Parkersburg Man Tells

of Twelve Years Spent

As Soldier and Rancher

The following interesting story of twelve years spent as a soldier and cow puncher is written for The News by Earl DeVaughn who is a Parkersburg man and is at present connected with the U. S. Army Recruiting Station at Huntington:—

I left my home in Parkersburg, West Virginia over twelve years ago and my first visit home was in March 1919. On leaving home in March 1907 I enlisted in the army at Columbus Barracks, Ohio, for Cavalry unassigned and was forwarded to the Thirteenth Cavalry at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, arriving there about the fifth of May. The following June the thirteenth the Cavalry marched overland to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for a change of station, arriving on the twentieth of July, 1907.

On March 1, 1909 the Thirteenth Cavalry embarked on the Army transport “Logan,” or rather they left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on the first of March 1909 and embarked on the “Logan” for the Philippines. Sailing from San Francisco on the sixth of March. [sic]

At 7:20 P. M. on the thirteenth of March the transport “Logan” ran aground in Honolulu Harbor on a Coral reef. The H. M. S. Cambrien and Flora, British cruisers, assisted in trying to dislodge the Logan by attaching steel cables and sinking hooks, but all attempts failed until midnight of March 19. At midnight the Logan, after first being unloaded and most of the regiment given shore leave, was dislodged by the small harbor tugboats “Iroquois” and “Intrepid.” The water line on the bow of the Logan was thirteen feet out of the water, there were thirteen organizations on board, we had been on our journey just thirteen days from the time we left San Francisco until we were hauled off the reef at Honolulu. The Honolulu Bulletin published quite a column on the “Thirteenth Hoodoo.”

We arrived at Manila on April 6 and after a few hours weighed anchor for Camp McGrath, Batangas Province, P. I., arriving there early the next morning, April 7, 1909. We were there for the purpose of relieving the Ninth cavalry, (Colored Regiment.) [sic] I sailed from Manila on the fifteenth of February 1910 for the United States for the purpose of being discharged. It was on the transport heridan [sic] this time. We arrived at Nagasaki, Japan February 20 where our ship was coaled. I went ashore on leave for twelve hours. We left Nagasaki, on Washington’s Birthday and arrived at Honolulu about the sixth of March. Left Honolulu about the eighth arriving at San Francisco on the fourteenth of March 1910. I was discharged at Angel Island, California on March 22, 1910. Howard McKain, a boy who had enlisted with me, was discharged at the same time, and looking for adventure, we decided not to return to our homes in West Virginia, but remain in the west.

Undecided as to where to go, or what to do, we purchased tickets for Albuquerque, New Mexico. At Albuquerque, we failed to find employment or adventure, so I suggested that we go to El Paso, Texas and look up some land office and file application for Civil Service position as Forest Ranger. On the train en route to El Paso we made the acquaintance of a half-breed Indian who had been to Socorro, county seat of Sucorro [sic] county New Mexico, on a murder trial. The Indian said that he had a homestead in the Gila Forest reserve and that the best place for us to file an application for Ranger would be at Silver City, N. M., so we threw away our tickets and changed at Rincon, N. M. for the Silver City branch. At Silver City, after applying for the civil service position and upon the invitation of a half-breed to accompany him to his ranch and await word from our application, we embarked on a stage coach and were transported 120 miles southwest to the Mogollon [sic] Mountains, cow country and mining district. After leaving the stage line 10 miles from the mining town of Mogollon, we walked five miles to the little cow town of Alma, near the Arizona boundry [sic] in the south-western part of New Mexico. At Alma we waited three days for the Indian to finish a poker game and then he secured horses and hackamores for us and we set out for his homestead across the state line in Arizona, the roughest country I have ever seen, no roads, just trails and some very steep and dangerous trails at that.

