George Wythe Baylor (August 24, 1832 – March 24, 1916) was a Confederate cavalry officer from Texas, and a veteran of many battles of the American Civil War. He was also a noted lawman and frontiersman with the Texas Rangers.
Born at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, in 1832, Baylor came to Texas at the end of 1845 as a boy and was educated there. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army, and was elected first lieutenant, 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles. He witnessed the death of General Johnston at Shiloh, and fought in many engagements of the Red River campaign in Louisiana in 1864. He was promoted to major, and later colonel, by President Davis, although his promised regiment of Texas Rangers was never raised owing to the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865.
After the war, Baylor commanded Texas Rangers in hunting Comanches and Apaches in Texas and across the border into Mexico, often in pursuit of the Apache chief Victorio and his raiding band. He was also an elected representative of the Texas State Government, representing El Paso from 1887 to 1889. He later retired to Guadalajara, Mexico, and lived there for some years, but was compelled to return to the United States in 1913 due to the Mexican Revolution. He died in San Antonio in 1916.
Early life George Wythe Baylor was born at Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, on August 24, 1832.Daniell 1887, p. 104. His father, an army surgeon in the 7th Infantry Regiment,Webb 1993, p. 395.Waller 1943, p. 23. was John Walker Baylor, eldest son of Major Walker Baylor, of Bourbon County, Kentucky, whose wife was Jane, , a sister of Jesse Bledsoe, of Kentucky. The Baylor lineage traces their origin to Devon, England. His mother was Sophia Maria, , of Baltimore, Maryland, her father being Henreich Weidner, of Hessen Cassel, Germany, and her mother being Marie Chartelle, of an old Huguenot family. He was their fifth son and eighth child.Baylor; Baylor 1914, p. 31.
His father moved from Bourbon county, Kentucky, to Fort Gibson, with his young family, going down from Louisville to the mouth of the Arkansas River on a keel boat, and this boat was dragged up the river to Fort Gibson.Daniell 1887, p. 105. His mother took along a lot of fruit trees, roses and plants.
His father dying when he was four years old, his mother, then living on Second Creek, Mississippi, near Natchez, went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, then to Little Rock, and finally to Fort Gibson again. In December 1845, Baylor came to Texas while still a boy, stopped at Ross Prairie, Fayette county, and went to school for a while to Professor William Halsey at Rutersville, and afterwards was sent by his uncle, Judge R. E. B. Baylor, to Baylor University, at Independence, Texas, then under the control of Henry Graves.He went from school to San Antonio, and, lured by the gold rush, left there in March 1854 for California, five months being required to make the trip. He remained in California five years, and, although brought out by the Democratic party in 1859 for the Legislature, he preferred to come back to Texas. Returning to San Antonio in May 1859, he left for Parker county. In 1860 he commanded a company of rangers in what was known as the Buffalo Hunt. There were some 300 men in the expedition, and Baylor he was leader of a company of 33 frontiersmen. The Comanches generally gave them a wide berth, although Baylor's men killed some Comanche men. The rangers discovered the scalps of a babe and a woman with braided hair, both adorning the shield of a chief whom they had killed.Marshall 1990, p. 108. The campaign lasted six weeks and was the first extended service which Baylor saw.El Paso Herald, April 2, 1916. p. 7. In the same year, Baylor's profession was listed on the Parker county tax records and the United States census as "Indian killer". The rangers also practiced scalping, and, as Baylor later explained, for the benefit of his "eastern friends", this was to manipulate the Comanches' fear of losing their scalps—without which they could not hope to enjoy the best pleasures of their afterlife.Marshall 1990, p. 112.
Civil War
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Baylor enlisted in the Confederate States Army, joining Captain Hamner's company (Company H, 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles) at Weatherford on March 17, 1861, and was elected first lieutenant, the company being attached to Colonel John S. Ford's regiment of cavalry.Yeary, ed. 1912, p. 45. He enlisted for three years and was sworn in as first lieutenant of his company in San Antonio in May 1861. His brother, John R. Baylor, was lieutenant colonel of the regiment. He went with his company to Fort Clark, and from there went to El Paso as his brother's adjutant.
Ford's regiment had four companies. It went to El Paso, there became Pyron's regiment and enlisted more men and companies, and then went to Louisiana under General Thomas Green.
Shortly after his arrival in El Paso the first regiment of the Union Army Baylor was called upon to fight was that to which his father had been attached during his lifetime, the 7th Infantry, and he and his brother had relatives and a large number of friends in its ranks. Though there were 750 men in the Union forces and a little over 300 in those of the Confederates, after a short struggle the entire Union regiment was captured.
