JOHN A. LOMAX'S COWBOY SONGS AND OTHER FRONTIER

BALLADS; A CRITICAL STUDY

by

LAWRENCE RAY CLAYTON, B.S., M.Ed., M.A.

A DISSERTATION

IN

ENGLISH

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

Accepted

May, 1974

I am deeply indebted to Professor Everett A. Gillis

for his direction of this dissertation and to other members

of my committee. Professors Jack D. Wages and Joseph M.

Mogan, for their helpful criticism.

11

PREFACE

Despite the fact that American folk songs and folk

ballads generally lack the artistic finesse evident in

their English and Scottish predecessors, they are nonethe­

less worthy of critical study, even if only for the particu­

lar insight which they offer into our American cultural

heritage. And even though a reviewer of the first edition

of John A. Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

could complain in 1911 that more critical attention had

been paid to the British tradition than to the native

American product, a substantial body of criticism—since

the establishment of the American Folklore society in 1888

at least—has been devoted to our native song output.

Field collecting began even earlier, and nineteenth and

twentieth century efforts have resulted not only in exten­

sive collections retrieved from oral tradition but in the

creation of a solid and abiding interest in the genre. 2

Finally, the form is still very much alive in America, as

witness the continual outpouring of new songs written by

•'•Albert H. Tolman, "American Folk-Songs," review of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, by John A. Lomax, in The Dial, L (April, 1911), 261.

2 Bill Malone, Country Music U. S. A.: A Fifty

Year History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), pp. 279-304.

• • •

111

IV

talented writers and published in song sheets and record­

ings which crowd the music market and which, through the

media of radio and television, fall into the oral tradi­

tion and hence into the folk repertoire.

D. K. Wilgus in his Anglo-American Folksong Scholar-

ship since 1898 indicates that most academic effort in the

last decade or so has been expended in an effort to examine

the problems of origin and authorship, and that there has

been little critical assessment of the song texts them-3

selves. The present work is intended to fulfill, to a

degree, the latter need by providing a critical appraisal

of the songs of one important body of such texts, the

second edition of John A. Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other

Frontier Ballads, published in 1916. The second, rather

than the final third edition, was chosen for study because

it offers the best representation of Lomax's earliest col­

lecting experience: containing, altogether, a total of

one hundred and fifty-two song texts—the one hundred 4

twelve of the first edition, plus forty additional pieces —

^(New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959), p. xvii; and Malone, Country Music U. S. A., pp.

• • • • «

Vll-Vlll.

^This count considers as a single item the piece entitled "The Old Scout's Lament" (Appendix A, Item No. 109), which appears both in the 1910 edition and in exact duplicate form in the group of new songs added by Lomax when the volume was reissued in 1916. On a strict statisti­cal basis this count would come to a total of one hundred

V

all gathered very early in his collecting career. The

1916 edition is thus simply an extended version of the

1910 edition, Lomax merely adding the new pieces as an

appendage to the 1910 version without attempting to in­

corporate them in any integral way into the first issue

of the songs. In contrast, th'e more familiar 1938 edition

of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads reflects an

almost complete revision and expansion of the earlier edi­

tions, even to the deliberate altering of song texts in

lines, stanza forms, and punctuation. Consequently, it is,

in effect, an entirely different book.

The present study attempts to assess the contribu­

tion which John A. Lomax made to the preservation of one

important facet of the American folk heritage, namely the

saga of the American folk song, and to suggest the impor­

tance of his work to the beginnings of systematic

fifty-three texts, the one hundred twelve of the first edi­tion, plus forty-one pieces—including the duplicate text of "The Old Scout's Lament." Ray M. Lawless's count (Folk-sinqers and Folksongs: A Handbook of Biography, Bibliog­raphy, and Discoqraphy [New York: Meredith Press, 1965], pp. 289-290) of one hundred fifty-three texts obviously follows the statistical count, considering the duplicate text of "The Old Scout's Lament" as a separate item. Wilgus's count (American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 159) of one hundred twenty-two for the 1910 edition is an obvious misprint. He is otherwise correct in listing the number of new texts added as forty—"The Old Scout's Lament" being considered as a single text—and one hundred fifty-two texts in the 1916 edition.

VI

collection in America. In order to establish the necessary

background for an understanding and appreciation of the

songs represented, it provides in Part One several pre­

liminary sections on the historical and cultural patterns

of the early American West. Part Two, which constitutes

the major portion of the study, is devoted to the inter­

pretation and analysis of individual song texts as they

reflect the interesting and unique life patterns of fron­

tier society. Finally Part Three explores the songs in

terms of their literary value as narrative and lyric

expression. For convenience of reference and to furnish

a succinct overall view of individual texts, descriptive

and statistical Appendices are provided at the conclusion

of the study.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

PREFACE iii

PART ONE: BACKGROUND

1. BALLAD COLLECTING AND COLLECTORS 1

Collections and Collectors:

European and American 3

The Southwest: John A. Lomax 24

2. THE WESTERN AND SOUTHWESTERN FRONTIERS AND THE RISE OF THE CATTLE INDUSTRY 41

The Region: Geographical and

Historical Perspectives 41

Ranching and Range Life 52

Cultural and Social Patterns of Range Life 63

3. THE TAMING OF THE WEST: TROOPERS,

MOUNTAIN MEN, RANGERS, AND OTHERS 71

Subjugation of the Plains Indians . . . . 71

Mountain Men . . .' 74

Texas Rangers and Soldiers 76

Buffalo Hunters 83

Outlaws 88

4. GOLD SEEKERS, IMMIGRANTS, SETTLERS 108

Mormons 108

The Discovery of Gold 115

Immigrants and Settlers 119

Transportation • • Vll

Vlll

PART TWO: THE SONGS

5." SONGS OF THE RANGE AND TRAIL:

THE COWBOY AT WORK 128

The Quality of the Land 129

The Cowboy's Life and Point of View . . . 132

The Cowboy and His Horse 145

The Trail Drives 150

Good-bye to the Old Days 161

6. PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS 167

Bragging Cowboys 167

Cowboys and Women 174

Cowboys and Liquor 189

Cowboys and Religion 193

Cowboys and Death 198 7. SONGS OF DANGER AND VIOLENCE: INDIANS,

MOUNTAIN MEN, RANGERS, AND OUTLAWS 206

Indians of the West 206

Texas Rangers and Soldiers 212

Buffalo Hunters 226

Outlaws, Jailbirds, and Murderers . . . . 232

8. MORMON, IMMIGRANT, AND OTHER FRONTIER

SONGS 248

Mormons 248

Gold Miners 256

Immigrants 267 Transportation 273

IX

9. GENERAL SONGS OF POPULAR ORIGIN 282

Indians, Vagabonds, Soldiers 282

Love Songs 290

Social Comment 296

Convict Songs 306

British Imports 313

PART THREE: EVALUATION

10. FORM, STYLE, AND PROSODY 317

Form 317

Style 329

Prosody 334

11. CONCLUSION 355

BIBLIOGRAPHY 363

APPENDIX A 385

B 410

PART ONE: BACKGROUND

BALLAD COLLECTING AND COLLECTORS

John A. Lomax's 1916 edition of Cowboy Songs and

Other Frontier Ballads is a quarto-sized volume contain­

ing one hundred fifty-three folk songs which deal with

life on the American frontier. The majority of these songs

mirror the cowboy life in the last half of the preceding

century, but the book includes as well pieces reflective

of other elements of frontier life: the California Forty-

niners, the Mormons, outlaws, buffalo hunters, and Texas

Rangers. In general the collection is not a book for musi­

cal performers. Only eighteen musical scores appear in

this text (Sturgis and Walton Company, Lomax's publishers

of the work, would agree to include only this number),

though Lomax had recorded many more on wax cylinders. In

Lomax's own words, the volume is "the first collection of

native American folk songs ever printed along with the

2 music of the songs."

Included in the prefatory section of Lomax's book

is a congratulatory letter from Theodore Roosevelt dated

^John A. Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947), p. 78.

^Ibid., p. 77. D. K. Wilgus, Anglo-American Folk­song Scholarship since 1898 (Ne-w" Brunswick, N. J. : Rut­gers University Press, 1959), p. 79, denies this statement

from Cheyenne, Wyoming, August 28, 1919; an inductory state­

ment by Professor Barett Wendell of Harvard University, who

helped launch Lomax's folk song collecting career; and

Lomax's own "Collector's Note," an important document in

revealing his personal attitude toward his work and his

motivation for collecting the material. In this brief state­

ment Lomax nostalgically notes the passing of the "wild, far-

away places of the big and still unpeopled west,"^ in which 4

the songs included in his text "sprang up naturally" and

spontaneously out of the communal heart of the West: a

culture less romantic in his opinion than that revealed in

the popular reflections represented in the twentieth-

century motion pictures and adventure romances. As a book

"intended to be popular," Lomax's volume, which sold origi­

nally for $1.50, was favorably received. In a contemporary

review in the Sewanee Review, for example, the book was

characterized as "an important contribution to ballad lit­

erature," one which should give "incentive to students in

other sections of the country to make permanent record of 5

similar folk-songs." A later critic, Robert W. Gordon,

^John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1916; rpt.. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928), p. xix.

^Ibid., p. xxi.

^The Sewanee Review, XIX (April, 1911), 239. Other reviews can be found in The Independent, LXX (April 20, 1911), 850-851; The Dial, L (April 1, 1911), 261-263; and New York Times, LX (February 26, 1911), 105.

though he lauds Lomax's collection as "still by far the

best," points up what he feels to be a crucial weakness:

namely, that Lomax failed to document his sources care­

fully, and that, consequently, a vital link between the

songs and those from whom they were collected had been

lost.

Collections and Collectors; European and American

The systematic study of folk poetry began in Germany

in the early nineteenth century with the work of Jacob and

Wilhelm Grimm, two men better known as collectors of fairy

tales than as students of ballads. The work of the Grimm

brothers was devoted largely to developing a critical ap­

proach to folk songs and ballads and determining the origin

of the material. They were the first to classify in a

formal way the superstitions, stories, and songs contained

in the common experience of the "folk." In Britain, inter­

est in the song of the common people had manifested itself

earlier in the collections of ballads by amateur collectors

who, though they lacked academic orientation, did have love

for the songs. With the advent of the printing press in

England, popularly authored songs were printed and sold in

the streets and in shops. Though suppressed during the

^Robert W. Gordon, Folk-Songs of America (Washing­ton, D.C.: National Service Bureau, Pub. No. 73-S, 1938), pp. 101-102.

Reformation and controlled along with all other printed

material in England, the songs printed as broadsides, Q

usually in Black Letter, were widely distributed and very

popular. Many of these songs reflected the actual experi­

ence and exploits of contemporary persons and served much

as newspapers to spread the stories, though the events

recorded were often glamorized or otherwise altered in the

process. The earliest collections were merely bundles of

such broadsides, often as not pasted into volumes, or 9

individual pieces copied in manuscript volumes.

The earliest known printed collection of Scottish

popular ballads is Porteous of Noblenes and Ten Other Rare

Tracts, identified by Motherwell as a work published in

1508 in Edinburg by Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar.

^William Chappell, Coll., Old English Popular Music, ed. by H. Ellis Woolridge (2d. ed.; London: Chappell and Company, 1893), I, 58.

^Henry B. Wheatley, "General Introduction," Thomas Percy, ed., Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (3 vols., London: Sonnenschein, Lowery, and Company, 1887), I, lix.

Three such early collections in Scotland are the Maitland MS now in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge; the Bannatyne MS in Advocates Library, Edinburg; and Percy's folio MS from which Percy published his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

^%illiam Motherwell, ed. "Introduction," Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, (2d. ed., Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1873), p. Ivi, states that the only known extant copy of this work is located in Advoczitcs Library.

Another early compendium, Ane Compendious Booke of Godly

and Spiritual Songs, was first published in 1567. Scottish

ballad collections preceded those in England by several

years; the earliest collection in England seems to have

been Wit Restor'd not published until 1658. One of the

important early compilers was Samuel Pepys, who added to

a collection begun by John Selden. According to legend

Pepys borrowed the collection and simply forgot to return

it, but added material until the work grew to five folio

volumes now in Magdalene College Library, Cambridge. In

addition, Pepys, who became dedicated to the task, col­

lected three volumes of "penny merriments." A well-

known literary figure who became interested in the "vulgar"

ballads was John Dryden, who between 1684 and 1708 edited

Miscellany Poems, a six volume work which includes ballads.

Tom D•Urfey's Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy,

1719-1720, followed soon after. The collecting and pub­

lishing of Scottish ballads continued into the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries, Allan Ramsey's Ever Green, Scots

Poems Wrote by the Ingenious before 1600 in 1724 and Tea-

12 Table Miscellany in 1733 being early examples.

^^Wheatley, "General Introduction," p. Ixiii.

^^Other collections are David Herd's The Ancient and Modern Scotch Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. in 1769, Thomas Evans' Old Ballads, H.I-'-or-i cal and Narrative in 1777, in 1781 Pinkerton's Scottish Tragic Ballads and.

