The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (26 page)

Heintzelman was pleased. “The defeat was complete,” he reported. “We captured [Cortina’s] guns, ammunition and baggage carts, provisions, everything he could throw away to lighten his flight, and entirely dispersed his force.” Sixteen Rangers were wounded, most of whom were caught in a single blast of grapeshot from Cortina’s guns. Three were listed as “severe,” and the others were only slightly wounded. Ford himself reported “two contusions from grapeshot.” Heintzelman estimated Cortina had lost about sixty killed in the fight or drowned trying to cross the river, although Ford later heard from Mexicans that the number might have been as high as two hundred. Cortina himself escaped into Mexico, and reappeared opposite Roma, about eighteen miles upriver, threatening to burn the town. A detachment of troops under Capt. George Stoneman was sent to protect Roma. One company of artillery was detailed to Fort Ringgold, and two companies of artillery were sent downriver to garrison Fort Brown. Heintzelman urged the War Department to regarrison the military posts from Fort Duncan at Eagle Pass on down to Fort Brown.
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WITH CORTINA NEUTRALIZED
for the time being, the Rangers again fell to quarreling among themselves. There was no reason to further postpone the long-delayed election for battalion major, and Ford had no choice but to call it. Tobin’s own correspondence indicates a certain amount of resentment at the delay, and Ford later accused him of “working more to secure his election than to assure the success of the operations.” Additionally, Lt. John Littleton’s only chance for election to captain would come if Tobin replaced Ford as major, and he was working to undercut Ford. Pete Tumlinson felt Rangers should be allowed full freedom of action, particularly in a fight, and resented the discipline Ford imposed. Tobin was elected major, and Littleton received his captaincy. The men of Joe Walker’s company refused to serve under Tobin, and he ordered them mustered out along with the companies of Wade Hampton and a captain named Herron.

Heintzelman, who was busy trying to organize the defense of the Rio Grande frontier on the 150-mile stretch between Roma and Brownsville, was disgusted by the whole affair, maintaining that Ranger squabbling “created much embarrassment and delay.” The election of Tobin particularly infuriated him because, only a day before, there had been another lynching, and the Rangers were killing all the dogs and chickens in Rio Grande City and the surrounding ranches. “If he dont [
sic
] keep better order & do something I will write to the Governor to have the Rangers recalled,” he remarked in his diary. “They are doing no service and only bringing disgrace upon the country.”
²⁶

Whatever differences they might have had, Ford and Tobin both realized that the Cortina War was far from over. Shortly after the December 14 fight at Ebonal, Tobin had reported to Governor Runnels that the heavy, thorny brush worked to the advantage of the Cortinistas, and added, “the numbers, skill, and courage of the marauders have been greatly underrated.” Cortina, he said, preferred hit-and-run attacks, was familiar with paths through the brush, and his men wore heavy leather clothing “which enables them to traverse the woods without a scratch while we in following bleed at every pore.” Consequently, he said, the capture or destruction of Cortina’s band would be “the work of time.”
²⁷

Ford was in complete accord. He warned Governor Sam Houston, who had succeeded Runnels in late December, not to consider the fight at Rio Grande City as the end of the Cortina trouble.

The defeat and dispersion of Cortinistas’ [
sic
] troops will change the character of operations. In small parties they will now beset the roads, wage a guerrilla warfare and murder and plunder. . . . It is probable they will return to the neighborhood of Brownsville and levy blackmail on all the defenseless they may fall in with.
²⁸

For the time being, however, the Rangers were too divided among themselves to be of any value against Cortina. Ford traveled with Walker’s company back to Brownsville, where they intended to take their discharges and go home. Heintzelman, meanwhile, tried to distribute the Rangers along the river in small parties to prevent the Cortinistas from reorganizing. Despite assurances of mutual cooperation, however, Tobin did not appear inclined to carry out his orders.
²⁹

