The American Cowboy

Map of Cattle Trails

During the four decades of the longhorn cattle drives, the main trails gradually expanded west, as new markets became available.
The oldest of these trails, used during the 1840's up to the Civil War, and the one probably least known, was the Shawnee Trail, which began in south Texas around San Antonio, went north through Eastern Texas, and Eastern part of the Indian Territory, now known as Oklahoma, to the railheads of Kansas City and St. Louis. Already hampered by Missouri's quarantine on fever bearing longhorns, the Shawnee Trail was shut down just before the Civil War. After the Civil War, Kansas ordered the Texas herds to stay west of a special quarantine line, creating new cattle highways, such as the Chisholm Trail. The Chisholm Trail began at Red River Station, on the Red River and went north through the center of the Oklahoma Territory, and into Kansas. Being fed by tributary trails, the Chisholm Trail handled half of the beef hoofing it from Texas to Dodge City, Kansas, and onto Abiline, Kansas.

The Western Trail - also called the Dodge City Trail, for its original terminus - eventually extended north into the Dakota Territory, with a northwest branch peeling off at Ogallala, Nebraska, to head into Wyoming and then to Montana. In 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving opened the trail that bore their names, the Loving-Goodnight Trail, their trail leaving Texas and going west to New Mexico, than up to Colorado and Wyoming. They pioneered markets in the West by selling stock to ranchers in Colorado and Wyoming, and selling cattle for meat, to the military in New Mexico.

SHAWNEE TRAIL.
Of the principal routes by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken afoot to railheads to the north, the earliest and easternmost was the Shawnee Trail. Used before and just after the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail gathered cattle from east and west of its main stem, which passed through Austin, Waco, and Dallas. It crossed the Red River at Rock Bluff, near Preston, and led north along the eastern edge of what became Oklahoma, a route later followed closely by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The drovers took over a trail long used by Indians in hunting and raiding and by southbound settlers from the Midwest; the latter called it the Texas Road. North of Fort Gibson the cattle route split into terminal branches that ended in such Missouri points as St. Louis, Sedalia, Independence, Westport, and Kansas City, and in Baxter Springs and other towns in eastern Kansas. Early drovers referred to their route as the cattle trail, the Sedalia Trail, the Kansas Trail, or simply the trail. Why some began calling it the Shawnee Trail is uncertain, but the name may have been suggested by a Shawnee village on the Texas side of the Red River just below the trail crossing or by the Shawnee Hills, which the route skirted on the eastern side before crossing the Canadian River.
Texas herds were taken up the Shawnee Trail as early as the 1840s, and use of the route gradually increased. But by 1853 trouble had begun to plague some of the drovers. In June of that year, as 3,000 cattle were trailed through western Missouri, local farmers blocked their passage and forced the drovers to turn back. This opposition arose from the fact that the longhorns carried ticks that bore a serious disease that the farmers called Texas fever. The Texas cattle were immune to this disease; but the ticks that they left on their bed-grounds infected the local cattle, causing many to die and making others unfit for marketing. Some herds avoided the blockades, and the antagonism became stronger and more effective. In 1855 angry farmers in western and central Missouri formed vigilance committees, stopped some of the herds, and killed any Texas cattle that entered their counties. Missouri stockmen in several county seats called on their legislature for action. The outcome was a law, effective in December of that year, which banned diseased cattle from being brought into or through the state. This law failed of its purpose since the longhorns were not themselves diseased. But farmers formed armed bands that turned back some herds, though others managed to get through. Several drovers took their herds up through the eastern edge of Kansas; but there, too, they met opposition from farmers, who induced their territorial legislature to pass a protective law in 1859.
During the Civil War the Shawnee Trail was virtually unused. After the war, with Texas overflowing with surplus cattle for which there were almost no local markets, pressure for trailing became stronger than ever. In the spring of 1866 an estimated 200,000 to 260,000 longhorns were pointed north. Although some herds were forced to turn back, others managed to get through, while still others were delayed or diverted around the hostile farm settlements. James M. Daugherty, a Texas youth of sixteen, was one who felt the sting of the vigilantes. Trailing north his herd of 500 steers, he was attacked in southeastern Kansas by a band of Jayhawkers dressed as hunters. The mobsters stampeded the herd and killed one of the trail hands; (some sources say they tied Daugherty to a tree with his own picket rope, then whipped him with hickory switches.) After being freed and burying the dead cowboy, Daugherty recovered about 350 of the cattle. He continued at night in a roundabout way and sold his steers in Fort Scott at a profit. With six states enacting laws in the first half of 1867 against trailing, Texas cattlemen realized the need for a new trail that would skirt the farm settlements and thus avoid the trouble over tick fever. In 1867 a young Illinois livestock dealer, Joseph G. McCoy, built market facilities at Abilene, Kansas, at the terminus of Chisholm Trail. The new route to the west of the Shawnee soon began carrying the bulk of the Texas herds, leaving the earlier trail to dwindle for a few years and expire.