The Indian’s ranch proved to be a one roomed cabin about twenty by thirty feet. The cabin contained a set of bed springs supported by packing boxes. In the corner was a quarter of beef wrapped in an old quilt. A Winchester rifle and two 45 caliber revolvers hung on the wall near the bed. The floor was littered with boots, spurs, boot-jacks, leather chaps, ropes, etc. After staying with the Indian for a couple of weeks, McKain and I discovered that he was a cattle rustler in a small way. He only rustled what was needed for fresh meat for himself and his hermit father who lived in a canyon about five miles distant. The hides of the stolen cattle were cut up in strips and wound around parts of his saddle to keep it from wearing. His father had not been to the nearest town, Alma, 16 miles, in five years. He was 80 odd years old and had been raised by the Indians in Texas in the early days. He and his Indian wife had separated some years previous. His son suggested buying him a cook stove, but the old man swore he would not have the new-fangled thing on the place as he had done his cooking all his life over a camp fire. He occupied most of his time hunting, being still a good shot. Mountain lions he ate the same as deer, the mountain lion skin served as a door for one of his cabins, he had two cabins, one he used as a kitchen where he had his camp fire. The end of the cabin was knocked out to permit the smoke to escape. The other cabin he used for sleeping quarters. A Navajo blanket served as a hammock in which he slept. Part of the time he put it out in the garden. He ground his corn in an old coffee grinder. He offered me a pile of deer pelts for a bed and insisted that I stay with him over night on the occasion of my visit. He had quite a few head of horses and cattle which his son attended to. After staying six weeks with the half-breed awaiting word from our application, the Indian died from the effects of a gunshot wound he had received some time previously in one of his rustling trips. Most everything he had was sold to pay his debts. McKain went to work baling alfalfa for the Diamond “A” outfit, and I got a place with the H. U. Bar ranch “riding fence” during the round up season. Attired in chaps and armed with a Bisley model Colt 45 I felt as if I had gone back in history 50 years. The carrying of arms was not against the law in New Mexico at that time, however, you were allowed 15 minutes to get rid of your arms after entering any settlement or congregation. A round up is a congregation of men, but as far as it pertained to the carrying of arms it was disregarded, as the men had need of their shooters sometimes during their work.

It was during the time of the appearance of Halley’s Comet, May, 1920, that I went to work as a cow-puncher. Our outfit consisting of one or two men from each of the surrounding ranches, about ten men in all, left the H. U. Bar early one morning in May with our “chuck” and beds packed on spare horses. There were no roads. We established camp about 20 miles from Alma, near the Arizona boundary. My duties consisted of wrangling horses, having breakfast before daylight, and riding fences, making the necessary repairs. No one returned to camp for dinner, neither did they carry their dinner with them. There are two meals a day in a cow camp. Each man in the round-up looked after the interest of his employer, branding calves and occasionally claiming a maverick as his own. Once in a while, an old cow hand would spot a “sleeper.” (A sleeper is a young calf with the brand of its mother on its hips, made not with a branding iron, but by plucking the hair till it looks as if it had been branded.) That was done by some rustler so the cowboys of that particular ranch would not rebrand the calf thinking it had already been attended to. After the calf had become old enough to leave its mother, it would be watched and branded by the rustler with his own brand. A maverick is a calf or cow over six months old without brand or ear mark, and belongs lawfully to the first man who puts his iron on it. But needless to say there are few mavericks in the cow country. I worked for the H. U. Bar for about six weeks and during that time I saw no human beings except the men of the cow camps. I knew that I was an extra hand and that when the round was over I would be out of a job, so I sought employment as a miner. I found employment in the small mining town of Cooney, New Mexico nine miles from Alma and three miles from Mogolon [sic]. The town was inhabited by about one hundred Mexicans and one American family, the president of the mining company and his family. During the time I worked there, the latter part of 1910, the stage line which had five stations, was held up and robbed three times within four months. A member of the New Mexico mounted police lived at Alma, he and two other members who had been sent Mogolon [sic] were assigned to the case. The two mounted officers who were non-residents of the community put in most of their time gambling and drinking in the various cow towns and mining camps along the route of the stage, and occasionally insulted some citizen. On one occasion one of the officers stopped a miner coming from the mines after the day’s work, and ordered him to throw up his hands at the point of the pistol while the other searched his person. The miner swore out a warrant for the arrest of the mounted officer and it fell to the lot of the bartending deputy sheriff to serve the warrant. The next morning when the two officers rode up to the saloon, one of them came in while the other remained on the walk. As the bartender handed the warrant to the officer, the officer reached for the warrant with the left hand while with his right hand reached for the pistol in his belt, as the bartender noticed this, he whirled and reached for his gun which lay on the shelf back of him, but he received a death wound from the gun in the hand of the officer on the walk in front of the saloon. The two officers continued to walk the one street of the town unmolested, until about nine o’oclock [sic] the next morning, when they were both on one side of the street, suddenly from the other side of the street appeared from almost every door and window, Winchester rifles and pistols and a voice called for them to unbuckle their belts and surrender. The third mounted officer at Alma was notified to come up and take charge of the two. He arrived and after restoring their arms to the two officers under arrest, he started overland to the county seat, Socorro, N. M., a distance of over two hundred miles. The Sheriff was notified and he apprehended the men and placed all three under arrest, however, all three came clear of the charge.