But the great contributor of this early period,

perhaps, is an Englishman, Bishop Thomas Percy, whose

famous collection published as Reliques of Ancient English

Poetry in 1765, deserves special mention. The story of

his finding an old manuscript collection at the home of

William Pitt, where the maids were using the leaves to

light the fire, is well known. He first published only

parts of this manuscript book but included some pieces

of verse by Shakespeare and Chaucer along with an essay

on minstrels in an effort to make the volume more respect­

able than it might otherwise have been. Percy's admitted

editing of the texts of the poems has been a topic of much

discussion, especially by Ritson, who attacked him for,

among other things, failure to allow others to examine the

13 original forms of the poems. No effort was made by Percy

in 1783, Select Scottish Ballads. From 1783 to 1795 Joseph Ritson, one of the most influential collectors and editors, published several volumes of ballads. James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum, in six volumes in 1787, is a work in which Robert Burns had an active part. Robert Jamieson's Popular Ballads and Songs from Tradition in 1806, George Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads in 1827, Robert Chambers' The Scottish Ballads in 1829, Alexander Whitelaw's The Book of Scottish Ballads in 1884, and William Edmonstoune Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland in 1858 are other notable additions to the body of published ballads.

13 See Thomas Evans, "Introduction," Old Ballads,

Historical and Narrative, with Some of Modern Date, ed. by R. H. Evans (Rev. ed.; London: W. Bulmer and Company, 1810), I, ii-iii, for an appraisal of these attacks.

to refute Ritson's charges. The Percy Society, established

in 1840, continued Percy's work by publishing a number of

songs and poems in the Percy Society Publications. In

the nineteenth century, as Wells states, collectors began

to seek new and better texts in the oral tradition to

14 supplement earlier manuscripts and printed collections.

Another important balladeer who was influenced by

Percy's work is Sir Walter Scott, who issued Minstrelsy

of the Scottish Border in 1802. He had for several years

collected songs and legends when, as a law student, he had

served as a sheriff in the Border Country of Scotland.

Through his interest and the influence of Ritson's and

15

Percy's works, he became an editor also. Another impor­

tant contribution is the Roxburghe Collection (1871) of

over 1,300 broadsides, mostly in Black Letter. It is

probably the largest collection in England and has a long

16 and colorful history of its own.

Of other developments during this period, one which

deserves special mention is the establishing in 1898 of

the Folk Song Society, an organization dedicated to

•'• Evelyn K. Wells, The Ballad Tree: A Study of British and American Ballads (New York: Ronald Press, 1950), p. 235.

^^Ibid., p. 248.

1 6 Charles Hindley, ed., "introduction," The

Roxburghe Ballads (London: Reeves and Turner, 1873), I, i-xxviii.

8

collecting and preserving ballads and songs. It has since

enlarged its scope and has become the English Folk Dance

and Song Society.

In America the collecting of ballads began some­

what later than in Britain. English and Scottish songs

were of course brought to America as part of the settlers'

cultural baggage, though the latter often adopted them in

the conventional folk manner to the new environment. The

same aversion of the upper classes to folk songs evident

in England was also present in America. One of the first—

if not the first—derogatory remarks on the ballad tradi­

tion in America was made by Cotton Mather on September 27,

1713. He states in his Diary that he abhorred the "foolish

Songs and Ballads which the Hawkers and Peddlars" carried

17 about the area. He would have preferred songs which

were more pious. For reasons much different from Mather's,

literary scholars for many years avoided the songs because

these pieces were not felt to be suitable fare for academic

consideration. But ballads continued to be composed,

localized, and sung all over America, and their production

18 reached a high point after the Civil War.

" Cotton Mather, Diary of Cotton Mather, 1681-1724 (2 vols., Boston: The Society, 19-11-1912), II, 242.

^^G. Malcolm Laws, Jr., Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographical Syllabus (Rev. ed., Philadelphia: The American Folklore Society, 1964), p. 28.

It was not until the nineteenth century that Ameri­

can interest in preserving the national song heritage be­

came active. The religious orientation of the first

immigrants no doubt accounts to some extent for this lack.

The first formal collection of American songs is The Green

Mountain Songster, published in 1823 by an unknown collec­

tor who, because of his efforts, prompted Phillips Barry

19 to call him a kind of "American Percy." What little is

known of the background of the collection comes from a

statement by the "author," who recounts in his Preface

that he had the "habit of singing songs" and simply wanted

20 to publish a collection of them. The songs consist

primarily in forms of traditional pieces as they were

known in Vermont.

Other early collections include a group of Civil

War ballads collected by Frank Moore and published in 1856,

His work consisted both of songs collected from existing

printed copies as well as those in the memories of surviv­al

ing soldiers. Another Civil War collection is Slave

^^Phillips Barry, "Introduction," The New Green Mountain Songster, ed. by Helen Hartness Flanders, et al. (Hataboro, Pa.: Folklore Associates, Inc., 1966), p. xiii

^^Ibid., p. xvi.

21 Louise Pound, "Oral Literature," Cambridge

History of American Literature, ed. by William Peterfield Trent, et al. (New York: Putnam's, 1923), IV, 504.

10

Songs of the United States, published in 1867 by William

Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Gar­

rison. This work included songs from the oral tradition,

and is significant both for that reason and for its con-

22 cern with ethnic song types.

In 1883 was published what Wilgus calls "the first

academic collection of American folk songs from oral tra-

23 dition," W. W. Newell's Games and Songs of American

Children. Newell was an important early leader in collect­

ing and publishing in America. The importance of his col­

lection of children's songs and his efforts in establishing «

the American Folklore Society in 1888 cannot be overestimated

As the first general editor of The Journal of American Folk­

lore, he exerted a positive and powerful influence. The

work of the American Folklore Society, under his influence

and later under that of several other talented scholars,

has been extremely significant in the ballad field, one of

its earliest publications being the song text of "My Pretty

Little Pink," in 1899. But despite these scattered early

efforts, there was little general attempt to collect Ameri-

can folk songs before 1898. For though one of the

^^Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1889, p. 64.

23

'ibid., p. 64.

Ibid., p. 153.

24.

11

announced objectives when the American Folklore Society

was founded in 1888 was to collect old English ballads in 25

America, the editor in the foreward of first number of

the Journal stated that "the prospect of obtaining much of

value is not flattering" and that the "inferior rhymes of

literary origin" have superseded those ballads vested with

26 real "poetic interest." The primary source of genuine

folk poetry was felt to be Scotch and Irish ballad singers

who had immigrated to the United States and brought with

them "songs which were once the property of the English-

27

speaking race." Newell, however, did much to gain ac­

ceptance of more diverse materials than had previously

been included in the concept of folk ballad and folk

song. In 1895, he made an announcement of singular im­

portance in the Journal. In it he cited the wealth of

material still to be collected and explained that in cer­

tain areas in the United States, the Negro and the Indian

offered a tremendous potential for uncollected material.

^^W. W. Newell, "On the Field and Work of a Journal of American Folk-lore," The Journal of American Folklore, I (April, 1888), 3.

2 Ibid_. , p. 4.

^^ibid.

^^Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 146.

12

He called for tripling the membership of the organization

by organizing local chapters and by preparing young

scholars to carry on the work begun by men growing older

29 and dying.

Any discussion of song collecting and editing in

America must include the work of Francis James Child, who

from 1882 to 1889 published five volumes of English and

Scottish ballads. They were collected primarily in Eng­

land, though Child was an American on the faculty of

Harvard University. Child felt that the three hundred

and five ballads included all true ballads in existence,

and he made his collection as complete as possible by

including as many variations of the basic ballad as he

could locate. This monumental work has served as a touch­

stone for most ballad collecting since its publication and

has led to the theory known as the "closed account," an

30 idea that no other ballads would come into existence.

Child, a most diligent collector, encouraged Fred­

rick Furnivall in England to secure the permission of

2 % . W. Newell, "Folk-lore Study and Folk-lore Societies," The Journal of American Folklore, VIII (July, 1895), 231-242.

" See Louise Pound, Poetic Origins and the Ballad (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921), pp. 231-236, for a negative discussion of the theory. See also Francis B. Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901), p. 164, for additional details on the "closed account" theory.

13

Percy's descendants to make the manuscript of the Reliques

available for study, a task no person had been able to

accomplish earlier. He further sought by means of corre­

spondence and "extensive diffusion of printed circulars"

to promote collecting of what he called "unsunned trea-

31 sures locked up in writing." During the 1870's he put

32 announcements in Notes and Queries asking for help in

compiling the ballad texts and variants.

Though his main effort was devoted to obtaining

what was available from English sources. Child did include

from the American tradition twenty-seven English and

33 Scottish ballads in fifty-five variants. In 1881 he

distributed a four-page circular addressed to college

students asking for assistance. His printed American

sources included the published collection of Newell as

well as the work of a number of other ballad collectors

already mentioned. Yet Child made little effort to

gather material from the oral tradition. According to

•'•Francis James Child, ed. English and Scottish Ballads (5 vols., 1882; rpt. New York: Dover Publica­tions, Inc., 1965), I, vii.

^^See XI (January, 1873), 12.

33Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the South," The Journal of American Folklore, XXVII (January, 1914), 56.

" " Child, English and Scottish Ballads, I, vii-viii

14

Kittredge, Child felt "little or nothing of value" remained

35 "to be recovered" from the oral tradition. Child's

system of cataloging and indexing English and Scottish

ballads is still widely used.

Because the Child volumes were too cumbersome and

expensive for individual and class use, George Lyman

Kittredge, a colleague of Child at Harvard; and Helen Child

Sergeant published in 1904 a one-volume edition of the

ballads. Child had approved the plan of this edition,

but he died before the project was completed. It lacks

the critical material included in the complete edition

and has only brief introductions to each piece. Moreover,

variants do not receive the attention they do in the

longer work. It is, nonetheless, a considerable contri­

bution to the field of ballad collecting because it put

the texts within reach of a wide range of students and

collectors.

A number of other talented workers were actively

engaged in the effort to glean and publish America's store­

house of oral poetry. In 1905 Henry Marvin Belden of the

University of Missouri, a giant among ballad collectors,

suggested that "supplementary research" be carried on to

^^George Lyman Kittredge, "Francis James Child," ibid, xxviii.

15

further the work done by Child. The method he suggested

for carrying on the research included a questionnaire for

use by the editor to determine if the field collector had

done any editing of his own and also a request for infor­

mation about the informant. Citing work done in Missouri,

which he called both "interesting" and "gratifying" because

a number of Child ballads had been revovered there, Belden

voiced his belief that the work could be done by university

students, who came from homes in which ballads might still

survive. He felt that under the direction of competent

scholars, these students could collect the materials until

"every vestige" of Child material in America was collected,

a task he hoped to see completed in "a few years." Seven

37 years later, in 1912 in a second article, he admitted

that he had been overly optimistic and that the work was

still far from being complete. Urging support of his

original plan, however, he encouraged those who were in­

volved in the project to continue the work. This second

38 statement was a great help to collecting because it

Henry M. Belden, "The Study of Folk-song in America," Modern Philology, II (April, 1905), 573.

"^^Henry Marvin Belden, "Balladry in America," The Journal of American Folklore, XXV (January, 1912), 1-23.

^^See Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the South," n. 1, pp. 58-59, for a atdcement of its value.

16

included a lucid discussion of what had been done and was

being done at that time. Belden outlined the work of col­

lectors and editors, and furnished a list of the ballads

themselves. He also mentioned ballads of American origin,

an area of work that had previously been largely shunned 0

by scholars. He tried to encourage scholars to fathom

the mystery of ballad authorship, especially of pieces

such as "Jesse James," a ballad which had come into exis­

tence during a generation still alive. Not the least

important aspect of the article is an appended note, "The

39 Publication of Ballads," which is a plea for the com­posite publishing of all available ballad texts.

By this time the work of collecting was coming

under the direction, if not being actually accomplished

by, persons from the academic community. How well these

collectors were able to do their work is questionable.

Wilgus feels that collecting has suffered at the hands of

academic collectors because they interviewed informants

under less than normal conditions for folk singing and

often got less than the whole song. This idea appears

especially valid if some part of the song contained lan­

guage which might have caused the informant to feel it 40 unacceptable under the circumstances.

•^^Belden, "Balladry in America," p. 23.

^^Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 154.

17

One such talented scholar, Louise Pound, began her

collecting in Nebraska around 1905 following a suggestion

by Belden. Her work includes songs in English as well as

those of the Nebraska Indians and other early settlers

and explorers of different nationalities who came to the

Nebraska area. One purpose of her Folk-Song in Nebraska

and the Central West was to arouse renewed interest in the

songs in an effort to bring to light additional texts still

41

unrecorded. Her work, however, is basically only a syl­

labus, though it includes a brief summary of each song

with an example of the stanza form. It also serves as a

useful finding list because it identifies versions in

printed texts as well. Pound continued to promote bal­

ladry in a chapter entitled "Oral Literature" in volume

IV of the Cambridge History of American Literature, an

important early statement on the ballad in America. Per­

haps more significant is her Poetic Origins and the Ballad

(1921), a volume reflecting material in earlier articles;

and American Ballads and Songs (1922), a work containing

numerous songs and offering a good introduction to the

subject as a whole of balladry in America.

^•^E. Sheldon Addison, "Preface," Louise Pound, Folk-Song in Nebraska and the Central West: A Syllabus (Nebraska Ethnology and Folk Lore Series, Vol. IX, No. 3, Lincoln: Nebraska Academy of Science Publications, 1915, 1916), p. 1.

18

Kittredge, whose work has already been mentioned,

did much to advance ballad study in America. He contri­

buted extensively to The Journal of American Folklore,

though as an editor rather than a collector. One of his

important efforts was to edit a group of songs collected

42 in Kentucky by Katherine Pettit, a teacher in that state

who maintained a headquarters for ballad collecting. In

this work Kittredge arranged the songs by putting Child

ballads first and then including others not related to

the Child texts. This method of ordering ballad material

strongly influenced the format of other printed collections

The Journal of American Folklore has published a

number of folk song collections in addition to Pettit's.