Chisholm's Trail

"The wagon tracks of Jesse Chisholm across Indian Territory became known as Chisholm's Trail, and Texas cowmen using this route gave his name to the entire cattle trail from south Texas to Kansas. It paralleled a natural route -- the cross timbers -- a natural dividing line defined by a long and narrow forest of blackjack and post oak trees between eastern hills and western plains. There was plenty of grass and a multitude of streams along the way, which most years could keep the cattle well-fed and watered. All the drovers had to do was follow the deepest wagon tracks north along Chisholm's Trail. The Cherokee-Scott trader was known to Indians as an honest and trustworthy man -- a reputation that served his country well in his activities as an interpreter and peace negotiator with the Indians."

Jesse Chisholm
Born in Tennessee in 1805 of Scottish and Cherokee descent, Jesse Chisholm came to Indian Territory in the 1820s. For 40 years he operated trading posts near Asher, Purcell, Watonga and Okla. City. Also a guide, freighter, interpreter, salt works owner and peacemaker, few men in the territories were so well known by the Indian. Due to this, part of his freighting route became known as the Chisholm Trail. He died on March 4, 1868, after eating bear meat cooked in a copper kettle, and was buried near Left Hand Spring, allotment of his old friend Chief Left Hand, NE of present Geary. The inscription on his grave, "No one left his home cold or hungry," is a tribute to the character of this rugged individual.

An abrupt bend in the river checked its flow at this point, creating a natural crossing which had been used for years by buffalo and Indians. Even so, the water was wide, swift and often clogged with sand bars. Frequently cattle were so jammed cowboys could walk across on their backs.
The river in a dry December can be deceptively calm. At springtime, thunderstorms upstream could send torrents of floodwaters down the Red River -- or any other stream that had to be crossed -- which would turn this peaceful scene into a hellish nightmare. And even without rain and flood, the river hid quicksand that could claim cattle, wagons, horses and riders if they weren't careful.

