Preface

by Andy Adams

　　At the close of the civil war the need for a market for thesurplus cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. Therehad been numerous experiments in seeking an outlet, and there isauthority for the statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were drivento Illinois. Eleven years later forty thousand head were sent tothe mouth of Red River in Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo,Illinois, and thence inland by rail. Fever resulted, and theexperiment was never repeated. To the west of Texas stretched aforbidding desert, while on the other hand, nearly every drive toLouisiana resulted in financial disaster to the drover. Therepublic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it waslikewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediatelybefore and just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up incattle between eastern points on Red River and Baxter Springs, inthe southeast corner of Kansas. The route was perfectly feasible,being short and entirely within the reservations of the Choctawsand Cherokees, civilized Indians. This was the only route to thenorth; for farther to the westward was the home of the buffaloand the unconquered, nomadic tribes. A writer on that day, Mr.Emerson Hough, an acceptable authority, says: "The civil warstopped almost all plans to market the range cattle, and theclose of that war found the vast grazing lands of Texas fairlycovered with millions of cattle which had no actual ordeterminate value. They were sorted and branded and herded aftera fashion, but neither they nor their increase could be convertedinto anything but more cattle. The demand for a market becameimperative."This was the situation at the close of the '50's and meanwhilethere had been no cessation in trying to find an outlet for theconstantly increasing herds. Civilization was sweeping westwardby leaps and bounds, and during the latter part of the '60's andearly '70's, a market for a very small percentage of the surpluswas established at Abilene, Ellsworth, and Wichita, beingconfined almost exclusively to the state of Kansas. But thisoutlet, slight as it was, developed the fact that thetransplanted Texas steer, after a winter in the north, took onflesh like a native, and by being double-wintered became amarketable beef. It should be understood in this connection thatTexas, owing to climatic conditions, did not mature an animalinto marketable form, ready for the butcher's block. Yet it wasan exceptional country for breeding, the percentage of increasein good years reaching the phenomenal figures of ninety-fivecalves to the hundred cows. At this time all eyes were turned tothe new Northwest, which was then looked upon as the country thatwould at last afford the proper market. Railroads were pushinginto the domain of the buffalo and Indian; the rush of emigrationwas westward, and the Texan was clamoring for an outlet for hiscattle. It was written in the stars that the Indian and buffalowould have to stand aside.Philanthropists may deplore the destruction of the Americanbison, yet it was inevitable. Possibly it is not commonly knownthat the general government had under consideration the sendingof its own troops to destroy the buffalo. Yet it is a fact, forthe army in the West fully realized the futility of subjugatingthe Indians while they could draw subsistence from the bison. Thewell-mounted aborigines hung on the flanks of the great buffaloherds, migrating with them, spurning all treaty obligations, andwhen opportunity offered murdering the advance guard ofcivilization with the fiendish atrocity of carnivorous animals.But while the government hesitated, the hide-hunters and therailroads solved the problem, and the Indian's base of supplieswas destroyed.Then began the great exodus of Texas cattle. The red men wereeasily confined on reservations, and the vacated country in theNorthwest became cattle ranges. The government was in the marketfor large quantities of beef with which to feed its army andIndian wards. The maximum year's drive was reached in 1884, whennearly eight hundred thousand cattle, in something over threehundred herds, bound for the new Northwest, crossed Red River,the northern boundary of Texas. Some slight idea of this exoduscan be gained when one considers that in the above year aboutfour thousand men and over thirty thousand horses were requiredon the trail, while the value of the drive ran into millions. Thehistory of the world can show no pastoral movement in comparison.The Northwest had furnished the market--the outlet for Texas.