One of the most significant is E. G. Perrow's "Songs and

Rhymes,from the South," which was published piecemeal from

1912 to 1915. Wilgus calls this group "the first signifi-

cant published collection of Southern folk song."

Dr. Charles Alphonso Smith, a prominent figure in

this and other fields of academic endeavor, is responsible

for a sizeable collection of Child ballads from Virginia.

49 ' George Lyman Kittredge, "Ballads and Rhymes from Kentucky," The Journal of American Folklore, XX (October, 1907), 251-277.

Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 81. For the significance of the Southern contribution to folk song and ballad in America, see Bill C. Malcnc, Country Music U. S. A.: A Fifty Year History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968), pp. 3-4.

19

He was not himself an active collector, but instead an

editor who inspired others to do the field work.^^ A

purist, he promoted a project to collect the words and

tunes of ballads surviving in the United States in the

oral tradition. By ballad, however, he meant Child bal­

lad, for he accepted the existence of no others. His idea

was that this task could best be accomplished by "state

organizations," with each state being responsible for bal­

lads surviving in it. Since the public school teachers

lived close to the people who might still retain the ballad

tradition, he felt that these teachers were in the best

position to write down the ballads. He influenced the

Department of Public Instruction in Virginia to issue a

45 ballad circular to serve as a guide for the teachers.

He was also assisted by a bulletin sent out in 1914 by the

United States Bureau of Education, in which his article

entitled "A Great Movement in Which Every One Can Help"

was included. The article gave information concerning the

ballads being sought and made suggestions as to how persons

46 could help record them. The eventual outgrowth of this

^^Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., "On Collecting and Edit­ing of Ballads," American Speech, V (August, 1930), 452.

45 C. Alphonso Smith, "Ballads Surviving in the

United States," Musical Quarterly, II (January, 1916), 109. " John Harrington Cox, ed., "Introduction," Folk-

Songs of the South (1925; rpt., Hataboro, Pa.: Folklore Associates, Inc., 1963), p. xvi.

20

effort, coupled with that of the Virginia Folksong Society,

of which Smith was founder in 1913 and guiding spirit until

his death, was the publication of two books of songs edited

by Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr. : Traditional Ballads of Virginia

(1949) and More Traditional Ballads of Virginia (1960).

The narrowness of Smith's interest may have prevented some

versions of extant folk songs from ever seeing print.

Other notable collections of folk songs were avail­

able by the second decade of the twentieth century. Per­

haps the most significant of these early collections is

that by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp, whose English

Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917) contains

four hundred fifty tunes and song texts. The collection,

which did much to further the work in America, is signifi­

cant because it contains the musical scores as well as the

lyrics of the songs collected. Lamentably, this practice

was not always followed by collectors, though such omission

was perhaps often caused by the interviewer's lack of suf­

ficient training in the transcription of musical scores

during the course of the informant's singing. Working

together on the project begun by Campbell, Campbell and

Sharp gathered songs from the oral tradition in a moun­

tainous region in which the inhabitants were isolated from

the outside world's influence, including printed song texts

and other types of music, which might otherwise have caused

21

alteration of the form and subject matter of the songs.

Sharp found that, contrary to his experience in England,

where only older people sang the songs, even children in

47 the mountains were adept singers.

Another scholar in the opening decades of the

twentieth century to promote the gathering of songs was

Reed Smith of the University of South Carolina, especially

through two articles on the progress of collecting in

America published in The Journal of American Folklore in

1914 and 1915. These documents gave tabulations of bal­

lads and variants of Child ballads found in different

states. In the first, "The Traditional Ballad in the 48

South," he furthered the work begun by Belden m 1912

in his "Balladry in America." In his second article,

"The Traditional Ballad in the South during 1914," Smith

called his work "a sort of co-operative ballad clearing

49 house, a running 'Who's Who in the American Ballad.'"

His plan to make this report an annual one, however, failed;

at least there were no succeeding reports in the Journal.

^^Cecil J. Sharp, "Introduction," English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, coll. Cecil J. Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell (2 vols., 2d. ed., ed. by Maud Karpeles, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1932), I , XXV .

^^The Journal of American Folklore, XXVII (January, 1914), 55-66.

^^Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the South during 1914," The Journal of American Folklore, XXVIII (April, 1915), 199-203.

22

Another early scholar, John Harrington Cox, was

president, archivist, and editor of the West Virginia

Folk-Lore Society, an organization which grew out of an

appeal by Alphonso Smith to a group of teachers in that

state in the summer of 1915. The work went well and the

organization, largely the work of Cox, accumulated a size­

able store of ballads. Helpful in this cause in West

Virginia was the West Virginia School Journal and Educator,

in which numerous articles promoting the work of gathering

50 appeared. Cox's chief collection, published in 1925,

was Folksongs of the South, which included native ballads

as well as more than thirty Child ballads.

Other scholars who were also active in early

twentieth-century collecting included Hubert G. Shearin

and Josiah Combs in Kentucky, Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-

Songs (1911); Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway, Lonesome

Tunes (1916); and Josephine McGill, Folksongs of the Ken­

tucky Mountains (1917). One of the most outstanding of

such contributors was Phillips Barry, the founder of the

Folksong Society of the Northeast and author of numerous

articles in The Journal of American Folklore and Modern

Language Notes on folk ballads. •'- He also later published

^^Cox, Folk-Songs of the South, p. xvii.

See Belden, "Balladry in America, p. 2, n. 1, for a list.

23

The Maine Woods Songster (1939) and, with Eckstorm and

Smyth, put out British Ballads from Maine (1929). His

efforts with Helen Flanders, Elizabeth Flanders Ballard,

and George Brown resulted in The New Green Mountain Song­

ster (1966), a work based on the first American collection 0

of 1823.

Other regional collectors included Frank C. Brown,

a prominent member of the Folklore Society of North Caro­

lina; beginning his collecting activity about 1913, he

amassed one of the most extensive collections in the United

States, currently located at the University of North Caro­

lina. In 1922, A. H. Tolman and Mary O. Eddy edited "Tra-

52 ditional Tunes and Texts" and in 1926, A. P. Hudson's

53

"Ballads and Songs from Mississippi" was published. Oc­

cupational and ethnic compilations include R. P. Gray's

Songs and Ballads of the Maine Lumberjacks (1925); Dorothy

Scarbrough's On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs (1925); H. W.

Odum and G. B. Johnson's The Negro and His Songs (1925)

and Negro Workaday Songs (1926). A number of lesser con-

54 tributors also aided this work.

^^The Journal of American Folklore, XXXV (October, 1922), 335-432.

^^Ibid., XXXIX (April, 1926), 93-194.

54 See Reed Smith, "The Traditional Ballad in the

South,"p. 59, n. 1.

24

The Southwest: John A. Lomax

Collectors in the American Southwest have concerned

themselv'=is not only with traditional Child ballads, but

with the songs of the Negro and the Indian as well, and

with those of one of its chief occupational groups, the 0

cowboy. Though the cowboy has often been romanticized and

mythologized in popular imagination, his actual life was

realistic enough, isolated as he was from society by miles

of pathless frontier and the solitary chores of his occupa­

tion. Sometimes with his co-workers, but frequently alone,

this nomad of the American West whiled away his lonesome

hours singing to provide his own entertainment, or perhaps

to quiet the herd at night on long trail drives, or to

relax in a saloon after a long period on the trail.

Some ballad critics see a similarity between the

conditions under which cowboy songs came into being in the

Southwest and those under which English and Scottish bal-55 lads came into existence. Lomax viewed the creative

surge represented by the cowboy's songs as a survival of

56 the "Anglo-Saxon ballad spirit," and the life of the

57 cowboy as "society . . . reduced to its lowest terms,"

^^Louise Pound, Poetic Origins and the Ballad, pp 214-231, disagrees with this theory and is less than complimentary of the songs of the cowboys.

^^Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, p. xix.

^^Ibid., p. xxi.

25

each member of the group dependent on the other.

The work of the men, their daily experience, their thoughts, their interests, were all in common. Such a community had necessarily to turn to itself for entertainment. Songs sprang up naturally, some of them tender and familiar lays of childhood, others original compositions, all genuine, however, crude and unpolished. Whatever the most gifted man could produce must bear the criticism of the entire camp, and agree with the ideas of a group of men. In this sense, therefore, any song that came from such a group would be a joint product of a number of them, telling perhaps the story of some stampede they had all fought to turn, some crime in which they had all shared equally, some comrade's tragic death which they had all witnessed. The song making did not cease as the men went up the trail. Indeed the songs were here utilized for very practical ends. Not only were sharp, rhythmic yells—sometimes beaten into verse—employed to stir up lagging cattle, but also during the long watches the night-guards, as they rode round and•round the herd, improvised cattle lullabies which quieted the animals and soothed them to sleep^^

In this statement Lomax takes issue with Louise Pound and

others who felt that cowboy ballads are only "adaptations"

and "adoptions" of ballads brought to the New World by

immigrants; and that the songs which the cowboys actually

composed are "the most negligible and the weakest" in the

cowboy tradition because they often lack a narrative

58 Ibid. Jack Thorp, the first collector of cowboy

songs and a singer and cowboy as well, says that in his experience on the trail he often heard the cowboys hum or whistle a tune at night. He rarely heard them sing a definite song. Nathan Howard Thorp and Neil Clark, Pard-ner of the Wind (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1945), pp. 29-30. An account similar to Lomax's is given by W. W. Lawrence, Medieval Story and the Beginnings of the Social Ideals of English-Speaking People (1911; rpt.. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), pp. 171-172.

26

element—i.e., have no "real ballad structure"^^—and

hence are songs instead of ballads, with little or no

extensive geographical diffusion. Lomax does not deny

that in general the cowboy's songs were based on English

and Scottish patterns, but he credits the presence of this

influence to a familiar figure on the frontier: "the

adventurous younger son of some British family" or a

young man from the East whose parentage and heritage were 60

British, who brought with them into the West the models

which influenced the frontier creation and localization

of the songs.

The formal task of gathering from the oral tradi­

tion songs dealing with—and sung by—cowboys of the West

was initiated in 1889 by Nathan Howard (Jack) Thorp, an

Easterner by birth, who having himself become a cowboy as

well as a singer and writer of songs, grew interested in

collecting the verses he heard sung around the camp fires

and in the cow camps, writing them down as he had occasion

to hear them. Later he made a special collecting trip

throughout the Southwest, garnering, as he says, "a verse

here and a verse there"^ without the aid of the sophis­

ticated system of contributors or printed texts on which

^^Pound, CHAL, IV, 514.

^^Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, • • •

p. XXlll.

^^Thorp and Clark, Pardner of the Wind, p. 22.

27

Child and others had relied. Thorp recounts getting the

songs anywhere he could: the Silver Dollar Saloon in

Fort Worth, Texas, where a girl sang "Buster Goes A-

Courtin" for him; a Texas Ranger camp south of Waco,

Texas, where one of the men sang "The Texas Ranger" for 6 2

him. On one occasion he got five verses of the ballad

"Sam Bass" from a Negro cowboy and three additional stanzas

from another singer. Thorp's somewhat unsystematic col­

lections continued until 1908, when he negotiated with a

printer in Eustacia, New Mexico, to publish two thousand

copies of a small, fifty-page book entitled Songs of the

Cowboys. Bound in red paper, it contained a total of

twenty-four songs, five of which Thorp had written himself:

"Little Joe, the Wrangler," "Chopo," "The Pecos River 63

Queen," "Speckles," and "Whose Old Cow?" Later he wrote

more; some accounts say as many as twenty-five. Wilgus

feels that this little book, some of which sold for fifty

cents, served much as a broadside to help spread the

64 songs. Thorp admits that he, like many other collectors.

^^Ibid., pp. 36, 38.

" Alice Corbin Henderson, "Introduction," Nathan Howard Thorp, Songs of the Cowboy (2d. ed.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921), pp. xiii-xiv.

^^ilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 164.

28

expurgated or "dry-cleaned" the language before the songs

went to press because some of the words were "unprint­

able." But if the little songster served as a broad­

side, it certainly did not "kill" the songs in it as

other printed texts often did.

Thorp's techniques of collecting offered nothing

new, and he must be considered a dedicated but untrained

collector who enriched the field by songs he had himself

written, which, often as not, became assimilated into the

folk tradition. In his role as a collector, he differed

little from gifted amateur British collectors who gathered

and published songs because they loved them. Thorp's

autobiographical book, Pardner of the Wind, contains impor­

tant information concerning his collecting habits.

Unaware of Thorp's effort, another man with the

desire to set down the songs he loved was John Avery Lomax.

Though Lomax's road was a long and difficult one, he earned

ultimately, and appropriately, the title "dean of our

ballad hunters."^^ Lomax's initial published work. Cowboy

Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, first published in 1910

^^Thorp, Pardner of the Wind, p. 29.

^^Stith Thompson, "John Avery Lomax (1867-1948)," The Journal of American Folklore, LXI (July, 1948), 305. The main source of help in understanding his collection must be his own comments in Adventures of a Ballad Hunter and in a 1911 article in The Sewanee Review.

29

and later reissued in new editions in 1916 and 1938, is

the first completely systematic collection of cowboy songs.