The Loving-Goodnight Trail

It was after the Civil War that Goodnight decided to round up his free roaming cattle and move them out Texas to better markets in New Mexico and Colorado, across an arid and hostile west Texas plain. In 1865, in his first attempt to move his cattle to other markets, Charles Goodnight's herd was stolen by Indians who stampeded his cattle.
The following year Goodnight met up Oliver Loving. Goodnight was working on a bold plan to move his herd west and south below the main Comanche territory, across the Pecos into New Mexico and then north to Denver. Oliver Loving's camp was nearby and he asked Goodnight about the plan. The more experienced Loving explained to Goodnight the daunting task he faced. Seeing Goodnight still determined to go forward, Loving offered his services. Goodnight replied "I will not only let you, but it is the most desirable thing of my life. I not only need the assistance of your force, but I need your advice." The partnership was a good match, Oliver Loving, the experienced trail driver, and Charles Goodnight the former ranger and Indian fighter who knew west Texas well.
With eighteen men and two-thousand head of cattle they set out on 6 June 1866 to blaze a trail from Belknap, Texas, to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This trail became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight faced many hardships as they crossed 80 waterless miles across the Llano Estacado. During this trip they lost many head that either stampeded over cliffs at the Pecos or became mired in the quicksand banks of the same river. Goodnight said later that the Pecos was "the graveyard of a cowman's hopes -- I hated it!". Even so, this trip was considered a success, earning them more than ,000.
In 1867 Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving decided to make a second trip driving cattle to Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. By this time word was out amongst every one of their plans, increasing the chances of the herd being stolen. As Goodnight found out two years before, Indians as well as outlaws knew that it only took a well-timed stampede to steal a herd. As they trailed up the Pecos the two partners worried that they would not be the first to reach the Army and as a result would not win the lucrative beef contract that was to be let in August.
Charles Goodnight agreed that Oliver Loving should scout ahead, traveling only at night. Goodnight later wrote of Loving, "one of the coolest and bravest men I have ever known, but devoid of caution, I selected Bill Wilson, the clearest headed man in the outfit as his companion." Loving detested riding at night and felt that it only slowed them down. After three nights Oliver Loving persuaded Wilson to travel during the day. Comanche’s spotted Loving and Wilson the next afternoon and once the two men were alerted they high tailed it back to the Pecos where they hid in the bank under an overhang. The two white men held off the Comanche’s into the night. Loving was severely wounded. Bill Wilson later recalled, "The Indians at this time made a desperate charge, and after I had emptied my five-shooting Yarger, I picked up Mr. Loving's gun and continued firing". Loving knew he was seriously wounded and begged Wilson to escape down river and tell his family of his fate. Later in the narrative Wilson stated, "He insisted I take his gun (a Henry rifle according to Charles Goodnight), as it used metallic cartridges and I could carry it through water and not dampen the powder." Wilson gave Loving all the pistols --five- and his six-shooting rifle. Goodnight later wondered how Wilson expected to cross the river with the Henry, as Wilson only had one arm. After some debate about his leaving, Bill Wilson slipped into the river. The one-armed Wilson eventually had to abandon the Henry rifle as it nearly drowned him. He made it past the Indians losing almost everything but his underwear and his hat. A few days later Wilson, delirious and in very poor physical shape, located Charles Goodnight.
While Bill Wilson was making his way back to Goodnight, Loving was able to make it past the Comanche’s. For two days and nights Loving hid in the gully. On the third day he figured Wilson had been killed. Oliver Loving slipped into the river and went upstream to a crossing where he hoped to find some passersby. Here he lay under a tree for two nights, hungry and weak. Some Mexicans with a wagon found him and he hired them to take him to Fort Sumner.
By the time Goodnight found his partner in Ft. Sumner the wounds in Loving's side had healed but gangrene set in on Livings wrist. The Post doctor wanted to amputate, but Loving would not let him unless Goodnight was with him. However, after Goodnights' arrival the doctor at Fort Sumner felt the trauma from the amputation would kill Loving. The doctor kept postponing the surgery for several days while he attempted to "cure" the wound by "other means". Charles Goodnight sent a rider to Santa Fe in search of another doctor. Eventually, however, Goodnight had to physically threaten the doctor in to doing the surgery. Charles Goodnight felt that the delay was due to their being "rebels". The arm was finally removed above the elbow. While Oliver Loving initially seemed to improve, complications developed as a result of the amputation. Oliver Loving died twenty-two days later on 25 September, 1867.
Before Oliver Loving died he asked that Charles Goodnight continue their partnership for two more years in order that his family could get out of debt. He also requested that his body be returned to Texas, he did not want to be buried in a "foreign land." The following year Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving's son, Joseph, brought a metal casket containing the remains of Oliver Loving 600 miles back to Texas.

Charles Goodnight
Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) was born in Illinois. At the age of ten young Charles moved to Texas with his mother and stepfather. Early on in his life Goodnight had been a noted plainsman and Indian fighter serving with the local militia, and in 1857 joining the Texas Rangers. During the Civil War, he remained with the Texas Rangers protecting the frontier from Indians, outlaws, and Mexican bandits. Goodnight also participated in the battle that "rescued" Cynthia Ann Parker from the Comanche’s. Later, he would form a lasting friendship with her Comanche son, Quanah.
In 1866, Goodnight began gathering longhorns in north Texas to take on the trail. Goodnight had been a plainsman and Indian fighter for most of his young life, and knew the perils of moving cattle through Indian territory. Goodnight had once before, raised a herd of cattle and attempted a cattle drive in 1865, only to have the entire herd stampeded and stolen by Indians. He knew that "the whole of Texas would start north for market" that year, jamming up those routes, so he worked out a daring plan to move his herd south then west below the main Comanche territory, across the Pecos into New Mexico and then north to the gold fields of Denver. Knowing he would be needing someone else to help him, who knew the New Mexico Territory, and the experience of driving cattle, he formed a partnership with Oliver Loving.

