age.
My stepfather married again. That left me, as it proved to be, in a bad predicament. I had no father nor mother, and my stepfather, after my mother’s death, had married another woman. My only sister also married, and soon after that my brother, Tom, died, which left my other brother, Jim, and me to take care of ourselves as best we could. Our troubles had only begun, however, for in 1861 the Civil War broke out, and my stepfather, Mr. Presley, and my brother-in-law went to the front, where both were killed, fighting for the cause of the Confederacy. When Presley went to the war he left Jim and me with his father-in-law, a Mr. Jeams. It was a cruel fate for us to meet. “Old man Jeams,” as he was commonly called, was very hard on Jim and me. A merciless tyrant, with no feeling or principle, he beat us many times until we were so stunned and stupefied that we could not realize whether we were dead or alive. It is a terrible thing for poor, little, innocent children to fall into the tight, greedy clutches of such a man as this.
Jeans was known all over that section of the country as a hard character, and the soldiers stationed in that vicinity learned how brutal he was to my brother and me and paid him a visit one night, about two o’clock, to adjust matters with him with the aid of a new rope, which one of the men carried for convenience on the horn of his saddle. There were about twenty-five in the party, and they called Jeams out to the gate for an interview. One man in the squad, a Mr. Bloxom, had a greater grudge than the others against Jeams; for the latter had stolen a fine milk cow from Bloxom’s widowed daughter, of which fact Bloxom had informed the others of the party. After getting Jeams out of the house, they asked him where the two little boys were, who lived with him. Jeams answered that they were in bed. They then told him to rouse us and bring us to the gate, which he promptly did. They asked us if we were living with “old man Jonathan Jeams.” We told them that we were. Then they asked us if our stepfather and brother-in-law were not fighting in the war. We answered that they were. The soldiers then asked us if it was not true that Jeams beat and abused us a great deal. They immediately followed that question up with other inquiries as to the manner in which we were generally mistreated by our stepfather’s father-in-law. Brother Jim was afraid to tell them the truth, for fear his guardian would make it all the harder for him in the future, so he denied that he was mistreated, and said that Jeams was good to us.
I spoke up when Jim got through and told the soldiers that my brother was afraid to tell the truth, that Jeams whipped and abused us all the time, and that occasionally he would beat us nearly to death. Jim contradicted the things that I told them, but the soldiers said that if his story had corroborated mine, they would break Jeams neck right there with their rope. This talk, however, frightened Jim all the more, and when they asked him again if “Old Jeams” wasn’t making slaves of us, he vigorously denied it. They asked Jim if Jeams had stolen the cow that belonged to Bloxom’s daughter, but Jim got further from the truth than ever, and denied that too.
I knew that Jeams had stolen the cow and killed her for beef, and I told the soldiers that; but the statements that Jim and I had made were conflicting, and the soldiers would not hang him.
They still believed Jeams to be guilty, however, and lectured him about an hour and a half before they let him go to bed. They told him they would watch him after that, and see that he conducted himself properly as long as he lived in that community. Jim and I went back to bed, but could sleep no more the rest of the night for thinking over this exciting episode.
If Jim had not been so frightened, and had borne me out in my statements, the soldiers would have hung Jeams, and from that hour we would have been entirely and forever free from that heartless tyrant; but, as it was, we lay in our bed the remainder of that eventful night, debating, in whispers, as to whether the soldiers visit, since it resulted as it did, would make our life more pleasant or more miserable. Since Jeams had heard what I had to say to the soldiers, and since he was permitted to live on guard over me, I decided that he was going to make things even more disagreeable for me, if possible, than ever before; so I told my brother that I was going to make my escape the next day if I got a chance.
I knew that the sooner I got off the better, so at twelve o’clock I bade my brother goodbye, climbed over the fence behind the barn, and hit the trail like a deer. I ran as swiftly as my legs could carry me, and jumped over logs and bushes to save the time it would take to go around them. A few times I looked back just long enough to see if I was being pursued; then I would run faster than ever on my way to Mr. Bloxom, the man whose daughter’s cow was stolen by Jeams. I enjoyed the prospects of getting out of Jeams reach. If I had not run away from him, he would have made a “shipwreck” of me for telling the soldiers about his lawlessness. Soon I, myself, was to be with those