According to his own account, Lomax's interest in

folk music stemmed from his hearing songs at outdoor

religious meetings when he was a youth on the family farm 0

along the Bosque River north of Meridian, Texas. Here it

was that his career as a collector of cowboy materials

had its beginning, for he began to write down the words

of the songs the cowboys sang as they drove cattle up the

portion of the Chisholm Trail located near his home.

Though he had not collected many by the time he left home

to attend Granbury College in Granbury, Texas, he nonethe­

less took with him a "roll of cowboy songs" which he had 67

recorded. Eight years later, after some more college

training and a few years of teaching experience, he entered

the University of Texas, a school which became the "core"

of his life for many year thereafter. While at the Univer­

sity of Texas, Lomax showed the songs to Dr. Leslie Wag­

goner, who referred him to Dr. Morgan Callaway, Jr., a

68 traditional scholar in Anglo-Saxon• The latter found

^"^Lomax, Adventures of A Ballad Hunter, p. 32.

^^Dr. Callaway, a Johns Hopkins University Doctor of Philosophy, is remembered for three studies: "The Absolute Participle in Anglo-Saxon," 1889; "The Appositive Participle in Anglo-Saxon," 1901; and "The Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon," 1913. See Ibid., for Lomax's discussion.

30

the songs to be altogether "tawdry, cheap and unworthy,"

and could see little if any relationship between the "tall

69 tales of Texas and the tall tales of Beowulf." Upon

Callaway's suggestion that he spend his time with the

great literature of the past, Lomax secretly burned his

collection of songs that night behind Brackenridge Hall,

a dormitory where he lived at the time.

Putting aside the songs for the moment, Lomax

completed the necessary work for the A.B. degree in two

years, and after graduation in 1879, began working as the

secretary of the president of the University. In 1903, he

took a job teaching English at Texas Agricultural and

Mechanical College in College Station, Texas, where he was

given the opportunity to go to Harvard University for a

year of study toward the Masters Degree.

In the spring semester of 1907 at Harvard, while a

student in Professor Barett Wendell's course in American

literature, Lomax prepared a paper on cowboy songs, on the

basis of which Wendell introduced him to George Lyman

Kittredge, whose work with Child and other collections

qualified him to see the value of Lomax's work. Kittredge

was immediately interested in a proposal by Lomax to under­

take an extensive collecting project and secured him a

^^Ibid., p. 32.

31

70 grant in aid for financing the task. Through this

association the torch of Lomax's interest in collecting

songs was relighted, and Lomax began the serious collect­

ing that eventually led to his extensive contribution to

the fledgling archive of American Folk Song in the Library

71 of Congress and the several collections of songs which

make up his published work (the later ones completed in

collaboration with his son Alan).

since there was neither time nor opportunity to

interview informants for his required project, Lomax's

first step was the extensive mailing of a form letter to

the editors of newspapers in the Western United States,

asking them to send him copies of ballads they had printed

in their papers. The letter read in part as follows and

reveals Lomax's attitude toward the songs and their sub­

ject matter:

^^Through the influence of Kittredge, Wendell, Fred Robinson, and Dean Briggs, Lomax was offered $1000.00 to continue his collecting, if Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College would give him leave of absence from his teaching duties. Insensitive to the work that Lomax was doing, the directors of the college refused to grant him the necessary leave, and Lomax had to content himself with three Sheldon Fellowships of $500.00 each. See ibid., pp. 39-40.

" See Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, pp. 186-188, for information on the founding of the Archive in 1928 by Carl Engel using the collection of Robert W. Gordon.

32

It will hardly be possible to secure such a collection without the aid of the Press; for many of these songs have never been in print, but, like the Masonic ritual, are handed down from one gen­eration to another by "word of mouth," They deal mainly with frontier experiences: the deeds of desperadoes like Jesse James and Sam Bass; the life of the ranger and the cowboy; the trials of the Forty-niners, buffalo hunters, stage drivers, and freighters going up the trail—in short, they are attempts, often crude and sometimes vulgar, to epitomize and particularize the life of the pioneers who peopled the vast region west of the Mississippi River.^^

The response to Lomax's plea, which had the endorsement of

both Wendell and kittredge, was quick and favorable, and

other newspapers and magazines responded to the project as

well. As a matter of fact, the mail continued to come in

for some twenty years thereafter, long after Lomax had

returned to Texas. 0

The immediate result of this early effort of Lomax,

which included, in addition, several summer collecting

trips, was the first edition of Cowboy Songs and Other

Frontier Ballads in 1910. This work, however, gained very

little appreciation in the quarters that Lomax valued.

Indeed, he failed utterly to impress his academic associ­

ates at the University of Texas, to which he had returned

by 1910, who saw no value whatever in what he was doing.

Moreover Governor Jim Ferguson used Lomax's work to sneer

at the University for hiring him. Even outside university

"^^Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, p. 34.

33

circles, he sometimes failed to make any serious impres­

sion. On one occasion, for example, when Lomax spoke at

the Texas Cattleman's Convention in San Antonio, Texas,

in an effort to create interest in his project, and sang

some of the songs of the type he was interested in collect-0

ing, one cattleman called out: "i have been singin' them

songs ever since I was a kid. Everybody knows them. Only

a damn fool would spend his time tryin' to set 'em down. 73 I move we adjourn."' The group then moved to a nearby

saloon.

Lomax's techniques in his early collecting were

in his own words, somewhat "haphazard." Though he was one

of the first fieldworkers in America to use a recording 74

device, an Edison machine, the songs he collected were,

more often than not, "jotted down on a table in the rear

of saloons, scrawled on an envelope while squatting about

a campfire, caught behind the scenes of a bronche-busting

75 outfit." And his collecting adventures were equally

unsystematic. The latter included expeditions to impor­

tant ranches, among others, the King and Swenson Ranches

•^^ibid., p. 41.

^"S/ilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898, p. 158, believes that Lomax may be the first.

75 Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, P. XXVI.

34

in Texas and the Hearst Ranch in New Mexico, where he

interviewed singers. Once, researching in the library

facilities of the University of California at Berkeley,

he stumbled upon a number of old song pamphlets in locked

76 cases in the Bancroft Library; a number of other songs

77 he found in a book uncovered in a bookstore in San Antonio.

One of his most riewarding adventures was his discovery of

Tom Hight, a cowboy who sang him fifty songs in two days

78 in an Oklahoma City hotel. On occasions he was able to

draw upon students from West Texas who attended his univer­

sity classes; and often he received songs through the mail

from cowboys and other people who knew of his interest in

the songs. In the course of such activities he was able

to find for each of the more than one hundred songs he

79 gathered for the 1910 edition from five to twenty variants.

He soon discovered, he once declared, that in col­

lecting the best informants were the "more illiterate

people," those who naturally did not either appreciate or

care for precise documentation. Such responses included

"^^Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, p. 46

"7 "7 Ibid

78 Ibid., pp. 48-49.

"7^John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs of the Mexican Border," The Sewanee Review, XIX (January, 1911), 2.

35

such varied comments as the following: "I don't know how

this come to be made up, as I have knew it a long time

and don't remember when I first heard it nor how long I

have knew it"; "This song is said to have been composed

by his comrades who were in the roundup with him at the

time he met his fate by being killed with a horse falling

upon him"; "I learned this from another cowman"; "Some

80 of the boys just made it up, I don't know where or when."

Geographically Lomax's songs came from a fairly

wide area west of the Mississippi River, including such

rich areas as Arizona and New Mexico. But it was in Texas

that he was most richly rewarded, the state furnishing

approximately seventy-five per cent of all the song ver­

sions in the 1910 collection; and even those sent him

from other areas were often cited by the informants as

81 traceable originally back to the Lone Star State.

In 1911 Kittredge managed for Lomax to appear on

the program of a meeting of the prestigious Modern Lan­

guage Association of America, which met for its annual

meeting at Cornell University. When Lomax read his paper

on cowboy songs and sang some examples, his reception by

the group was unexpectedly good, both with respect to his

QQibid., p. 4

^•^Ibid., p. 2

36

formal paper and an evening "smoker," where he sang all

the songs he had earlier described. The result of this

day's work was more than five hundred speaking engagements

during the next few years.

Lomax left the University of Texas in 1917 because

of political pressure and went to Chicago to work. While

there, he met Carl Sandburg and published an overflow

volume from his collected work: Songs of the Cattle Trail

and Cow Camp (1918). The event was one of the few bright

spots in his Chicago exile. Subsequent events in his

career included another sojourn at the University of Texas

(1919-1925) and a job in the Republic National Bank in

Dallas, Texas, which became his permanent home.

In the spring of 1932, partly to recover his

strength following an illness, Lomax, accompanied by his

son, John A. Lomax, Jr., began "a long lecture and folk

song collecting trip" in a car, camping and cooking beside

the road. When he reached New York City, he visited H. S.

Latham, editor of the Macmillan publishing house, who

offered him a contract for a proposed general collecting

of American ballads and folk songs. After six months of

research to avoid duplication of what had already been

done, he was ready to begin an extensive collecting expedi­

tion that would take him through eleven states. Through

an arrangement with Carl Engel, Music Division Chief of the

Library of Congress, Lomax was able to secure a recording

37

machine, though, unfortunately, it never worked very well;

in payment for this device Lomax agreed to deposit his

songs in the recently established Archive of American Folk­

song at the Library, of which he was made Honorary Curator.

The Lomaxes eventually deposited over 2500 aluminum and

acetate discs.

On these trips, this time accompanied by another

son, Alan Lomax, who was seventeen years old at the time,

Lomax traveled 16,000 miles in a Ford automobile with a

three-hundred-fifty-pound recording machine built into it.

Traveling through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tenessee,

Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Caro­

lina, and Virginia, they recorded from a host of informants

in prison camps and penitentaries, rural Negro communities,

plantations, and lumber camps. It was from the Negroes

on the prison farms, isolated from whites and other out­

side influences, that Lomax and his son received the

largest store of songs, using the recording machine when

it worked and the notebook when it did not or when the

informant refused to sing for the machine. Perhaps the

best of the Negro singers was Huddle Ledbetter, better

known as Lead Belly, whose store of songs made up for an

otherwise scarcity of material in Louisiana, a state where

82 John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Preface, Our Sing­

ing Country, ed. John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941), p. xv.

38

convicts were not allowed to sing as they worked. By

early 1933 they had completed the actual collecting, and

after spending six weeks during September and October in

the Library of Congress putting together the copy for

American Ballads and Folk Songs, they delivered the manu­

script in an old laundry box to the Macmillan Company.

Now a closely-knit team, the two men next under­

took further collecting of Negro songs in the South, a

project they wanted to complete, since they felt that

social conditions were "killing the best and most genuine

83 Negro folk songs." George P. Brett, Jr., President of

the Macmillan Company, suggested that the Carnegie Corpo­

ration might be willing to help, and that organization

contributed $3000.00 to help defray expenses. They also

received an additional contribution from the Rockefeller

Corporation, which supplemented the sum already available

84 from the Carnegie Corporation.

Future publications by the two men stemming from

materials collected on this trip included Negro Folk Songs

as Sung by Lead Belly, released in 1936 and containing

forty-eight songs and commentary by Lead Belly, probably

the best single informant found by the Lomaxes; a completely

83 Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, p. 129

Q' Ibid. , pp. 132-133

39

revised edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

in 1938; and Our Singing Country in 1941, and a sequel,

American Ballads and Folk Songs, in 1964—the last named

constituting a volume of two hundred seventy-five songs

reflective of almost every phase of American folk life.

The last collection of the two collaborators was Folk

Song: U.S.A, in 1947, which contains most of the songs

which appeared in earlier works, but with special piano

arrangements done by Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger.

An excellent work, it is a suitable volume to climax Lomax's

collecting career.

Lomax's contribution as a collector and stimulator

of collecting cannot be adequately stated. Lawless ranks

both John and Alan as among the dozen or so most signifi-

85 cant collectors of American folk song. Oscar Brand in

The Ballad Mongers states that without the work of Lomax,

the revival of interest in this kind of folk songs might

R6 never have occurred. Belden calls his work with cowboy

87 songs "a very valuable contribution to ballad study."

^^Ray M. Lawless, Folksingersingers and Folksongs: A Handbook of Biography, Bibliography, and Discoqraphy (New York: Meredith Press, 1965), p. 289.

^^Oscar Brand, The Ballad Mongers: Rise of Modern Folk Song (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., 1962) p. 67

87 Henry Marvin Belden, "Balladry in America," p. 3

40

In assessing Lomax's contribution. Pound credited him with,

88 in effect, coining the term "American ballads" Other

activit-'es of Lomax include his helping to found several

folklore societies while he was president of the American

Folklore Society, his work as an advisor to the Writers 0

Project on American Folksong, and his frequent public

appearances before his death in 1948.

Many of the folk songs of the West and Southwest

might have been lost, as barbed wire fences gradually cut

the vast ranges into smaller and smaller tracts, had it

not been for Lomax. Contemporary cowboys spend their time

within the confines of the ranches or commuting to ranch

chores from residences in town or city. Like other Ameri­

cans, they are exposed to radio, television, and printed

matter, forces which have reduced or modified the oral

tradition from which sprang the original songs, the revival

of which in authentic form in printed texts owes as much,

as to anyone, to the work of John A. Lomax.

^^Pound, CHAL, IV, 513. She says that the term is "applied to a body of cowboy, lumbermen, and negro songs, recovered, chiefly by John A. Lomax, in Texas, New Mexico, Montana, and other States."