Tobin had little time to enjoy his new position or create further problems for the military. Two state commissioners, Angel Navarro and Robert H. Taylor, had arrived in Brownsville under instructions from Houston to investigate the entire Cortina affair and take whatever action they deemed appropriate. They found the Rangers under Tobin “without organization, muster-rolls, or anything like discipline.” In fact, the commissioners soon learned that Tobin was more unpopular in some quarters than Cortina. Businessman and rancher F. M. Campbell had firsthand experience with both, having been held prisoner by Cortina for about ten days in Rio Grande City, while Tobin and his men requisitioned his ranch near Brownsville for headquarters without compensation. In filing a claim for damages, Campbell commented, “I estimate the value of the property taken by Cortinas as fully two hundred dollars, and the value of property destroyed by Tobin’s command at fully one thousand dollars.”

After sacking Tobin, Taylor and Navarro named Ford senior officer on the Rio Grande “under instructions from the United States officer commanding that frontier.”
³⁰
Heintzelman himself believed the two Ranger companies then forming under Ford and Littleton would be adequate. He noted that the one unit of federal cavalry at his disposal was inadequate. Besides, as a federal officer, he was not empowered to take these troops across the Rio Grande into Mexico, which would “make it exceedingly difficult to give protection, unless the troops are authorized to occupy the opposite side of the river.”

It is hard to imagine why Heintzelman would discuss the limitations of federal troops in the same paragraph as his need of Rangers unless he was hinting that the Rangers could cross into Mexico whereas his own men could not. Whatever his reasoning, Navarro and Taylor were prompt to accommodate; the same day, February 2, they instructed Ford that henceforth “your movements and the troops under your command will be directed by Major Heintzelman, or other commanding officer of the U.S. army on this frontier.”
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WHILE THE BUREAUCRATS,
soldiers, and Rangers worked out authority, the steamer
Ranchero
was heading downriver from Rio Grande City, shadowed along the bank by Major Tobin’s Rangers, who were returning to Brownsville for their discharges. River traffic had come to a complete halt since the outbreak of the Cortina War, and this was the boat’s first trip since September. The value of the accumulated cargo was estimated at $200,000. Cortina was camped about thirty-five miles upriver from Brownsville, on the Mexican side at a place called La Bolsa (“the Purse”), so named because the river looped back on itself, forming a bend that Mexicans compare to a leather purse and the Americans call a horseshoe. He knew the steamer was coming, and his camp was alive with talk about taking it.

Ford had left Brownsville on February 1, with two companies of Rangers and the federal cavalry under Captain Stoneman. The cavalry took the road upriver with the wagons while the Rangers worked the bends in the river, meeting that night at a predetermined campsite. The next day, Ford and a small group stopped by the Cortina ranch for a social call on the aging dõna María Estefana, Cheno’s mother, one of those courtesies of border warfare that was always remembered whenever the guerrilla chief was in a position to help the Ranger’s family.

Two days later, on February 4, the wagons and pack mules arrived at Zacatal Ranch, just opposite La Bolsa, at about 1
P.M.
, when the guard detail under Cpl. Milton A. Duty spotted about thirty armed Cortinistas crossing the river with stolen horses and other plunder. The guards opened fire, forcing the Cortinistas to abandon most of the horses and plunder, and a fusillade opened up from the Mexican side. The Rangers retreated back to their wagons without suffering any injury. At that moment, Tobin’s company rode up and fighting broke out again. Ranger Fountain B. Woodruff was mortally wounded and handed his revolver to a friend, saying, “Take it. I shall never be able to use it again.”

The two sides were exchanging gunfire across the river when the
Ranchero
arrived and entered the narrow bend at La Bolsa. Everyone’s attention turned to the steamer, and the Cortinistas opened fire. The boat carried a detachment of soldiers under Lt. Loomis Langdon, and manning the two artillery pieces captured from Cortina in Rio Grande City, they drove the Cortinistas back into the brush. The
Ranchero
was safe for the time being, but could not round the bend without more support.
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A courier reached Ford, who came on the scene with the main body of Rangers. Cortina’s men had occupied a group of houses, fence lines, and undergrowth, giving them cover to take the steamer as it emerged from the bend. Here the river was only 150 yards bank to bank. As Ford looked over the situation, Lieutenant Langdon asked, “Captain, are you going to cross into Mexico?”

