The Making of a Texas Cowboy

In the untamed heart of 19th-century Republic of Texas, young W.F. Neal lived a life forged on the frontier. Born in Tennessee in 1851, he was just an infant when his family sold their farm and joined the bold migration to the newly promising state. After a grueling three-month journey by covered wagon, accompanied by their livestock, they carved out a ranch in Colorado County. Texas was then a vivid, breathtaking wilderness: prairies ablaze with wildflowers, silver streams winding through green valleys, and a land pulsing with opportunity, romance, and ever-present danger from raiding parties.

While many chased fleeting gold in California, Texans turned to the reliable wealth of longhorn cattle. Young Neal grew up immersed in this world. From an early age, he became a skilled “top hand,” mastering the demanding life of a cowboy; endless hours in the saddle, stampedes in the night, scarce food, and sleeping under open skies through rain and snow. Yet the hardships were balanced by spring roundups, crackling campfires, tall tales, the camaraderie of fellow riders, and the simple poetry of life on the range: the creak of saddle leather, the jingle of spurs, and stars wheeling overhead.

By age twenty, in the 1860s, Neal’s dream came true: he “went up the trail” on a legendary cattle drive. His firsthand account captures the raw adventure, grit, and enduring spirit of the American cowboy era…

"It was the year of 1869 that I made my first and I might add, only, drive up the trail," said Mr. Neal, continuing with, "we had 1,000 head of beeves in the herd, bossed by W. H. Carleton and F. G. Mahon. They had bought the cattle from different people and had run a road brand on all of them to signify that they all belonged to one outfit. 

“The cowpunchers who herded alongside of me on the trip were Bill Cherry, James Byars, Al Nave, Sam Nail, Ad Wiser and a negro boy by the name of Sam. Then there was old Amos, another negro, who cooked for us, and while I'll guarantee that he didn't know anything about these things called vitamins A and B, the way he could make out sour dough biscuit with his hands and bake them in that old Dutch oven, fry steak and hand out coffee so strong it would make the dead walk, was a caution.

“I can smell that coffee right now, and when that scent struck a fellow's nostrils, it made a second call to `come and get,' wholly unnecessary. But getting back to what I was telling about that drive. 

“The town of Columbus was, at that time, the terminal of the S. P. R. R. and we started the herd three miles west of there from a spot, now marked by the town of Glidden, a division point of that same road, between Houston and San Antonio. It was the first day of July, hot as blue blazes, a fine time for siestas, but calculated to make a fellow know that the sun was not under a cloud when he herded cattle along a dim trail headed for Abilene, Kansas. But a cowboy takes life as it comes and never grouches, that is if he is a seasoned one, and if he isn't, well, he just don't belong, that's all.

"We drove through Fort Worth and crossed the Trinity River somewhere near the packing plants of Swift and Armour now stand. We went along by where the stockyards are located, too. There was not more than 400 or 500 inhabitants in the town and it wasn't anything to brag on at that. 

“But we bought some flour at an old treadmill about a mile south of town, that was run by four yoke of bulls necked together around the wheel and tied to a post. When they stepped, the wheel turned and furnished the power to grind the wheat. It was a crude arrangement but the flour was good and we were certainly glad to get it."

"The most exciting event happened on that drive the first night we spent in the Indian Territory. We hit Red River in the late afternoon, just in time to cross over and drive the herd out about seven miles the other side, before stopping to make camp. Everything was lovely and the goose hung high until a stiff wind blew up, quickly followed by rain. 

“Dark came all at once, black as pitch, the rain began falling in torrents and talk about thunder; why it was so loud it seemed to fairly knock the horses' feet from under them. Lightning was fast and furious and of course, the cattle chose that time to make a run. Believe me, it was some stampede, too. We would see them only by the flashes of lightning, but two of the boys and I took it upon ourselves to follow them, which we did until they hit the river and then they stopped. 

“We did not know what had caused them to quiet down so suddenly until the lightning showed up the water ahead. When I saw they were through with their run I discovered that I was dog tired, and when I got off of my horse I made for a big tree that I saw close by with a big root exposed. Lying down, I put my head on that root, for a pillow, and wet as a rat, without one bit of bedding, I went to sleep almost as soon as I touched the ground. I didn't know a thing from that on until daybreak and I could not have enjoyed a sleep more if it had been on a good goose hair bed under dry blankets.

“When day light came we drove the cattle that were there, back to camp, to find the whole herd was gone excepting about 200 head. Well sir, we worked there a solid week finding and rounding up the rest of that herd, but we finally got them together and were off again for Abilene.

“That was, as I said, my first and last drive up the trail. All of the halo surrounding it, in the telling by others of romance and adventure and Indians and stampedes and such like turned to dust in experiencing it for myself. And while I did not quit cattle work, I just did not hanker after following another bunch up Kansas way.”

Don’t miss part 2 next week.