THE WESTERN AND SOUTHWESTERN FRONTIERS

AND THE RISE OF THE CATTLE INDUSTRY

The Region: Geographical and 0

Historical Perspectives

The Trans-Mississippi West —The area west of the Missis­

sippi River comprises about two-thirds of the continental

United States and is traditionally and popularly associated

with the plains and prairies of the cowboy's roundups and

trail drives, with the mountains of the trappers of moun­

tain men and gold miners, and with life in the desert-like

areas of the far West. As Hafen and Rister point out con­

cerning this Western area, it "exhibits the nation's

Some book-length studies of the many phases of the West which contain useful bibliographies of more de­tailed studies of specific areas are the following: Ray A Billington, Westward Expansion: A History of the Ameri­can Frontier (2nd ed.; New York: Macmillan and Company, 1960), Dan Elbert Clark, The West in American History (New York: T. Y. Crowell Company, 1937), Thomas D. Clark, The Story of the Westward Movement (New York: Charles Scrib-ner's Sons, 1959), LeRoy R. Hafen and Carl Coke Rister, Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Develop­ment of the Region beyond the Mississippi (2nd ed. ; Engle-wood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1950), Robert V. Hine and Edwin R. Bingham, The Frontier Experience: Readings in the Trans-Mississippi West (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1963), F. L. Paxson, History of the American Frontier (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924) and Robert E. Riegel, America Moves West (3rd ed.; New York: Holt, 1956). See also Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (1899; rpt.. New York: Holt, 1956) , for a significant comment on the impact of the frontier on American life. See also more specific studies listed in appropriate sections of this and later

chapters. -•,

42

greatest variations in topography, climate, and resources";

a range in environmental conditions which "has required

great versatility and adaptability on the part of the set­

tlers who have undertaken to make homes and win a liveli-2

hood from this western land."

The area chiefly under consideration in this study

is designated by Richardson and Rister as the Greater

Southwest, which is composed of roughly three sub-areas:

the South Plains, the Mountain and Plateau Country, and 3

the Basin and Range Country. The South Plains include an

area located west of the ninety-eighth meridian and stretch­

ing northward from the Gulf Coast of Texas to Nebraska.

It is that flat or gently rolling area comprising, at its

southern end, the Coastal Plain, and at its northern ex­

tremes, the High and Rolling Plains, an area quite distinct

from any other section of the United States. Webb suggests

that the High Plains exhibit three distinctive

2 Hafen and Rister, Western America, p. 1. 3 Rupert N. Richardson and Carl Coke Rister, The

Greater Southwest: The Economic Development of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Ari­zona, and California from the Spanish Conquest to the Twentieth Century (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1934), p. 15. More specific discussion of the features of the area can be found in N. M. Fenneman, Physiocrraphy of Western United States (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, Inc., 1931) and E. W. Gilbert, The Ex­ploration of Western America, 1800-1850; an Historical Geography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933).

43

characteristics: first, they consist of an extensive and

comparatively level terrain; second, they are generally

unforested; and third—and most significant as an influ­

ence on settlement—the climate is sub-humid, with rain­

fall "insufficient for the ordinary intensive agriculture 4

common to lands of a humid climate." Speaking of the

same area, Rister, in Southern Plainsmen, mentions the

"broad, sinuous sand-choked streams . . . seldom filled

with water" as well as "the fiery sun and hot winds" of

summer. Because of the extreme heat of the summer months,

early travelers and their animals often fell victim to the

harsh countryside and left, their bones "as grim reminders

of the fate which would await all those who dared to cross

its forbidden stretches." The spring, in contrast, is a

different matter, for there are "meadows of billowing and

waving multi-colored flowers" which compose a "flower-5

splashed landscape." East of the High Plains are the

Rolling Plains, identifiable, according to Richardson and

Rister, as "comparatively level and almost treeless," but.

Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1959), p. 3. See also Everett Dick, Vanguards of the Frontier: A Social History of the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains from the Furtraders to the Sod Busters (1941; rpt., Lincoln: Uni­versity of Nebraska Press, 1965), for details of settling the northern areas.

5 Carl Coke Rister, Southern Plainsmen (Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1938), p. xiv.

44

especially east of the ninety-eighth meridian, less arid

than the High Plains. On these plains and prairies the

buffaloes were hunted by the Indians, who depended on them

for the essentials of life. It was also here that sol­

diers fought the Indians and eventually all but eliminated

them.

The Mountain and Plateau Country which Richardson

and Rister describe as encompassed "on the east by the

southern Rocky mountains, on the west by the Pacific, and

lying for the most part north of the thirty-fifth parallel,"

includes "Colorado, the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada and 7

the Great Valley of California." To these inclusive areas

miners came seeking the precious metals which the land

could yield. Others came to carve out a different kind

of existence: in the mountains were the mountain men and

trappers who sought the wealth the furs could offer; in

the desert of Utah and surrounding areas were the Mormons,

who transformed their arid land into an oasis. The Basin

and Range Country occupies the "southern fringe of the

Southwest," extending from the vicinity of Los Angeles to 8

the southern tip of the Great Plains in Texas." Water is

scarce here, but some locales are capable of supporting "a

^Richardson and Rister, The Greater Southwest, p. 16

Ibid., p. 17. o

Ibid., pp. 24-25.

45

9 ranching industry of considerable proportions." In Texas,

for example, soldiers and Texas Rangers fought hostile

Indians and Mexicans to protect people living there, and

in the southern section south of present San Antonio cattle

ranching in the Western sense was born and spread northward, 0

The frontier of the Basin and Range country in "western

Arizona, southeastern California, and southern Nevada"

have "negligible" rainfall and produce crops only with the

use of irrigation water. It is this latter area, with its

mixture of past and present influences, which makes up

"the Southwest as portrayed by the cinema."

Aboriginal Inhabitants—The principal tribes living on the

High Plains were the Sioux, Blackfeet, Crows, Cheyennes, 11

Arapahos, Kiowas, and Comanches. Their livelihood came

Ibid., p. 25.

^^Ibid., p. 26.

•'••'•General histories of the Indians of the West are available in the appropriate sections of the general studies listed earlier in this chapter. The most important of these include Clark Wissler, The Indians of the United States (New York: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, Inc., 1940); F. W. Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols.; Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1912); and A. L. Kroeger, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1939). Additional material is found in Francis S. Drake, ed.. The Indian Tribes of the United States: Their History, Antiquities, Customs, Religion, Arts, Languaqe, Tradition, Oral Leqends, and Myths (2 vols.; Philadelphia: J. R. Lippincott and Company, 1884); and Matthew W. Stirl­ing, ed. National Geographic on Indians of the Americas: A Color-Illustrated Record (Washington: National Geographic Society, 1955).

46

primarily from large, grass-eating animals such as buffaloes

and deer, which were found there in great abundance. Their

hide-covered tepees were easily portable, and the groups

moved, as conditions demanded, for better hunting and graz­

ing. Inhabiting the lower or Rolling Plains were the

Apaches, one of the groups which made the fierce stands

against the whites in this area. Along with the Commanches

they "brought terror to all and ruin to most of the Span­

ish settlements" on the southern edge of the Great Plains

and, more than any other force, kept the Spanish off the 12

Plains themselves. They continued to be a major problem

to the settlers as well for some time thereafter.

Tribes in the mountains included the Utes, Snakes,

and some of the Shoshoneans, who as hunters, had an aver­

sion to agriculture. Their dwellings consisted of both

tepees and wickiups, the latter built from tree branches,

sagebrush, and willow limbs. In the deserts of Utah and

Nevada lived the Piutes, Goshutes, and other tribes re­

lated to the Shoshones. They lived in wickiups and hunted

small animals and lizards, supplementing this diet with

grass seeds, nuts, berries, and anything else they were

able to find in their habitats. In New Mexico and Arizona

lived Indians who were not nomadic and who practiced irri­

gation farming. The Spanish saw these Indians as excellent

prospects for their system of colonization and development.

12 Webb, The Great Plains, p. 116

47

for since the aborigines practiced agriculture, they would

fit comfortably into the Spanish system. But the mounted

tribes made the Spanish pay so much in goods and lives

lost to raiding parties that what good came from these

Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo Indians was at too high a cost 13

to be ultimately worth the risk.

European Immigrants—On the Western frontier the Europeans

who came to the area had to cope with these Indian inhabi­

tants and with unusual environmental factors in order to

survive. The impact of this period on the cultural pat­

terns and mores offers one of the significant phenomena of

the frontier. To understand the influence of this area

upon the people who settled it, one should realize the de­

mand brought on the settlers by the kind of life made neces­

sary on any frontier. Men here literally had to make their

own way, or fail, the end result of failure often being

death at the hands of the Indians or from starvation, pri­

vation, heat, or cold. Social class distinctions dis­

appeared, and self-reliance became a very real necessity.

The people, with the help of only crude tools, had to

fashion homes from native materials such as rocks or on

the Great Plains even sod, since frequently little else

was available. Food was often scarce and was usually coarse

•'•" Richardson and Rister, The Greater Southwest, p. 27.

48

Hafen and Rister characterize life as "exacting and haz­

ardous" and state that "social isolation, deprivation,

grim want, and danger drew the border settlers together."

European influence on the West entered with the

Spanish explorers shortly after 1500, such well known men

as Cabeza de Vaca, Estevan, Friar Marcos, and Coronado

being prominent in early explorations. Webb has noted

that "the Spanish enjoyed unusual success as explorers,

but that they were notably unsuccessful as colonists.

Their lack of success has often been attributed to condi­

tions in Europe or to some defect in the Spanish colonial

system." Webb has found, however, through "reexamination"

of the evidence "that the Spanish failure to take and hold

the Great Plains may be attributed in large measure to

the nature of the problems found within the country, and 15 . .

not to the European situation. Webb later clarifies

these problems by saying that "the country itself did not

14 Hafen and Rister, Western America, p. 93.

•'• Webb, The Great Plains, p. 85. See also Frank W. Blackmar, Spanish Institutions of the Southwest (Balti­more: Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1891); Herbert E. Bolton, Spanish Exploration in the Southwest (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916); Herbert Davenport and Joseph K. Wells, "The First Europeans in Texas, 1528-1536," The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXII (October, 1818, January, 1919), 111-143, 205-260; and Richard Irving Dodge, The Hunting Grounds of the Great West (London: Chatto and Windus, 1877).

49

attract them" and that "the Plains Indians repelled what­

ever efforts they did make at travel, occupation, or resi-16

dence in the region." These factors account for the

poor showing that the Spanish made in trying to settle

the Plains.

The French influence entered the West later than

that of the Spanish with La Salle, Tisn^, La Harpe, the

Mallet brothers, Bourgmond, and others: but despite this

fact, as Hafen and Rister note, "France was to play a

lead part in the drama of the West. . . . " It was thus

not until the second half of the seventeenth century that

French influence reached into the trans-Mississippi West,

and her chief impact was not felt until the following cen-

17

tury. The French were primarily interested in fur trad­

ing, particularly in the Mississippi River Valley. The

consequence of this interest was an extensive exploration

of the West, including the tributaries of the Mississippi;

but contact with the Plains tribes, since the Plains

furnished no animals valuable for their furs was negligible. 18

•'- Webb, The Great Plains, p. 87.

"'•' Hafen and Rister, Western America, p. 28. See also Francis Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, The Complete Works of Francis Parkman (20 vols.; Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1897-1898), I-II; R. G. Thwaites, France in America (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1905), W. B. Munro, Crusaders of New France (New Haven: Yale Uni­versity Press, 1918); and G. M. Wrong, The Conquest of New France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918).

18 Webb, The Great Plains, for example, does not

include the French as a significant force in his study of the Plains.

50

The influence of these two European nationalities

was to persist into modern times—that of the Spanish in

those areas they once controlled, especially New Mexico,

California, and Texas; and that of the French largely in

Louisiana, far from the Plains. The Anglo-American influ­

ence, on the other hand, made itself felt in the form of

a gradual encroachment from the East, where the increase

in population in the area west of the Atlantic seaboard

had given birth to, and had nurtured, the eventual west-

19

ward movement. This Anglo-American pressure was ulti­

mately to dominate the settling of the Plains and to give

direction to the subsequent history of the region.

Many of the Anglo-Americans who first reached the

level grasslands of the Plains saw them simply as a bar­

rier to cross as rapidly as possible in order to get to

20 the West Coast and the more desirable country there. One

of the most colorful periods of Anglo-American westward ex­

pansion is that of the migrations by prairie schooners,

large covered wagons pulled by horses or oxen, which car­

ried the settlers to new homes, opportunities, and danger

21 over such well-known routes as the Oregon and Santa Fe

19 Significant studies of this period already listed

include Turner, The American Frontier; Paxson, History of the American Frontier; and Webb, The Great Plains.

20 Webb, The Great Plains, p. 149.

21 See W. J. Ghent, The Road to Oregon: A Chron­

icle of the Great Emigrant Trail (New York: Tudor, 1929);

51

22

Trails, the latter primarily a trade route to that out­

post from which it drew its name.