From this time Baylor's advancement in rank was rapid. After being stationed for a short time at San Augustine Springs, in New Mexico (afterwards Cox's ranch), he received an appointment from General Albert Sidney Johnston as his chief aide-de-camp and went to join Johnston's staff at Bowling Green, Kentucky. He remained on Johnston's staff until the general was killed at Shiloh, and held his head in his dying moments.
After General Johnston's death Jefferson Davis promoted Baylor to the rank of major, with authority to raise a battalion of Texas rangers for service in the Confederate cause. The battalion was later increased to a regiment and Baylor's rank raised to that of colonel (2nd Arizona Regiment) by President Davis's order.
Baylor was present at the capture of the United States regulars near Fort Fillmore in New Mexico, and in the following fights in the Louisiana Red River campaign: Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Monett's Ferry, Marksville, Mansura and Yellow Bayou. He took part in the pursuit of Union General Banks. Since Colonel Walter P. Lane was wounded at Mansfield, Baylor took command of the brigade until the close of the Red River campaign. Baylor's brigade captured the City Belle and the troops aboard on May 3, 1864. His brigade destroyed the , and captured the and transport John Warner on May 5, 1864.Smith 2010, pp. 214–216. His troops captured the Warren, a steamboat loaded with supplies and troops going up the Red River in Louisiana. At the battle of Mansfield his regiment was in Lane's brigade which struck the right wing of the Union force. Mansfield was a smashing Confederate success, with the victors capturing 1,541 Union soldiers, 20 cannons, and 175 wagons. However, Confederate losses were substantial, including General Alfred Mouton killed. At the battle of Monett's Ferry, Baylor was assigned to take command of the left flank of the Confederate force.Scott, ed. 1891, p. 616.
While the promised regiment of Texas rangers was never raised, because of the coming of the close of the Civil War, Colonel Baylor retained his rank, and it was a dispute over this that led him to kill General John A. Wharton during a heated quarrel on April 6, 1865, at the headquarters of General John B. Magruder in the Fannin Hotel in Galveston. They argued, reportedly about "military matters" related to the reorganization of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and Wharton repeatedly struck Baylor in the face, calling him a liar; then Baylor drew his revolver and shot Wharton, who was unarmed and died instantly. Baylor was tried three times before he was finally acquitted after the war.
By his own account, Baylor was never wounded or made prisoner, but was badly scared by being hit on the nose at Shiloh on April 6, 1862, and had a horse shot under him at Yellow Bayou, Louisiana, in 1864.
Texas Rangers
After the close of the war Baylor lived in Galveston, Dallas and San Antonio, and in 1879 was sent out as second or junior lieutenant of Company C (Harrington's company), Texas Rangers, to El Paso, by Governor Roberts.Daniell 1887, p. 106. Baylor left San Antonio on August 2, 1879, with his wife, two young daughters, and sister-in-law, two fully laden wagons, a piano, and a game cock with four hens.
This was just after Mexicans had killed a number of Americans at San Elizario, El Paso County, and there was much excitement along the border. His first fight with the Apaches was on October 7, three weeks after he got to his post, when the Apaches made a raid. One Mexican had been killed by the Apaches and a party of Mexicans went along with the Rangers in pursuit of them across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Overtaking the band at 11 am, they fought with them until dark, killing three Apaches. One horse killed was the Rangers' total loss.It was shortly after this that Baylor had his first experience with Victorio and his band of Apaches. The band had killed 33 of the citizens of the town of Carrizal (near what is now Villa Ahumada) in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. A party of 15 had gone out against the Apaches, and had all been killed, and a relief party of 18 that had gone out in search of the first party had also been killed by the Apaches. The citizens of El Paso del Norte (now Juarez) organized and asked Baylor and his Rangers to join their party to go in pursuit of Victorio. Baylor consented, and when the two parties got together the Mexicans wanted him to take full charge of the expedition. Baylor, however, objected that, they being on Mexican soil, a Mexican ought to command, whereupon an old pioneer Mexican, Francisco Escajeda, was made leader, and Baylor served as second in command. Nothing came of the expedition, however, for, upon scouring the neighborhood of the raid, it was found that the Apaches had crossed over again into New Mexico, and could not be located.Cutrer 2017. Thirty-two bodies of the Mexicans were found and buried. A number of saddles were also found.