I probably do have enough just on the 1860 campaign to do something separate from my larger project... I hadn't really thought about that, but it's an idea. My main project is a ranger named Sam Hall who fought under Burleson in 1860... then under Donelson in 1861 along the Rio Grande... then under Showalter & Ford in 1864. In his later years, Sam became a dime novelist and wrote more than 50 dime novels and dozens of sketches about rangers, Indians and life on the frontier. Historians who have even been aware of Hall's work have discounted it as pure fiction, but I've devoted a lot of my research time to finding the truth that went into his stories... and I've had surprisingly good luck in verifying a many of his accounts. A biography of him is in the works, but it's been a monumental task.

As with the detective work I've done with Sam Hall's stories, I have to think that there's some truth hidden in that 1860 account from Guthrie. Here are some hunches I had:

(1) "...hit the road for San Marcos [Hays County], then to Austin, where I enlisted in Captain Ed Burleson's Company A, Mounted Rangers. This company was made up in San Antonio, Austin, and San Marcos in January 1860."

Why did Guthrie go to Austin? My roster information shows that only TWO of Burleson's men allegedly enlisted in Austin. The fact that Guthrie said San Marcos, San Antonio AND Austin... is a curious one, because how could he have known that? One of the men was Bill George, a Missouri native who had just finished service with Walker's Rangers in the first Cortina War on 20 January. His enlistment date is 5 February, when Burleson was in San Antonio. A note in Ingmire's records says he was "mustered by Capt. J.M.W. Hall on detached service." Capt. Hall was the official mustering officer for the ranging companies at that time, so he could've brought George with him from Austin to join Burleson... or maybe McCord recruited him while he was in Austin getting supplies. The second man was Edward Crump, a Mississippi native who reportedly enlisted in Austin on 9 May. Now, this is awfully close to Guthrie's 4 May claim... but I know Burleson and McCord were at Camp Beaver on 9 May, so I don't know how he would've enlisted in Austin. Anyhow, Crump was paid for his service in October 1860, so there's proof of his participation on file.

(2) "... above the Big Bend... The third day out our scout reported a band of Mexicans at Willow Springs... We scouted up and down the River for about thirty-eight days, away back from Junction City on the big Saline River. We had a running fight with about twenty-five or thirty Indians in which we killed three Indians and captured about seventeen ponies, after which they scattered to the mountains."

I think Guthrie has his facts and enemies a bit jumbled... but I think he's talking about Kansas. If you look at a river and county map of Kansas... you'll see the "Big Bend" of the Arkansas River in Barton County... above that, after you cross Smoky Hill River is the "Saline River" running horizontally between Saline and Sheridan counties. In Saline County, you see that the Saline River branches from the Kansas River... follow that river northeast a bit to Geary County and there's "Junction City". To the east of Junction City in Douglas County is "Willow Springs".. or Willow Springs Lake. Apparently there was a mail/stage/train station there in the 1860s that Indians liked to attack every so often (I found a reference where they burned it down in 1868). Now, there are all of the geographic sites that Guthrie named and if you read his account with that context.. it makes sense. The missing piece for me is how the heck did he get up there. I don't have any research about what happened with McCord after he left Burleson. I know he re-upped and joined Capt. Dalrymple back at Fort Belknap for what I think was another big ranger expedition into Indian Territory (presumably Oklahoma, maybe Kansas).. but I know very little about what happened or where they went. That may be something to look into.

Just some thoughts...

Don