Later when land became less plentiful and other

factors such as the railroads made the area more attrac­

tive, immigrants began to make efforts to settle the plains

Webb says that "in the first h^lf of the nineteenth cen­

tury . . . the advance guard of this moving host of forest

homemakers emerge[d] into the new environment, where there

are no forests, no logs for cabins, no rails for fences,

few springs and running streams." The land was quite

hostile, for it was "infested by a fierce breed of Indians,

mounted, ferocious, unconquerable, terrible in their mer-

cilessness." Yet to this "natural barrier made more

formidable by a human barrier of untamed savagery, " the

settlers came "armed and equipped with the weapons, tools,

ideals, and the institutions which had served them so long

and so well in the woods that now lay behind them. " Be­

cause such tools and institutions were poorly adapted to

Jacob Ray Gregg, A History of the Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, and Other Trails (Portland, Ore.: Binfords and Mort, 1955); and Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life, ed. Charles H. J. Douglas (New York: Macmillan, 1916).

22 See, in addition to Gregg, A History of the Ore­

gon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, and other Trails, R. L. Dufus, The Santa Fe Trail (New York: Longmans, Green, and Com­pany, 1930); Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: The Journal of a Santa Fe Trader (1844; rpt. Dallas: South­west Press, 1933); and Susan S. Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magof­fin, 1846-1847, ed. by Stella M. Drumm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1926).

52

the environment, "they failed in their first efforts, and

they continued to fail until they worked out a technique

of pioneering adapted to the Plains rather than to the

woodland. . . . Their effort constitutes a gigantic human

23 experiment with an environment."

Ranching and Range Life

Western style ranching, which differed from stock

farming in the East mainly because of the use in the former

of men on horseback to herd the cattle, fostered the cow­

boy and his method of working cattle and thus contributed

a unique frontier character type to American life. These

techniques developed in Texas before the outbreak of the

Civil War, and had their impetus in a specific geographic

area, as Webb points out:

For the sake of clarity we may describe the territory in question as a diamond-shaped area, elongated north and south. The southern point of the diamond (the southern tip of Texas) is formed by the con­vergence of the Gulf coast and the Rio Grande. San Antonio forms the apex of the northern angle, and lines drawn from San Antonio to the Gulf coast on the east and to Laredo on the Rio Grande on the west form the upper sides of the diamond. San An­tonio, Old Indianola, Brownsville, and Laredo form the four points of the diamond. This restricted area was the cradle of the Western cattle business, an incubator in which throve and multiplied Mexican longhorns, Indian horses, and American cowboys. Here American men began handling cattle on horse­back, just as they had already begun fighting In­dians and Mexicans on horseback. In this region

^"^Webb, The Great Plains, p. 141.

53

and on its borders were to be found all the elements essential to the ranch and range cattle industry.^^

Once the Indian menace had subsided, however, ranching ex­

panded out of this limited territory, and by 1876 the

practice of raising cattle in this way had spread over an

area including West Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, 0

North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah,

Colorado, and New Mexico, or what Webb calls "the semi-

25 arid portion of the Great Plains country."

The cattle industry needed grass, water, and cattle

to prosper. The grass was present in great abundance and

had supported enormous herds of buffalo and the other ani­

mals such as deer, elk, and antelope. Thus, the treeless

plains were ideal for livestock, once the buffalo herds

were removed. Water, though not abundant everywhere, was

available in the streams and rivers which could be found

at intervals in the grasslands. And the cattle, from

earlier Spanish times, were already present, though in a

wild state.

The Spanish or Mexican longhorn cattle, the back­

bone of the early cattle industry in the Old West, deserve

some comment at the beginning of any discussion of range

" Ibid., p. 208.

^^Ibid., p. 207. See also E. E. Dale, The Range Cattle Industry (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1930) and James Cox, The Cattle Industry of Texas and Adja­cent Territory (St. Louis: Stock Growers' Association, 1895) .

54

life. They were first brought to New Spain in 1521 by

26 Gregorio de Villalobos. In 1540, when Coronado began

•\

his search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, he

was able to gather about five hundred of these cattle to

take along to furnish beef for his followers. Some of

these animals became trail worh and were left by him in

Senola. Twenty-five years later, Francisco de Ibarra 27 found vast numbers of wild cattle in this area. As the

Spanish moved on to what is now East Texas, they took

cattle with them; and by 1770 huge herds, both branded

and unbranded, could be seen in many areas of Texas. Grow­

ing up completely wild, these creatures, as Dobie points

out, were "watchful as wild turkeys, as alert in the nos­

trils as deer."

These wild cattle had three striking features:

varied coloration, unusual body conformation, size, and

the long horns which gave them their name. The best study

of them is by Dobie, a man who loved them, and who wrote

the first book on the longhorns, or "Bos texanus" as he

calls them. Their colors were, in Dobie's words,

brindles; blues—mulberry blue, ring-streaked blue, speckled blue; grullas—so-named because they had

^^J. Frank Dobie, The Longhorns (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1941), p. 3.

27 Ibid., p. 4.

"'Ibid., p. 12.

55

the hue of the sand-hill crane, called also mouse-colored, or slate; duns, dark, washed-out and Jersey creams—all hues of "yellow"; browns with bay points and bays with brown points; blacks, solid and splotched with white, brown and red; whites, both cleanly bright and dirty speckled; many sabinas, red-and-white peppered; reds of all shades except the dark richness characteristic of the Herefords, pale reds being very common; paints of many combinations. The line along the back was common, as in the mustang breed. Coarse brown hairs around the ears were characteristic. The shadings and combinations of color were so various that no two were alike.29

The animals did not reach their maximum weight

until they were nearly ten years of age, at which time the

steers might weigh a thousand pounds or more, sixteen hun­

dred pounds representing an unusually heavy animal. Char­

acterized by high shoulders which were "sometimes thin

30 enough to split hailstones," and long bodies with narrow

hips, such animals from a side view, could easily deceive

a viewer who would far overestimate the weight unless he

looked at the animal from behind in order to see the nar­

row, lean hams.

Concerning the horns Dobie cites an old saying

that one "could pack all of the roasting meat a Texas steer

31 carried in one of his horns." Though sets of horns of

eleven feet six and one-half inches are rumored to have

2^Ibid., pp. 33-34.

^^Ibid., p. 35.

Ibid., p. 203.

56

existed, Dobie was unable to find any this large. The

largest he saw are in the Buckhorn Curio Shop in San An­

tonio, Texas, a spread of eight feet one and three-eighths 32

inches from tip to tip"; and even longer sets have been 33

documented. 0

There was before the 1830's no profit in wild

cattle, for though they were plentiful, the markets were

far away and money was scarce. By the thirties decade,

however, men had begun to gather the animals and to move

them to whatever markets were available. In 1837 and 1838

unbranded longhorns from the Rio Grande and Nueces River

areas were gathered and driven to markets in cities where

demand for the beef existed. From 1842 on, the number of

cattle driven or shipped by boat from Texas increased some­

what, but demand was not great enough to decrease to an

extent the number of cattle on Texas ranges; and even

though by 1850, cattle had been driven to Ohio and Cali­

fornia, and, by 1856, to Chicago, Webb points out that

these efforts were "inconsequential" and that the cattle

continued to multiply at a rate that would soon make long-

horn cattle a nuisance even when thinned out. During the

Civil War, some were used to feed the armies of the South,

32 Ibid., p. 205.

- - Ibid., p. 207.

57

but still the numbers continued to increase dramatically.^"^

Since during years of favorable conditions Northern

markets offered a lucrative margin of approximately $25.00

to $30.00 profit on each animal at the market, dauntless

men began to undertake to provide beef on the hoof. Since

the most economical way to get large numbers of cattle to

market was to drive them, large herds made up of sometimes

three thousand head or more began to be "pointed north,"

over what soon became a series of cattle trails whose names

now evoke stories and memories of a colorful era.

Before they were driven north, however, the wild

cattle had to be gathered from the lands on which they

grazed. Before wide use of fencing and before the windmill

provided a means of securing water in areas away from

natural sources, the cattle roamed the river bottoms and

brushlands near natural watercourses—terrain often cut by

canyons and arroyos clotted with brush, making the cattle

"roundup" a difficult task which often tested both the

ingenuity of the cowboy and the ability of his "cow pony."

Furthermore, once the herd was gathered for the drive,

usually in the spring, the animals had to be branded with

a distinguishing mark often accompanied by cutting or

notching the animals' ears in a particular way, either

with a notched cut out of the bottom of the ear or a slash

34 Webb, The Great Plains, p. 211.

58

on the edge of the ear. The two marks, the brand and the

ear mark, would make the ownership of the animal easily

distinguishable. These brands, often very creative adap­

tations of initials or other marks, developed ultimately

35 into a fairly sophisticated system of markings. When 0

herd ownership replaced the system of gathering wild, un­

branded cattle, roundups were still necessary for the

purpose of marketing and branding. On the trail drives

the animals were also at times given a trail brand, iden­

tifying the particular herd to which an animal belonged,

since the trail herd might consist of several individual

herds belonging to several ranchers who had formed together

for a particular drive.

The subject of the trails themselves is quite ex-3fi

tensive. Drago in his Great American Cattle Trails gives

35 The practice of branding is still followed, and

Texas county records bear witness to continuation, by law, of the practice. See also Manfred R. Wolfenstine, The Manual of Brands and Marks, ed. by Ramon F. Adams (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970); W. H. Jackson and S. A. Lond, The Texas Stock Directory, Book of Marks and Brands (San Antonio: The Herald Office, 1865); and Oren Arnold, Irons in the Fire: Cattle Brand Lore (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1965).

36 Harry Sincliar Drago, Great American Cattle Trails

The Story of the Old Cow Paths of the East and the Longhorn Highways of the Plains (New York: Bramhall House, 1965). See also J. Marvin Hunter, ed. The Trail Drivers of Texas: Interesting Sketches of Early Cowboys and Their Experiences on the Range and on the Trail during the Days That Tried Men's Souls—True Narratives Related by Real Cow-Punchers and Men wno Fathered the Cattle Industry in Texas (2nd. ed. 2 vols in 1. Nashville, Tenn.: Cokesbury Press, 1925).

59

a detailed history of many trails, among them such "high­

ways" to the north as the Chisholm Trail, the Western

Trail, and the Goodnight-Loving Trail, all of which began

in Texas, the cradle of the cattle industry, and led north­

ward to the railheads which fed in to the markets of the

North and East. This endeavor involved considerable risk,

since drought and. fluctuating prices were unpredictable

and sometimes disastrous. Dobie notes that though many

trail operators made considerable amounts of money, most

37 of them died penniless.

The drives involved plenty of hard work. Faulk

states that the usual herd was twenty-five hundred head of

cattle handled by a remuda of approximately fifty horses

and about ten cowboys, plus a chuck wagon and a cook.

After a breakfast at first light, the men worked until

night without stopping for lunch. Once the cattle were

bedded down at night, after a walk of twenty to thirty

miles each day, the men had supper of "beef, beans, bis­

cuits, and coffee." This pace continued for three months

with only about four hours sleep a night for the men.

When the herd was sold at market, the men, often after a 38

big "spree," returned home until the following spring.

37 Dobie, The Longhorns, p. xvii.

" Odie B. Faulk, Land of Many Frontiers: A History of the American Southwest (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 237, 239.

60

Cattle drives were often faced with serious prob­

lems and dangers. Stampedes were a constant, and frequent,

threat to the animals and their drivers. These sudden,

unpredictable rushes by the cattle were sometimes trig­

gered by unusual weather or unexpected movement or sound. 0

One interesting story celebrates an unusual "outlaw" steer

which set off a stampede almost nightly. Only when it was

driven out and shot could the drive proceed in a normal 39

fashion. Raging rivers to cross and Indians to outwit

or fight off in the Indian Territory were additional prob­

lems that plagued the drives.

Perhaps the most serious problem of all, and one

which eventually stopped the cattle drives from Texas, was

40

a mysterious malady called Texas fever. After the long­

horns from the coastal plain trailed through an area, the

domestic cattle along the path would sicken and die.

This disease was called variously Spanish fever, longhorn

fever, and Texas fever, since it could always be directly

connected with the passing of longhorn cattle from Texas

through the affected areas. Settlers along the trails

rose up to stop the drives, and in 1885 Kansas passed a

strong law forbidding entry of Texas cattle between March

and December, the only time the herds could be trailed

39 Drago, Great American Cattle Trails, pp. 117-118

" Ibid. , pp. 54-64.

61

north. After many false speculations about the cause of

the ailment, the mystery was finally solved by a govern­

ment scientist named Theobald Smith, who proved that the

longhorns carried a tick from which they had become immune

over the years but from whose bite domestic cattle sickened

and died. But this solution came too late to reopen the

long drives, for the railroads had expanded their lines,

and even more important, barbed wire had been introduced.

It was ultimately because of barbed wire that open

41

range literally ceased to exist. Following its inven­

tion in 1873 and the passing of the Federal Homestead Law

of 1862, open range was doomed. First the settlers—and

later the ranchers themselves—fenced up the water and

eventually eliminated the free range on which had grazed

the cattle headed north to the market.

A further factor was drought. Until 1885, as long

as the cattle were easily obtainable and the range free,

with grass and water plentiful the ranchers continued in

their established practices. But in 1885 began a wide­

spread drought on already overgrazed range land. This was

followed by a terrible winter after which another dry sum­

mer and an even worse winter ensued. Ranchers quickly

realized that the end of open range practices had come. A

Henry D. McCallum and Frances T. McCallum, The Wire That Fenced the West (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965).

