Harper's Weekly“Texan Ranger”
In its July 6, 1861, edition, Harper’s Weekly ran this illustration of a menacing southern horseman armed to the teeth. An accompanying article explains that the sketch depicts one of the “redoubtable warriors” known as a “Texan Ranger.” These were “a desperate set of fellows,” noted an eyewitness correspondent just returned from the South. “They number one thousand half savages, each of whom is mounted upon a mustang horse. Each is armed with a pair of Colt’s navy revolvers, a rifle, a tomahawk, a Texan bowie-knife, and a lasso. They are described as being very dexterous in the use of the latter.”
Earlier that year, after the Texas Rangers—a militia-like force of mounted volunteers founded in 1823 that patrolled the state’s vast frontier—disbanded with the outbreak of war, many of its members joined Confederate regiments, chief among them the 8th Texas Cavalry. While the Harper’s correspondent claimed the Texans were “to be pitted against Wilson’s Zouaves and McMullin’s Rangers”—Union units with outsized early war reputations as elite fighters—that did not happen. The 8th Texas Cavalry would do the bulk of its fighting in Kentucky and Tennessee, whereas Wilson’s Zouaves (the 6th New York Infantry) performed its wartime service in Florida and Louisiana. McMullen’s Independent Rangers, a Pennsylvania cavalry unit, was disbanded after its three-month term of service expired in August 1861.