Oliver Loving
Oliver Loving (1812-1867) was one of the earliest Texas cowmen. He has been called 'The Dean of Texas Trail Drivers', a title he earned through his fearless drives of large longhorn herds through territory where no others had gone before. He came from a pioneer family and spent his whole life living dangerously, preferring to be always on the outermost edges of the advancing frontier.
Loving came to Texas from Kentucky, where he farmed, raised cattle and ran a small shipping business. Loving came with his wife and family by flatboat down the Mississippi River and the Red River, to Texas at the end of its days as a Republic in 1845, when Texas entered the Union as a state, just 9 years after the fall of the Alamo.
Oliver Loving took a herd through the Indian Nation, eastern Kansas and Northwest Missouri to Illinois in 1858. In 1859 he drove a thousand head of steers to Denver -- the first herd of Texas longhorn cattle to reach Colorado. Oliver Loving did seemingly well during the Civil War by supplying beef to the Confederate Army.
At that time, Oliver was about 33 years old and father of five young children.
Loving was the force behind many of the earlier cattle drives, long before the Glory Days of the Cowboy, and in 1866, Loving and Goodnight became partners, and founded the Loving-Goodnight Trail, leaving west out of Texas to New Mexico, on up to Colorado and Wyoming.


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The Cattle Trails! "Just as gold made California, cattle made Texas". The Shawnee Trail, The Chisholm Trail, The Loving-Goodnight Trail, and The West Trail were the main trails leading to market, with other smaller trails, acting like tributaries of a river interconnecting at different points to the main trails, or splitting off to go to other markets for the cattle. Feeding A Nation. "Millions of longhorns were driven northward across the plains to railheads in Kansas during the period 1867-1889. The great cattle drives not only helped to feed a nation just after the civil war, they provided one of the nation's most enduring heroes -- the cowboy. The brief era of the open range and free grass generated the greatest cattle boom in world history." The Dangers of a Trail drive. 'Stampede'!! Lightning forks from the clouds and cattle run and cowboys try to hold the herd together, "Hardships tested the mettle of men on the trail. Severe weather at times made conditions hazardous as well as miserable, and there was always the threat of stampedes caused by a bolt of lightning, a loud clap of thunder or the trickery of raiders. The scattering of cattle meant that there would be no rest for drovers until the strays were rounded up."

