The Ranger Companies of Bandera County

This is a military history of the settlement of Bandera County. As across-section history of the Texas Rangers from the mid-1850s to theearly 1880s, the story is mostly of rangers and Indians, but also ofsoldiers, settlers, lawmen, and outlaws. In the time and region covered, rangers were sometimes called upon to deal with outlaws, but they were generally meant to counter Indian raids. There issome overview history of the settlement of the West Texas Frontierand, perhaps, some genealogical information for area residents.The first chapter presents historical orientation of the regionbeginning briefly with the Spanish era and surveying relative eventsup to the founding of Bandera City. The succeeding chapters outlinethe full-time and minuteman companies of rangers that operated inand around Bandera County, an area and time first described invivid, but sometimes inaccurate, details by A.J. Sowell, a TexasRanger who became a writer. He interviewed surviving pioneers andpublished his Texas Indian Fighters in 1900. Another journalisthistorian, J. Marvin Hunter, published The Pioneer History ofBandera County in 1922.Elsewhere the story of these rangers is scattered amongautobiographies, oral histories, newspaper articles, and archivaldocuments. In order to transcribe documents as closely as possible, original spellings, in most instances, have been left intact, including"fs" for today's "ss". Editorial comments or corrections are enclosedin brackets. Quotations from Levi Lamoni and Sophia Wight aremostly as edited by Davis Bitton. Muster rolls are transcribed ascompletely as possible, but some muster roll transcriptions arecomposites of more than one roll and some are merely summarized.First and middle names, where they have been known, have beenadded to the list of names for the first Ballantyne's Rangers and forMitchell's Company.