Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Wednesday, December 8, 1999

Rip Ford's trail across history

John Salmon Ford missed the battle of San Jacinto; he arrived a month too late. But he didn't miss much else in the next 50 years of Texas history. He was a major participant and keen eyewitness to the main events of his time.
   Ford was trained in Tennessee as a teacher and country doctor. When he arrived in Texas in 1836, he practiced medicine and did surveying work. He fought in several Indian skirmishes in east Texas, including the battle of the Neches in 1839 when Cherokee Chief Bowl was killed, still wearing the red silk vest given to him by Sam Houston.
   Ford was elected to the Ninth Congress of the Republic and he introduced the legislation to allow Texas to join the United States. That year, 1845, he became editor of the Austin Texas Democrat, but when war broke out with Mexico he joined Jack Hays' regiment of Rangers.
   He fought in battles from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. One of Ford's duties as adjutant was to send out death notices. He would write "Rest in Peace'' at the bottom of the list, then he shortened it to "R.I.P'' and someone started calling him "Old Rip.'' Ford in his memoirs described the Rangers' entry into Mexico City, writing that the inhabitants turned out to see the hated "Los Diablos Tejanos'' (the Texas devils).
   After the war, Ford was sent on an expedition to El Paso to find a practical overland route to California during the gold rush. In El Paso he ran into the "Great Western,'' a camp follower who had been with Taylor's army in Corpus Christi. She owned a bordello-hotel in El Paso.
   Ford was appointed to head a company of Rangers. He stationed the company at H. L. Kinney's ranch on the Oso near Corpus Christi. Another of Ford's camps was on the Santa Gertrudis Creek, the site that would become headquarters of the King Ranch. For the next couple of years, Ford pursued Comanche raiding parties in the valley of the Nueces.
   During this time, he tried to eat horseflesh, a delicacy for Comanches, but said the odor caused a rebellion in the stomach. He discovered that in a fight with Indians, you never ride on a brave's left; "if you do, ten to one he will pop an arrow into you.'' In one fight with Comanches near Fort Merrill, Ford yelled to a Ranger:
   "Level, what is the matter?''
   "Damn them, they shot my horse.''
   "Oh, is that all?''
   "No, damn them, they shot me, too.''
   Rip Ford was elected to the Texas Senate in 1852, went back to newspapering, then joined Carbajal's revolution in northern Mexico, which failed. In 1858, he was appointed to head another command of Rangers to deal with hostile Comanche tribes on the Canadian River. Ford and Shapley Ross led a combined force against Comanches under Chief Iron Jacket. He was called Iron Jacket because he wore a Spanish coat of mail into battle. It didn't help him this time; he was killed in the fight with Ford's Rangers.
   When Texas seceded from the Union, the old Indian-fighter Ford was given a desk job as chief of the bureau of conscription. He pursued draft-dodgers for two years and then was ordered to command a regiment of Texas cavalry composed of volunteers too young or too old to be drafted. Ford called his unit the Cavalry of the West. It operated in South Texas, from Corpus Christi to Brownsville. A month after Robert E. Lee surrendered, Ford's cavalry fought, and won, the last battle of the Civil War. It was fought at Palmito Hill near the Rio Grande.
   After the Civil War, Ford continued to play a role in Texas affairs. He led a march on the governor's mansion that helped force Reconstruction Gov. E. J. Davis of Corpus Christi to give up his office to the duly elected new governor.
   In "Lone Star,'' T.R. Fehrenbach captures the essence of this great Texan in a passing incident: "Observers wrote how old Rip Ford, weathered but not withered in his last years, squinted carefully down both sides of a San Antonio street - the famous, careful, Southwestern stare, evaluating the men, the weather, and the land - before he emerged into the sun.''
   After years of fighting Comanches, border bandits, and Yankee cavalry, John Salmon Ford, the old gray ghost of the border, died in bed, after a stroke, on Nov. 3, 1897.
   He is a hard man to inventory in a short space, but he was a legendary Ranger, doctor, statesman, newspaperman, historian, Indian fighter, Confederate officer, and quintessential Texan, a contradiction difficult to explain. He was thoughtful, kind, literate, a gentleman to ladies, and tough, brutal, profane, unyielding to his enemies, and courageous beyond our conception of courage. Texas as we know it would not exist but for men like Rip Ford.
   (Sources: "Rip Ford's Texas'' by John Salmon Ford, edited by Stephen Oates; "Rangers of Texas,'' Texian Press, Waco; Handbook of Texas; "King Ranch'' by Tom Lea and "Lone Star'' by T.R. Fehrenbach.)
  
  

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