Map of Cattle Trails During the four decades of the longhorn cattle drives, the main trails gradually expanded west, as new markets became available. The oldest of these trails, used during the 1840's up to the Civil War, and the one probably least known, was the Shawnee Trail, which began in south Texas around San Antonio, went north through Eastern Texas, and Eastern part of the Indian Territory, now known as Oklahoma, to the railheads of Kansas City and St. Louis. Already hampered by Missouri's quarantine on fever bearing longhorns, the Shawnee Trail was shut down just before the Civil War. After the Civil War, Kansas ordered the Texas herds to stay west of a special quarantine line, creating new cattle highways, such as the Chisholm Trail. The Chisholm Trail began at Red River Station, on the Red River and went north through the center of the Oklahoma Territory, and into Kansas. Being fed by tributary trails, the Chisholm Trail handled half of the beef hoofing it from Texas to Dodge City, Kansas, and onto Abiline, Kansas. The Western Trail - also called the Dodge City Trail, for its original terminus - eventually extended north into the Dakota Territory, with a northwest branch peeling off at Ogallala, Nebraska, to head into Wyoming and then to Montana. In 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving opened the trail that bore their names, the Loving-Goodnight Trail, their trail leaving Texas and going west to New Mexico, than up to Colorado and Wyoming. They pioneered markets in the West by selling stock to ranchers in Colorado and Wyoming, and selling cattle for meat, to the military in New Mexico. SHAWNEE TRAIL. Of the principal routes by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken afoot to railheads to the north, the earliest and easternmost was the Shawnee Trail. Used before and just after the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail gathered cattle from east and west of its main stem, which passed through Austin, Waco, and Dallas. It crossed the Red River at Rock Bluff, near Preston, and led north along the eastern edge of what became Oklahoma, a route later followed closely by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The drovers took over a trail long used by Indians in hunting and raiding and by southbound settlers from the Midwest; the latter called it the Texas Road. North of Fort Gibson the cattle route split into terminal branches that ended in such Missouri points as St. Louis, Sedalia, Independence, Westport, and Kansas City, and in Baxter Springs and other towns in eastern Kansas. Early drovers referred to their route as the cattle trail, the Sedalia Trail, the Kansas Trail, or simply the trail. Why some began calling it the Shawnee Trail is uncertain, but the name may have been suggested by a Shawnee village on the Texas side of the Red River just below the trail crossing or by the Shawnee Hills, which the route skirted on the eastern side before crossing the Canadian River. Texas herds were taken up the Shawnee Trail as early as the 1840s, and use of the route gradually increased. But by 1853 trouble had begun to plague some of the drovers. In June of that year, as 3,000 cattle were trailed through western Missouri, local farmers blocked their passage and forced the drovers to turn back. This opposition arose from the fact that the longhorns carried ticks that bore a serious disease that the farmers called Texas fever. The Texas cattle were immune to this disease; but the ticks that they left on their bed-grounds infected the local cattle, causing many to die and making others unfit for marketing. Some herds avoided the blockades, and the antagonism became stronger and more effective. In 1855 angry farmers in western and central Missouri formed vigilance committees, stopped some of the herds, and killed any Texas cattle that entered their counties. Missouri stockmen in several county seats called on their legislature for action. The outcome was a law, effective in December of that year, which banned diseased cattle from being brought into or through the state. This law failed of its purpose since the longhorns were not themselves diseased. But farmers formed armed bands that turned back some herds, though others managed to get through. Several drovers took their herds up through the eastern edge of Kansas; but there, too, they met opposition from farmers, who induced their territorial legislature to pass a protective law in 1859. During the Civil War the Shawnee Trail was virtually unused. After the war, with Texas overflowing with surplus cattle for which there were almost no local markets, pressure for trailing became stronger than ever. In the spring of 1866 an estimated 200,000 to 260,000 longhorns were pointed north. Although some herds were forced to turn back, others managed to get through, while still others were delayed or diverted around the hostile farm settlements. James M. Daugherty, a Texas youth of sixteen, was one who felt the sting of the vigilantes. Trailing north his herd of 500 steers, he was attacked in southeastern Kansas by a band of Jayhawkers dressed as hunters. The mobsters stampeded the herd and killed one of the trail hands; (some sources say they tied Daugherty to a tree with his own picket rope, then whipped him with hickory switches.) After being freed and burying the dead cowboy, Daugherty recovered about 350 of the cattle. He continued at night in a roundabout way and sold his steers in Fort Scott at a profit. With six states enacting laws in the first half of 1867 against trailing, Texas cattlemen realized the need for a new trail that would skirt the farm settlements and thus avoid the trouble over tick fever. In 1867 a young Illinois livestock dealer, Joseph G. McCoy, built market facilities at Abilene, Kansas, at the terminus of Chisholm Trail. The new route to the west of the Shawnee soon began carrying the bulk of the Texas herds, leaving the earlier trail to dwindle for a few years and expire. Chisholm's Trail "The wagon tracks of Jesse Chisholm across Indian Territory became known as Chisholm's Trail, and Texas cowmen using this route gave his name to the entire cattle trail from south Texas to Kansas. It paralleled a natural route -- the cross timbers -- a natural dividing line defined by a long and narrow forest of blackjack and post oak trees between eastern hills and western plains. There was plenty of grass and a multitude of streams along the way, which most years could keep the cattle well-fed and watered. All the drovers had to do was follow the deepest wagon tracks north along Chisholm's Trail. The Cherokee-Scott trader was known to Indians as an honest and trustworthy man -- a reputation that served his country well in his activities as an interpreter and peace negotiator with the Indians." Jesse Chisholm Born in Tennessee in 1805 of Scottish and Cherokee descent, Jesse Chisholm came to Indian Territory in the 1820s. For 40 years he operated trading posts near Asher, Purcell, Watonga and Okla. City. Also a guide, freighter, interpreter, salt works owner and peacemaker, few men in the territories were so well known by the Indian. Due to this, part of his freighting route became known as the Chisholm Trail. He died on March 4, 1868, after eating bear meat cooked in a copper kettle, and was buried near Left Hand Spring, allotment of his old friend Chief Left Hand, NE of present Geary. The inscription on his grave, "No one left his home cold or hungry," is a tribute to the character of this rugged individual.