“Certainly, sir,” Ford replied,
³³
then penned a note to Major Heintzelman:

There is a numerous force lying in wait along the river on the Mexican side to capture the boat, or at least attempt it. I do not think that it is practicable to protect the steamer with forces on one side of the river only. I shall pass over this evening afoot, and beat the bush in the neighborhood. To-morrow morning I will pass over my horses, and, with the whole force under my command, go down upon the Mexican side, keeping as near as possible even pace with the boat. I would suggest that you detach a force to come up on the Texas side to escort her down. I think that by this co-operation only can the life and property on her be secured.

The note passed through Stoneman’s camp downriver, and upon examining it, he forwarded it on to Heintzelman with the addendum “I leave here immediately for. . . wherever the boat may be. I shall not cross the river without instructions, except to repel an attack on the boat.”
³⁴

Back at La Bolsa, it began to appear that the two-day operation imagined by Ford would not be necessary. Tobin and Pete Tumlinson took ten Rangers across the river and scouted Cortina’s position. Ford followed with another thirty-five Rangers and met Tobin as he was returning to the steamer.

“We found nobody,” Tobin remarked, “they have gone.”

Ford observed that Cortina had probably shifted the bulk of his forces to strengthen his weak points. “I do not think they have gone,” he said. “I see a large number near the houses and behind the fence.”

The Rangers formed in line and hit Cortina’s right flank, gaining the riverbank and using it for cover. From here they could work around the Cortinistas, forcing them to keep their horsemen under cover. The Mexicans poured fire on the Ranger lines, while the Texans, under orders to save ammunition, fired slowly with deliberate aim. When someone remarked on the heavy Cortinista fire, Ford replied, “Don’t mind that. They will soon need the ammunition they are wasting.”

The
Ranchero
began moving into the bend so that Langdon could use the artillery, while a lieutenant took a lance corporal and a detail of soldiers from the steamer to the U.S. bank and fired across the river into Cortina’s camp. The Cortinista cavalry, meanwhile, had abandoned its position, and the Rangers moved in on foot to fill the gap. Gaining the Cortinista palisade, the Texans rushed the defenders, scattering them.

“Cortina was the last to leave the field,” Ford remembered. “He faced his pursuers, emptied his revolver, and tried to halt his panic-stricken men. . . . One shot struck the cantle of his saddle, one cut a lock of hair from his head, a third cut his bridle rein, a fourth passed through his horse’s ear, and a fifth struck his belt. He galloped off unhurt.”
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THE ATTACK ON
the steamer was the last major fight of the Cortina War. The Mexican government, beset with far more serious internal problems, found this border conflict with the United States embarrassing and directed its authorities along the Rio Grande to assist in breaking up Cortina’s band and others like it. On February 5, Heintzelman sent a note to Gen. Guadalupe García in Matamoros, formally notifying him that Ford had found it necessary to cross into Mexican territory and politely but firmly inquiring as to when his troops would be available to police the Mexican side of the river.
³⁶

Lest General García believe Heintzelman and Ford were acting alone, a more prominent soldier soon arrived on the Rio Grande to reiterate the United States position. In San Antonio, illness forced General Twiggs to take extended leave, and on February 20, Bvt. Col. Robert E. Lee assumed temporary command of the department, with orders to use all the troops he could spare and bring the Cortina War to a close.
³⁷

Lee departed San Antonio for the Rio Grande on March 15. After checking Fort Duncan at Eagle Pass and Fort McIntosh at Laredo, he arrived at Fort Ringgold, where he sent a letter to Tamaulipas governor Andrés Trevino, notifying him that Mexican authorities would be held responsible for failure to break up any bands of outlaws taking refuge in that country. At Edinburg, he notified authorities in Reynosa that he expected known Cortinistas to be expelled from the city. It had the desired effect. From there, Lee continued on toward Brownsville, noting in his diary that “nearly all the ranches on the road have been burned—those spared by Cortinas [
sic
] burned by the Rangers.”
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