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A Sort of Militia: The Texas Rangers in the Time of Leander McNelly

Although the author takes his time getting to the subject indicated in his title, readers will find in its opening chapters a stimulating yet concise history of early Texas, in its struggle for independence and survival and its growing reliance upon a police presence especially suited to the nature of Texas—its rough and challenging terrain and its equally rough and challenging settlers. These “Texians” faced violent opposition from Native Americans as well as representatives of the Mexican government and unruly outlaws and thieves.

Although the word ranger went in and out of use during the administrations of leaders like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, it was agreed that Texas was in need of “a sort of militia always ready for future provocations” (5). A host of colorful figures—John Coffee Hays, William “Bigfoot” Wallace, and others dramatically demonstrated the immense value of such protectors to the emerging republic. There were rangers at the Alamo, and the rangers of Texas were among the world’s first military units to employ Samuel Colt’s revolvers in combat. Ranger captain and future politician Sul Ross gained fame for his “recapture” of Cynthia Parker during a skirmish at Pease River.

During the administration of Governor Richard Coke, the Frontier Protection Act was approved by the Texas Legislature; the Frontier Battalion, as it came to be called, became not only “the latest version of the Texas Rangers” but also an assurance of “continuity from the contingent of lawmen created in 1874 to the Texas Rangers of today” (206). A new generation of Texas Rangers began to find duty within this saving renewal of the old Texas “militia,” among them Leander McNelly.

A son of Irish immigrants—undersized and tubercular and destined to die at thirty-three years of age, McNelly seemed marked, as The Houston Daily Telegraph reported, by “‘inflexible determination and untiring activity’” (210). He first distinguished himself as a very young cavalry officer during the Civil War, when he exhibited his proficiency at using ruses—having scouts cross the same bridge repeatedly during the night to give the illusion of a superior force approaching and causing the Union officer to surrender. To the ruse he added courageous risk and defiance and even ruthlessness to end the Taylor-Sutton feud in DeWitt county, using pitiless deputies as agents of justice; according to John Wesley Hardin, fear of McNelly was the main cause for the outlaw’s departure from Texas. In the Nueces Strip—a no-man’s land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River—he battled rustlers who were almost certainly sponsored by the Mexican government, and like Captain Ranald McKenzie even risked the charge of invasion of a sovereign country by confronting rustlers on their home ground. Ordered by the Secretary of the Navy to desist he replied as follows:

Near Cuevas, Mexico, Nov. 20 1875. I shall remain in Mexico with my rangers and cross back at my discretion. Give my compliments to the Secretary of War and tell him and his United States soldiers to go to hell. Signed, Lee H. McNelly, commanding. (287)

Like Audie Murphy—another undersized Texas hero of Irish descent—McNelly characterized the need to confront violent opposition as “hell,” yet like Murphy he never failed to lead his men rather than merely command. In Follow Me to Hell, Clavin uses McNelly to illustrate the full development of frontier justice as determined and upheld by the Texas Rangers.