62

new ranching era followed, one which involved barbed wire

and entry of new breeds of cattle to replace the sturdy

longhorn whose percentage of beef to bone was less desir­

able than the imported "beef types." These included in

particular Herefords imported from England and brought to

42 the High Plains of Texas to upgrade existing herds. The

more contemporary practices of fenced pastures soon de­

veloped to keep the less desirable wild cattle from inter­

breeding with the newly imported breeds. Hence the days

of the longhorn, like that of the buffalo, ended; though

ranching, ranchers, and cattlemen themselves continue to

thrive.

Though the cowboy's way of life has altered, he

still survives in the midst of modern, sophisticated cattle-

raising enterprises. And he is still remembered as the

man more at home on horseback than on foot whose job it

was to round up the herd and get the cattle to market.

Legend and myth have romanticized his picturesque occupa-

tion and cast over his past an aura of glory. Realistically

viewed, the life of the cowboy even in its heyday was often , ^ 43 humdrum and tedious. In winter ranch routine dropped

42 J. Evetts Haley, The XIT Ranch of Texas and the

Early Days of the Llano Estacado (2d ed.; Norman, Univer­sity of Oklahoma Press, 1953), pp. 187-188.

43 See Andy Adams, The Log of a Cowboy (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927); Charles A. Siringo, A Texas Cowboy: or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish

63

into a much slower pace when the feeding of cattle was not

feasible. Cattle were simply left to roam on the plains,

dependent on their native instincts to survive as best

they could. Winter loses were usually not substantial

enough to cause concern, even in the northern regions. And

even when ranches were established and fenced, a good por­

tion of the cowboy's time was spent in building and repair­

ing fences, and he often spent the winter in a "line shack"

from which he rode out to check fences and to keep the

cattle from drifting too far off the home range. Only when

spring came would the tempo increase as the traditional

roundup began in preparation for the task of branding and

shipping to market, and something of the old spirit be re­

vived: the spirit of the open range and the trail drives

which furnish the substance of life reflected in stories

and songs of his romantic heritage.

Cultural and Social Patterns of Range Life

Though life on the range was "a constant, grim

Pony (1885; rpt., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966); and Philip Ashton Rollins, The Cowboy: An Uncon­ventional History of Civilization on the Old-time Cattle Range (Rev. ed.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936) See also Joe B. Frantz and Julian Choate, Jr., The Ameri­can Cowboy: Myth and Reality (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955). Other books on the subject are numerous.

64 44

struggle for existence, and social orders and restraints

were not so clearly delineated or felt as in the more set­

tled areas, people made the adjustments necessary; and

they adapted to a mode of living suited to the demands of

the life they had chosen. Being strong-willed and aggres-0

sive, they did not sit and brood over their problems, but

like Thoreau faced life directly, and knew how to laugh at

each other and at themselves. To aid in alleviating their

loneliness and isolation, they sought diversion in activ­

ities related to their life and needs, such as horse racing

44 For studies of conditions of life in the West,

see Joseph William Schmitz, Thus They Lived: Social Life in the Republic of Texas (San Antonio: The Naylor Company 1936), p. 109. Other sources which are useful, in addi­tion to those cited in specific footnotes in this chapter, include the following: Everett Dick, The Sod House Frontier, 1854-1890: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas and Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1937; Hamilton W. Pierson, In the Brush; or Old-time Social, Political, and Religious Life in the South­west (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881); J. Frank Dobie, The Flavor of Texas (Dallas: Dealey and Lowe, 1936); Noah Smithwick, The Evolution of a State (1900; rpt., Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1935); Agnes Morley Cleave-land. No Life for a Lady (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com­pany, 1941), Sallie Reynolds Matthews, Interwoven (1936; rpt.. El Paso, Tex.: Carl Hertzog, 1958); Mary Kidder Rak, A Cowman's Wife (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934); Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (2d ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960); Duncan Emrich, It's an Old Wild West Custom (New York: The Navguard Press, Inc., 1949); Charles A. Johnson, The Fron­tier Camp Meeting, Religion's Hardest Time (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955) , and William Warren Sweet, Story of Religion in America (2d. rev. ed.; New York: Harper, 1950).

65

and hunting; but they also engaged in gambling, drinking,

and dancing, as well as in a number of more civilizing

45 activities such as housewarmings and house-raisings and

religious services and revivals.

Humor was another mitigating force in the midst

of hardship and adversity, often ensuing, as Hogan recounts, 46

"in enormous numbers of practical jokes." One of these

was to put an inexperienced person or "greenhorn" on an

unbroken or even an outlaw horse. Westerners had little

respect for men of unproved abilities. The ability to do

one's job well took on added significance in an area where

class distinctions did not exist. Bragging about one's

abilities and prowess was not uncommon because "cultural

individualism" such as developed on the frontier created 47

a considerable amount of "imaginative, exaggerative humor,

leading to what Hogan calls the "Munchausen-like idea of

48 Texas prowess." The tall tales were often related by or

about "windy" or bragging men, and these stories serve to

reveal that though the cowboy was certainly a type, he was

also a human being, who had feelings but also knew how to

45 William Ransom Hogan, The Texas Republic: A

Social and Economic History (Norman: University of Okla­homa Press, 1946), p. 110.

46 Ibid., p. 113.

47 Ibid., p. 268.

" Ibid. , p. 269.

66

laugh.

The West was first settled by men, many of whom

were known as "hell-raisers," who, unencumbered by family

ties, drifted to the West looking for a new way of life.

These men had a reverence for women—and with good reason, 0

since women were scarce on the frontier. For Webb points

out that though men were often attracted to the Plains, by

a sense of adventure women were "repelled" by them. Many

women who came to the edge of the treeless stretches re­

fused to go further. Webb believes that the "loneliness

which women endured on the Great Plains must have been

such as to crush the soul, provided one did not meet the

isolation with an adventurous spirit." Conditions were

harsh and "precluded the little luxuries that women love

and that are so necessary for them. Imagine a sensitive

woman set down on an arid plain to live in a dugout or a

pole pen with a dirt floor, without furniture, music, or 49

pictures, with the bare necessities of life!" Life m

the mountains and desert areas was only slightly more at­

tractive, since these regions were also devoid of those

institutions and other factors which contribute to civiliz­

ing the country and the men who inhabited it. There was

also another factor—the wind. Since the Plains were level

and without trees or shrubs to break the wind, the wind

49 Webb, The Great Plains, p. 506.

67

and sand were a constant problem. As Webb states, "The

wind alone drove some to the verge of insanity and caused

others to migrate in time to avert the tragedy. The few

women in the cattle kingdom led a lonely life, but one

that was not without its compensations." Since few women

would stay, they were consequently few, so that "every man

was a self-appointed protector of women who participated

in the adventures of the men and escaped much of the drab-

ness and misery of farm life."

Those who did come aided as they could in making

life more bearable. Various forms of social events were

held, for "pioneering people were ever ready for entertain­

ment, and a gathering of almost any sort was usually a

51

signal for merriment." Formal social outlets were re­

stricted in most places, though there were theaters in

Texas as early as the days of the Republic. But theaters

existed only in more populous areas and were not widespread

or available to people in the fringes of civilization.

One form of entertainment which developed on the frontier

was the barbeque, often held on special occasions such as

election day or on holidays, a feast that was often fol-

52 lowed by dances lasting until dawn. Hogan states.

Ibid.

Schmitz, Thus They Li^md, p. 109.

^^Ibid., p. 120.

68

"Dances were held on every possible occasion, and the

scarcity of women only accentuated the frontier passion 53

for dancing." Some of these dances became established

affairs, such as the annual Christmas Ball at Anson, Texas.

The frequency of dances suggests that there was "a strong

public sentiment supporting the amusement" even despite

strong religious opposition as the areas became more set-

, z. 54 tied.

One prominent social force in the West was religion

and the comfort it could bring to the people in their iso­

lation. Since established churches were few and small,

there was a problem of keeping full-time ministers, but

as Dobie says, "the Southwest has been and is religious-

55 minded," though not necessarily "spiritually natured."

The principal occasion for religious activity in most areas

was the camp meeting or revival, usually held in the open

air or in temporary shelters of some type and conducted by

circuit riders. These meetings, when held, were well at­

tended, for they provided opportunity for "the frontiers­

man and his family to gather with their neighbors, see the

new babies, talk of crop prospects, discuss politics, and

53 Hogan, The Texas Republic, p. 115. " Ibid. , p. 119.

^^J. Frank Dobie, Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest (Rev. ed.; Dallas: Southern Methodist Uni­versity Press, 1952), p. 64.

69

56 eat and drink together."

Perhaps because of loneliness, uncertainty, or

frustration, men on the frontier were prone to excessive

drinking, especially of hard liquor, and as the civiliz­

ing influences began to be felt more strongly, temperance

became a cause supported by women and church groups. By

1873, for example, a Weatherford, Texas, publication, the

Texas Signet, became a voice of a temperance group, and

by 1882 prohibition had been passed in two Texas counties, 57

Bosgue and Hamilton.

Yet the presence of organized religion on the fron­

tier was not altogether successful as a moral deterrent.^^

As Goodykoontz recounts, early missionaries from the West

reported such offenses a s —

Sabbath-breaking, profanity, gambling, drunkenness, •fighting, murders, thefts, and general lawlessness. References to sexual irregularities are relatively few in the letters of the missionaries, an indica­tion perhaps of the reticence of an age less frank than our own rather than a tribute to the purity of the frontier communities.^^

^^Robert E. Riegel, America Moves West (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931), pp. 85-86.

57 'Zane Allen Mason, Frontiersmen of the Faith: A History of Baptist Pioneer Work in Texas, 1865-1885 (San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1970), p. 69. See also John­son, The Frontier Camp Meeting and Sweet, Story of Religion in America.

C O

-'"Schmitz, Thus They Lived, p. 3. Colin B. Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the Ameri­

can Frontier, with Particular Reference to the American Home Missionary Society (Caldwell, Id:; The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1939), p. 25.

70

References to "disorderly houses" or houses of prostitu­

tion in many early records bear evidence that the frontier

60 was not without the presence of tha "oldest profession."

But, as Goodykoontz also observes: "The fundamental vir­

tues on which society rests, loyalty, fidelity, honesty,

love, and sacrifice, were so common in the West—as else-

61 where—that they were taken for granted."

60 See Ronald Dean Miller, Shady Ladies of the West

(Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1964). •'•Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Fron­

tier, pp. 27-28.

THE TAMING OF THE WEST: TROOPERS,

MOUNTAIN MEN, RANGERS,

AND OTHERS

0

Settlement of the vast expanses of the West was

ultimately made possible by the activities of a few spe­

cial frontier groups: the mountain men, who on their hunt­

ing and trapping expeditions and in their dealings with

the Indians had become familiar enough with the geography

of these regions to guide interested immigrants to remote

areas; the Texas Rangers; the military; and the buffalo

hunters. The military and the Rangers dealt decisively

with the Indian problem and made the rangeland safe for

farming and the production of cattle. A fifth group which

may be cited since it played a colorful role in the West's

settlement were those men who chose to live outside the

law. Many tales of famous outlaws such as Jesse James,

Cole Younger, Sam Bass, and Billy the Kid have come down

to the present in narratives both historical and fanciful,

and in songs featuring their particular exploits.

Subjugation of the Plains Indians

Barring frontiersmen from travel on the Plains

were the Plains Indians, mostly mounted warriors who fought

with considerable savagery against the encroaching white

71

72

man. Yet, as Webb shows, even before they acquired the

use of the horse, which the Conquistadores first brought

to this continent, the Indians "already possessed the

traits they continued to exhibit. They were nomadic, non-

agricultural, warlike people who depended primarily on the

buffalo herds for sustenance." Their attaining the horse

was simply an intensifying factor; with its possession they

"became more nomadic (that is, they ranged farther), less

inclined to agriculture, more warlike, and far better buf­

falo hunters than they had been before. As he points out,

"The horse ushered in the golden era of the Plains In-

2

dians."

Furthermore, with the horse, the Indian was better

able to resist the Anglo-American encroachment on their

territories, for, according to Webb, the horse "fitted in

perfectly with the Plain's Indian's scheme of life, with

his penchant for war, and with his care for his own safety."

The brave "made war for the purpose of destroying his

enemy and preserving himself. Of the two the latter was

-'•Ralph K. Andrist, The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians (New York: Collier Books, 1969), p. 2.

2 Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Waltham,

Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1959), p. 58. See also J. Frank Dobie, The Mustangs (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1952); Walker D. Wyman, The Wild Horse of the West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1945); and Clark Wissler, "The Influence of the Horse in the Development of Plains Culture," American Anthropologist (New Series), XVI (January, 1914), 1-25.

73

by far the more important consideration." In so doing, he

used methods which have become widely used in commando

tactics: "Treachery, stealth, wariness, with boldness

and cruelty in an advantage and readiness to flee if neces-3

sary." The horse simply made him more capable of conduct­

ing the kind of warfare for which he was originally in­

clined.

The Indian's war against the whites ranged from

small raids on isolated settlements and lonely cabins to

full-scale attacks on wagon trains and other objectives.

A common occurrence was stealing livestock, particularly

horses, for the Indians gauged their wealth by the niimber

owned and their courage by the number stolen. The Indians

frequently kidnapped settlers, usually killing the men, and

often taking the women and children into the tribe. To

control the depredations of the Indians, militia units

and various other groups, as well as the soldiers of the

United States Army, were used extensively along the fron­

tier. In the Indian campaigns, the bravery of the Indians

has been little questioned. With the weapons they had,

they fought effectively, for as Webb notes, "The Indian's

weapons were remarkably well adapted for use on horseback."