Red River Station This photo shows the exact spot were the Chisholm Trail crossed the Red River at Red River Station, about 7 miles east of present day Terrell, Okla., and a mile or so south. , where the water slows enough for cattle to cross, and the other side is low enough they can climb out of the water without much effort. During the cattle drive era of western history, millions of animals swam the turbulent river here en route to Kansas railhead and markets. 'Red River Station was a main crossing and last place on trail to buy supplies until Abilene, Kansas -- 350 miles north. There are many places in Texas that can claim to be on the old Chisholm Trail. And their claims would be based on the fact that, yes, herds of cattle passed by there on the way to Red River Station, and the Chisholm Trail that led through Indian Territory. But the fact remains that the cattle were gathered from all over south and central Texas and followed multiple trails north to Red River Station. They did not follow a common trail until they reached this area.'. 'Besides a cattle crossing, the station was an outpost of the frontier regiment, which patrolled Texas' northernmost border during Confederacy (1861-65). During cattle era, a town began here, its ferry serving drovers, soldiers, freighters and settlers returning from Indian captivity'.

An abrupt bend in the river checked its flow at this point, creating a natural crossing which had been used for years by buffalo and Indians. Even so, the water was wide, swift and often clogged with sand bars. Frequently cattle were so jammed cowboys could walk across on their backs. The river in a dry December can be deceptively calm. At springtime, thunderstorms upstream could send torrents of floodwaters down the Red River -- or any other stream that had to be crossed -- which would turn this peaceful scene into a hellish nightmare. And even without rain and flood, the river hid quicksand that could claim cattle, wagons, horses and riders if they weren't careful. The Loving-Goodnight Trail It was after the Civil War that Goodnight decided to round up his free roaming cattle and move them out Texas to better markets in New Mexico and Colorado, across an arid and hostile west Texas plain. In 1865, in his first attempt to move his cattle to other markets, Charles Goodnight's herd was stolen by Indians who stampeded his cattle. The following year Goodnight met up Oliver Loving. Goodnight was working on a bold plan to move his herd west and south below the main Comanche territory, across the Pecos into New Mexico and then north to Denver. Oliver Loving's camp was nearby and he asked Goodnight about the plan. The more experienced Loving explained to Goodnight the daunting task he faced. Seeing Goodnight still determined to go forward, Loving offered his services. Goodnight replied "I will not only let you, but it is the most desirable thing of my life. I not only need the assistance of your force, but I need your advice." The partnership was a good match, Oliver Loving, the experienced trail driver, and Charles Goodnight the former ranger and Indian fighter who knew west Texas well. With eighteen men and two-thousand head of cattle they set out on 6 June 1866 to blaze a trail from Belknap, Texas, to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This trail became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight faced many hardships as they crossed 80 waterless miles across the Llano Estacado. During this trip they lost many head that either stampeded over cliffs at the Pecos or became mired in the quicksand banks of the same river. Goodnight said later that the Pecos was "the graveyard of a cowman's hopes -- I hated it!". Even so, this trip was considered a success, earning them more than ,000. In 1867 Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving decided to make a second trip driving cattle to Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. By this time word was out amongst every one of their plans, increasing the chances of the herd being stolen. As Goodnight found out two years before, Indians as well as outlaws knew that it only took a well-timed stampede to steal a herd. As they trailed up the Pecos the two partners worried that they would not be the first to reach the Army and as a result would not win the lucrative beef contract that was to be let in August. Charles Goodnight agreed that Oliver Loving should scout ahead, traveling only at night. Goodnight later wrote of Loving, "one of the coolest and bravest men I have ever known, but devoid of caution, I selected Bill Wilson, the clearest headed man in the outfit as his companion." Loving detested riding at night and felt that it only slowed them down. After three nights Oliver Loving persuaded Wilson to travel during the day. Comanche’s spotted Loving and Wilson the next afternoon and once the two men were alerted they high tailed it back to the Pecos where they hid in the bank under an overhang. The two white men held off the Comanche’s into the night. Loving was severely wounded. Bill Wilson later recalled, "The Indians at this time made a desperate charge, and after I had emptied my five-shooting Yarger, I picked up Mr. Loving's gun and continued firing". Loving knew he was seriously wounded and begged Wilson to escape down river and tell his family of his