11/06/2024
The Texas Quote of the Day is so, so good:
"In 1876, as an incident of the Taylor-Sutton feud, Dr. Philip Brazell and son George were called out of their home in Clinton, DeWitt County, by a number of masked riders and killed. Shortly before Christmas, Lieutenant Jesse Lee Hall of the Rangers was sent into the county with warrants for the arrest of seven men charged with the murder.
On the night of December 20, Hall discovered that the men he was looking for were attending the wedding of Joe Sitterlie at the home of the bride's father, near Cuero. He set out with his troop in a driving rain, got to the scene and surrounded the house. Then, unarmed, he went to the front door of the house and announced himself.
The music stopped. Frightened women ran off the dance floor as Bill Meador and other men moved forward.
"What do you want?" Meador asked.
"I have warrants for seven men," Hall answered. And he read the names.
"How strong are you?" demanded Meador. "Seventeen, including myself," said the lieutenant, following the tradition of telling the exact truth.
"Meador snorted. "We've got seventy!" he announced.
"That's about the right odds," the Ranger said. "We'll fight."
"Listen, all of you," he called out. "You people in the house have three minutes to move out your women and children, starting now. . ." You Rangers," he shouted at the men he had posted in a circle about the house, "at the end of three minutes, fire at will. Now you gentlemen in the house, get the women away. . .''
"I don't want to go killing," Meador answered in a shocked voice. "I'll surrender." And the rest of the wedding guests quickly joined him in handing over their weapons.
Hall collected his prisoners in the gallery at the end of the house and the Rangers were bringing up horses when the bride suddenly ran up to him. "You're breaking up my wedding party," she accused him brokenly. "Why can't you wait for morning with your old law business?"
"Now that you mention it, no reason at all," Hall assured. "Go ahead with your dance."
He sent the prisoners back into the house, reassigned the Rangers so that, turn and turn about, half of them could mount guard while the other half danced, and then joined the party himself. When day broke, he bade goodbye to his hostess and rode away to put the chiefs of the Sutton faction in the county jail. There were no hard feelings between the captors and the captives. Meador and his men would have had no compunction about killing the Rangers if the job could have been done gracefully and safely. If compelled, Hall and his troop would have killed the assassins of Dr. Brazell with no qualms whatever. But until necessity arose for the departure from good social usage, there was no reason why they shouldn't all act like gentlemen."
----- Robert J. Casey, "The Texas Border," 1950
Shown here: Texas Ranger Jesse Lee Hall. Artist Frederic Re*****on characterized him as "a gentleman of the romantic Southern soldier type, and he entertained the highest ideals, with which it would be extremely unsafe to trifle."