I left the country in February 1911 going to Fort Bayard, N. M. to re-enlist in the army, but could not get anything except the Hospital corps, so I went to Deming [sic] N. M., where a recruiting office had recently been opened. There I was accepted for Cavalry unassigned and was forwarded to El Paso, Texas. Howard McKain remained in the cow country. From El Paso I was sent to Fort Logan, Colorado, where I changed from cavalry to infantry unassigned. I was enlisted at Fort Logan on the eleventh of March, 1911 and in April I was sent to join the Eighth Infantry at San Diego [sic] California. This was during the first outbreak of the Mexican insurrection, when the American government sent so many troops to the Texas and California borders. The Eighth Infantry was in camp at Point [illegible] for a few days and they made a march of 52 miles east of the border to Campo [sic] California. The regiment was split up and stationed at different points along the border in the Imperial Valley. I belonged to a detachment of 52 men stationed at Tecarte, opposite Tecarte, Mexico, 43 miles east of San Diego. Across the border from our camp, a histance [sic] of 600 yards we could see a force of Mexican Federals come in and make camp on top of a small hill which was protected by rough stone walls built in zig-zag fashion in all directions. The Federals would remain a few days and move on and a detachment of Insurrectos would ride into town and occupy the knob. All the inhabitants of the town were on the American side living in wagons and tents. During our stay at Tecarte, we saw the town on the opposite side of the of [sic] the [sic] border burned by the Insurrectos.

We captured General Jack Mosby, Insurrecto leader, while we were at Tecarte. His command was made up of Mexicans, negroes and American tramps. He had been wounded, shot in the hips while running up hill the bullet coming out near his neck. Our hospital detachment brought him around all right, and after saying that he was through with Mexico, we released him. A few days later we saw him on a large white horse on the Mexican side. He rode down to the line and gave the boys a box of cigars. We made other captures, one an American who had deserted Mos-American [sic] brand. He was turned American brand. [sic] He was turned over to the custom officials.

The eighth infantry returned to their station, Monterey, California, about August 1, 1911 and remained at that post until February 1912 when they sailed to the Philippine Islands. I was now making my second trip to the Orient. But this time I was not stationed in peaceable Luzon. We landed at Zamboanga [sic], on the Island of Mindanano [sic] on March the 5^th, 1912. Here our regiment was split up by battalions and detachments, some of them going to Jolo Jolo. I went to Camp Keithley with the mounted detachment or mounted scouts of the eighth. Camp Keithley is in the interior of Mindlanao [sic] and is situated on the bank of Lake Lanso, nine miles from the coast as the crow flies, and 26 hundred feet above sea level. The outlet of the lake is the Argus river which drops 2,600 feet in 20 miles of its course to the coast in a series of falls, one, Maria Christins [sic], having a drop of 190 feet.

From Camp Keithley, I went to Prang on the southern coast of Mindanao [sic], and then back to Keithley. In the latter part of 1913 my regiment sailed from Manila for a station at Cuartel de Espana. Cuartel de Espana means “Quarter of Spain” and they are built behind the walls of the old walled city of Manila.

I was stationed here until the Eight [sic] infintry [sic] was ordered to Fort William McKinley in March 1915. Fort McKinley is situated eight miles from Manila. October 15 of the same year I sailed from Manila for the U.S. Having [sic] been transferred by the War department from the Eighth infantry to the Nineteenth infantry stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. I came back by way of Japan and Hawaii as usual. After spending ten days at the World’s Fair in San Francisco, I proceeded to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, and reported for duty. In May 1916, Companies A. and B. of the nineteenth were sent to Eagle Pass, Texas on the Rio Grande opposite Pedrigas Negros, Mexico, to relieve the Seventeenth infantry who went into Mexico with General Pershing. We remained on the border 30 days performing the necessary guard duty until the arrival of the Third infantry from New York state. From Fort Sam Houston, we went to Camp Travis [sic] Texas. In June 1918 we were ordered to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas. At Fort Bliss I was transferred to the regular army reserves on March 24 [sic] 1919, and return [sic] to Parkersburg, arriving March 28, just 12 years and a few days since I had left. I remained at home almost three months and then I began looking for a recruiting office. I enlisted at Columbus Barracks, Ohio on June 23, 1919, and was assigned on [sic] recruiting duty at Huntington, West Virginia.

I am no writer. If I were I could make this a story four times as long by relating the experiences I have had in the Islands and on the border. My advice to young men who wish to see something of the world is to join Uncle Sam’s Army.

[Source: Retrieved and transcribed by Nanci Headley Kotowski

from The Parkersburg News of Sunday, January 4, 1919.]