12 Years in the Saddle: For Law and Order on the Frontiers of Texas. Sergeant W. J. L. Sullivan

      II

       Better Days

       Table of Contents

      Never shall I forget the night that brother and I reached the soldiers’ camp, when we first joined Carter’s regiment. Everything seemed very different from what we were used to, but we felt easier and more comfortable. We were not afraid that we would be jerked up at any moment and cuffed about and abused, as was Jeams’ manner of treating us. The soldiers felt sorry for Jim and me and treated us as kindly as they could. Colonel Giddings had charge of this regiment, and knowing the plight we were in told us that we could stay with his men as long as we wished. We were too young to fight, but we began to feel as if we were real soldiers. Once, while we were with the regiment, the soldiers captured, somewhere on the Arkansas River, four hundred mules, one hundred and twenty-five or thirty wagons, and several Yankees. At another place, we captured about three hundred beeves.

      We had been with the regiment about fifteen months, when three of the soldiers, Trave Burton, Bill Henley and Leonard Burns, got furloughs to go home. This was about two months before the close of the war. The three men asked Brother Jim and me to go home with them. We accepted their kind invitation, and with them left the army. For a little while I lived with Leonard Burns, and James stayed with Trave Burton. Later on, however, we got together, and both of us lived with Mr. and Mrs. Bill Henley, with whom we stayed for a number of years, not leaving them until we were about grown.

      Mr. and Mrs. Henley were like father and mother to James and me. I never knew before what it was to be in such a good home. It seemed a paradise to me, who had been left an orphan boy, unprotected, and at the mercy of rough, careless, unfeeling people, and I could well appreciate my new surroundings. It is sad for little children to be left without a father and mother to take care of them, and when poor, little orphans endure what James and I had to bear, they should be very thankful when they are placed in a good home, as we were. God pity the orphan children of this world, and may He bless the kind-hearted people who take them in and raise them to become useful men and women.

      Mr. and Mrs. Henley always taught and encouraged us to be honest and industrious, and to have a proper regard for the law. Through respect for their memory, and because I owed it to myself and to my own father and mother who died in my infancy, I always lived up to those teachings. Since I have served the people of Texas as a Ranger and dealt with numerous criminals, I have learned through personal observation, the wisdom of the teachings of those good old people. The world is full of tragedies, and, having been a state officer for over twelve years, I have witnessed many of them myself. Many criminals have brought shame, misery and trouble upon themselves, their families and their friends, because they started out in their youth with no respect for the laws of God and man. In the following chapters I shall tell you the tragic story of dozens of criminals who wound up their careers in the penitentiary or, in a few instances, at the rope’s end.

      In some cases the men had no parents, while children, to care for them, nor any one else to teach them how to become honest, upright and useful. In other cases, however, they were men who had parents, but, while young and “smart,” had disregarded the teachings of their elders, and, later on, had flagrantly violated the laws of their country, until they were finally locked within the four walls of a penitentiary, their liberty gone, and themselves disgraced and despised. They are left in dark, lonely cells to brood day and night over their unhappy fate, and to realize the folly of their former misbehavior.

      I have encountered many men who appeared, at first sight, to be good, but who were really tough characters, and who, unfortunately possessed much influence for evil over their companions. Thus, young people should be very careful with whom they associate. I have, also, seen men in good circumstances disobey the law for some material acquisition, and lose whatever they had thereby gained; together with all they ever possessed before, trying to stave off the prosecution; and they were fortunate, even at that, if they are not finally sent to the penitentiary. With these impressive lessons before me, and because I ever wanted to do my duty and be honest, thereby gaining my own self-respect, I always tried to do what I thought was right, and I respected and obeyed the laws of my country. Once or twice, when I was young, I laid wagers with money, and several times I drank whiskey; but I soon saw the folly in these, the only vicious habits that I ever started, and nipped them in the bud. For twelve years my business took me into the worst saloons, gambling dens, and low dives in Texas, but I always managed to keep from falling into the habits of the people whom I encountered in these places.

      I am getting old now, and, as people usually do in their declining years, I spend many of my idle hours in meditation, thinking ever of the incidents of my past life; and, while thus reviewing my record as an officer and an honest citizen, I am rewarded with the only genuine happiness and satisfaction that man can experience while, with tottering footsteps, he is nearing the gateway through which he passes into the unknown world beyond.