fate. Later in the narrative Wilson stated, "He insisted I take his gun (a Henry rifle according to Charles Goodnight), as it used metallic cartridges and I could carry it through water and not dampen the powder." Wilson gave Loving all the pistols --five- and his six-shooting rifle. Goodnight later wondered how Wilson expected to cross the river with the Henry, as Wilson only had one arm. After some debate about his leaving, Bill Wilson slipped into the river. The one-armed Wilson eventually had to abandon the Henry rifle as it nearly drowned him. He made it past the Indians losing almost everything but his underwear and his hat. A few days later Wilson, delirious and in very poor physical shape, located Charles Goodnight. While Bill Wilson was making his way back to Goodnight, Loving was able to make it past the Comanche’s. For two days and nights Loving hid in the gully. On the third day he figured Wilson had been killed. Oliver Loving slipped into the river and went upstream to a crossing where he hoped to find some passersby. Here he lay under a tree for two nights, hungry and weak. Some Mexicans with a wagon found him and he hired them to take him to Fort Sumner. By the time Goodnight found his partner in Ft. Sumner the wounds in Loving's side had healed but gangrene set in on Livings wrist. The Post doctor wanted to amputate, but Loving would not let him unless Goodnight was with him. However, after Goodnights' arrival the doctor at Fort Sumner felt the trauma from the amputation would kill Loving. The doctor kept postponing the surgery for several days while he attempted to "cure" the wound by "other means". Charles Goodnight sent a rider to Santa Fe in search of another doctor. Eventually, however, Goodnight had to physically threaten the doctor in to doing the surgery. Charles Goodnight felt that the delay was due to their being "rebels". The arm was finally removed above the elbow. While Oliver Loving initially seemed to improve, complications developed as a result of the amputation. Oliver Loving died twenty-two days later on 25 September, 1867. Before Oliver Loving died he asked that Charles Goodnight continue their partnership for two more years in order that his family could get out of debt. He also requested that his body be returned to Texas, he did not want to be buried in a "foreign land." The following year Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving's son, Joseph, brought a metal casket containing the remains of Oliver Loving 600 miles back to Texas. Charles Goodnight Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) was born in Illinois. At the age of ten young Charles moved to Texas with his mother and stepfather. Early on in his life Goodnight had been a noted plainsman and Indian fighter serving with the local militia, and in 1857 joining the Texas Rangers. During the Civil War, he remained with the Texas Rangers protecting the frontier from Indians, outlaws, and Mexican bandits. Goodnight also participated in the battle that "rescued" Cynthia Ann Parker from the Comanche’s. Later, he would form a lasting friendship with her Comanche son, Quanah. In 1866, Goodnight began gathering longhorns in north Texas to take on the trail. Goodnight had been a plainsman and Indian fighter for most of his young life, and knew the perils of moving cattle through Indian territory. Goodnight had once before, raised a herd of cattle and attempted a cattle drive in 1865, only to have the entire herd stampeded and stolen by Indians. He knew that "the whole of Texas would start north for market" that year, jamming up those routes, so he worked out a daring plan to move his herd south then west below the main Comanche territory, across the Pecos into New Mexico and then north to the gold fields of Denver. Knowing he would be needing someone else to help him, who knew the New Mexico Territory, and the experience of driving cattle, he formed a partnership with Oliver Loving. Oliver Loving Oliver Loving (1812-1867) was one of the earliest Texas cowmen. He has been called 'The Dean of Texas Trail Drivers', a title he earned through his fearless drives of large longhorn herds through territory where no others had gone before. He came from a pioneer family and spent his whole life living dangerously, preferring to be always on the outermost edges of the advancing frontier. Loving came to Texas from Kentucky, where he farmed, raised cattle and ran a small shipping business. Loving came with his wife and family by flatboat down the Mississippi River and the Red River, to Texas at the end of its days as a Republic in 1845, when Texas entered the Union as a state, just 9 years after the fall of the Alamo. Oliver Loving took a herd through the Indian Nation, eastern Kansas and Northwest Missouri to Illinois in 1858. In 1859 he drove a thousand head of steers to Denver -- the first herd of Texas longhorn cattle to reach Colorado. Oliver Loving did seemingly well during the Civil War by supplying beef to the Confederate Army. At that time, Oliver was about 33 years old and father of five young children. Loving was the force behind many of the earlier cattle drives, long before the Glory Days of the Cowboy, and in 1866, Loving and Goodnight became partners, and founded the Loving-Goodnight Trail, leaving west out of Texas to New Mexico, on up to Colorado and Wyoming.