With his short bow and carefully fashioned arrows, his

shield or "arrow-fender," and his riding ability, the Plains

3 Webb, The Great Plains, pp. 61-62.

74

Indian made "a formidable warrior, adapting to his purpose

his skills of the hunt." As Webb points out, it should

be borne in mind that a warrior "could carry a hundred

arrows, and that he could shoot them from his running

horse so rapidly as to keep one or more in the air all the

time and with such force as to drive the shaft entirely 4

through the body of the buffalo." In the earlier days

of the conflict, such powers were more deadly since the

settlers at that time lacked the repeating rifles and pis­

tols that became available only later. Ultimately, of

course, the Indians also acquired firearms, adapting them

to their special methods of warfare. Yet though their

tactical abilities delayed the onslaught of the westward

movement, the Indians were virtually subjugated by 1890.

Mountain Men

Important to the development of the West is the 5

role played by a group of men known as mountain men,

4 Ibid., pp. 66-67.

5 Studies of mountain men include the following: LeRoy Hafen, ed.. The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West (10 vols.; Glendale, Calif: The Arthur Clark Company, 1972); J. Cecil Alter, Jim Bridger (Norman: Uni­versity of Oklahoma Press, 1962); H. M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (2 vols.. Rev. ed.; 1935; rpt. Stanford, Calif.: Academic reprints, 1954); Bernard De Voto, Across the Wide Missouri (Boston: Hough­ton Mifflin Company, 1947) ; Agnes Christina Laut, The Fur Trade in America (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921); Clarence A. Vandiveer, The Fur Trade and Early Western Exploration (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1929);

75

hardy frontiersmen such as Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith,

David E. Jackson, Eit^nne Provost, William Sublette, and 6

"California Joe" Milner. Because of their familiarity

with the areas over which they traveled and trapped, they

were able to lead both military and civilian groups into

the unfamiliar Western areas even before there were any

markers other than geographical landmarks or crude maps.

Walter Stanley Campbell points out that their "skill and

courage enabled those Americans who followed their trail 7

to conquer a continent within half a hundred years."

Hafen and Rister note that this type of man "was a pioneer,

but was hardly conscious of the fact. Opening fresh trails

and discovering new lands were to him but part of the day's

work, incidental to the business of trapping beaver or Q

trading for skins with remote Indian tribes." Campbell

calls them "a breed of heroes" and suggests that they "far

and Stanley Vestal [Walter Stanley Campbell], Mountain Men (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1937).

For a biography of this man whose name is the title of one of the ballads, see Joseph E. Milner and E. R. Forrest, California Joe (Milner) (Caldwell, Id.: The Caxton Publishers, Ltd., 1935).

•7

Vestal, Mountain Men, p. viii.

^LeRoy R. Hafen and Carl Coke Rister, Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Region beyond the Mississippi (2d. ed.; Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1950), pp. 209, 211.

76

more than the soldiers and statesmen, were the real means

of seizing, holding, and settling our vast Far West."

Texas Rangers and Soldiers

Of particular significance to the development of

Texas was the role played by Mexico, which controlled New

Mexico, with its important Santa Fe trading area, and

Texas during part of the early period. It was in reaction

to Mexican influence that some elements of life in Texas

developed. When settlers began to move into that section

which was to become the present state of Texas, they did

so under the auspices of Mexican-controlled colonization

companies, for Spanish control had ended in virtual failure

in 1821 when Mexico achieved independence. Prominent among

these early colonizers were Moses Austin and his son

Stephen Fuller Austin. The Austin colony was joined by

others under the leadership of such men as Cameron, Zavala,

Dewitt, McMullen, Milan, Burnet. Webb points out that,

significantly, not one of these early efforts appeared

west of the ninety-eighth meridian, the gateway to the

Great Plains. After early trouble, the Texan's relation­

ship with Mexico continued to deteriorate until in 1835

9 Vestal, Mountain Men, p. viii.

•'• WeODb, The Great Plains, p. 161

77

the Texas Revolution broke out. The resulting war,

with the famous battles of the Alamo and Goliad as well

as a Texan victory under Sam Houston over the Mexicans

under Santa Anna at San Jacinto, is one treated in detail

by many historians.

In the year the war began, the Texans felt the

need for a group of mounted men to protect the frontier

from the Colorado River to the Guadalupe. On November 24,

1935, an ordinance was passed providing for the organiza­

tion of the Texas Rangers. It authorized the formation

of three companies composed of fifty-six men each. Each

man had to furnish his own mount, weapons, ammunition, and

13 other equipment. Though the term ranger had been used

14 by Stephen F. Austin as early as 1823, these men were the

Rupert N. Richardson, Ernest Wallace, and Adrian N. Anderson, Texas: The Lone Star State (3d ed.; Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1970), p. 87.

12 See, for example, ibid., chs. V, VI, and VII;

David Martell Vigness, The Revolutionary Decades: The Saga of Texas, ed. by Seymour V. Conner (Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1965); and Dudley G. Wooten, ed., A Com­prehensive History of Texas (2 vols.; Dallas: W. G. Scarff, 1897) .

•'•\alter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers: A Cen­tury of Frontier Defense (2d. ed.; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965), pp. 23-24.

Walter Prescott Webb, The Story of the Texas Rangers (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1957), p. 4.

78

first bonafide "Texas Rangers," the official name of the

group. During its earlier days, the Rangers contributed

significantly toward making the frontier in Texas safe

from outlaws, Indians, and raiding Mexicans, and it is

difficult to overestimate their worth during those times.

In his study of this group, Webb describes these

unique lawmen and the role which they played in civilizing

Texas:

The Texas Rangers represented the Texans in their conflict with the Plains warriors and Mexican va-queros and cabelleros and in the fighting . . . they learned much from their enemies. In order to win, or even to survive, they combined the fighting abilities of three races. In the words of an ob­server a Texas Ranger could ride like a Mexican, trail like an Indian, shoot like a Tennessean, and fight like a devil.^^

Yet though they possessed these qualities, the Rangers were

not ignorant or unlearned, for their ranks included doc­

tors, lawyers, surveyors, and even poets. Fehrenbach points

out that it was not uncommon to hear Latin or Greek quoted

around a Ranger campfire.

When Texas became part of the Union, Texans wanted

the Rangers kept as a force to control the Indians, but

at federal expense—a request that the federal government

refused to grant. The absence of such federal support

15 Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 15. T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas

and Texans (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968), p. 487.

79

on occasion caused ill will to develop since the govern­

ment soldiers who assumed the task of caring for the In­

dians were committed to protecting the Indians, not kill­

ing them, as the Texans believed was necessary to resolve 17

the situation. Soon, however, the Rangers were needed 0

for an additional job, and the fortunes of the organiza­

tion began to wax brightly once again. The border dispute

between Mexico, which claimed the Nueces River as dividing

line, and Texas, which claimed the Rio Grande River as the

border, soon erupted into war. General Zachery Taylor

established his troops at Corpus Christi on the Nueces,

and when Mexico refused to bargain for the additional

territory. President Polk ordered Taylor to advance to the

Rio Grande. Enraged at this movement, Mexican officials

sent troops across the Rio Grande, where skirmishes took

place on April 24 as well as on May 8 and 9, 1846. This

action caused a declaration of war on May 13, with Taylor

advancing toward Monterrey with a force of regulars along

with a body of Rangers serving as scouts, messengers, and,

for all practical purposes, cavalry for the regulars. The

Rangers were made up of Texans who had long desired re­

venge on the Mexicans for treatment received by some of

the Rangers and their friends after the collapse of the

17 Webb, The Texas Rangers, p. 127

80

18

Mier expedition and as a result of the defeats at Goliad

and the Alamo. They fought ruthlessly as well as vali­

antly. Such men as John C. (Jack) Hays, Ben McCulloch,

and Samuel H. Walker are prominent in the accounts of the

action, for the part these men played in the advance into

Mexico was enormous, though field reports often played

down the role of the Rangers because of their violent ac-19

tions toward the Mexicans. Less well known but present

in some of these engagements was Maberry B. Gray, also

known as Mustang Gray, a man of considerable reputation,

20 albeit somewhat infamous, of whom more will be said later.

Of considerable help to Taylor in Mexico was a

small group of Rangers under Ben McCulloch, who infiltrated

the enemy camp at Encarnacion to discover the size of the

force. McCulloch and one man stayed in the camp until day­

light, when they rode out through the smoke made by the

green wood of breakfast fires and went to General Taylor to

confirm the intelligence report McCulloch had sent earlier

by the other men. With this precise information, Taylor

18 John C. Duval, The Adventures of Big^Foot Wallace,

the Texas Ranger and Hunter (1871; rpt., Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1947), pp. 210-215.

•'• Fehrenbach, Lone Star, pp. 483-493.

^^J. Frank Dobie, "Mustang Gray: Fact, Tradition, and Song," Publication of the Texas Folk-lore Society, X (1932), 109-123.

81

withdrew to Buena Vista, where the Mexicans, incorrectly

interpreting the American movement as a withdrawal, at­

tacked recklessly. The resulting battle, which was

furiously fought, ended much in a draw but destroyed the

only army the Mexicans had in the field and ruined the

chance of stopping the American forces of eitner Taylor or

of General Winfield Scott, whose soldiers landed in Vera

Cruz in March, 1847, and eventually took Mexico City in

September. After the war the Rangers continued to serve

in combatting the opposition from irregular or guerilla

forces between the Mexican capital and the coast. •'"

Some units identified as Rangers also served on

the side of the South in the War between the States,^^ a

conflict which left its mark on the West even though the

major battles were fought east of the Mississippi River.

After the war, many Southerners refused to be "reconstructed"

and attempted to establish a new life for themselves in

21 Fehrenbach, Lone Star, p. 488.

22 Studies of the Civil War are, of course, numer­

ous, but the following are helpful: Allan Nevins, The War for the Union (4 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959-1971); James Truslow Adams, America's Tragedy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936); Bruce Catton, The Civil War (New York: American Heritage Press, 1971); Ellis Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950); Clement Eaton, A History of the Southern Confederacy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1954); and Keith Ellis, The American Civil War (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1971).

82

Mexico, with the encouragement of the Mexican government. ^

The most prominent colony of these Southerners in Mexico

was Carlota, located seventy miles from Vera Cruz. Set­

tlers included some ex-generals such as Joseph O. Shelby

and Sterling Price as well as soldiers of lower ranks and

other disappointed persons from the South. Other colonies

were also established, with some ex-Confederates appointed

as officials of the Mexican government to promote settle­

ment. Though such efforts ultimately failed because of

lack of planning and too many people living under unsani­

tary conditions, the attempt reveals the determination of

many men who refused to yield to Northern power.

After the hostilities between the states had ceased,

the amny of the United States returned to the West to con­

tinue the task of subduing the Indians. From several

24 strategically located frontier forts the troops rode to

combat the recalcitrant tribes. Though there were setbacks,

such as Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn, the fight was

eventually won with such battles as the slaughter at Wounded

Knee in South Dakota and the destruction of Indians and

23 W. C. Nunn, Escape from Reconstruction (Ft. Worth:

Texas Christian University Press, 1956), gives an account of the attempt.

24 See Herbert M. Hart, Old Forts of the Far West

(Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1965); and Robert Frazer, Forts of the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965).

83

25 their horses at Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle.

Buffalo Hunters

Help in the eventual defeat of the Indians came

from a source far removed from army discipline and Ranger

culture and violence; yet the Buffalo hunters were soldiers

of sorts in the sense that they belonged to a virtual anny

of men who came to the West to conduct the greatest slaugh­

ter this country has ever known. The buffalo hunters,

though symbolized in the public imagination by the flam­

boyant Buffalo Bill Cody, were in reality a less glamorous

group of men, who simply killed and skinned those animals

for the hides.

The killing of the American bison was a signifi­

cant—if short lived—activity confined mostly to the

Great Plains on which the animals had multiplied to great

numbers, being extremely well adapted to this environment

and having few natural enemies. Beginning in 1830, thou­

sands of the creatures were systematically slaughtered by

men such as Buffalo Bill Cody, who contracted to kill

twelve a day for the Kansas Pacific Railroad in 1867, a

^^Andrist, The Long Death, pp. 348-353, 193.

^^See Wayne Card, The Great Buffalo Hunt (1936; rpt., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), for the best account of this activity as well as an excellent bibliography.

84

total of 4,280 being killed on this one contract.^^ In a

contest with Billy Comstock, a frontier scout at Fort

Wallace, Cody killed sixty-nine of the shaggy animals in

an eight hour period to prove his title of "Buffalo Bill."^^

In addition, many animals were killed by sportsmen who

traveled to the ranges for this purpose. But a few men

such as Cody and other sportsmen could not have made any

serious inroads into the vast herds. The men who did the

work were a new breed.

Gard describes the typical hunter as "a young but

grizzled and uncouth fellow, itchy from tiny crawlers out

of the piles of hides about his camp. Yet he knew how to

dodge the charge of a wounded buffalo bull, and he used

his heavy rifle with a precision that even a Prussian field

marshall would have admired." Gard further characterizes

the men who did the work as usually having been" recruited

from adventurers who had drifted west for various reasons.

One of the most successful was a young man of Vermont birth

who had been a streetcar conductor in Chicago and a car-

penter's helper in a small Illinois town." Others, of

course, were from different walks of life and came west

looking for adventure and fortune—or as Gard says, "to

27 Martin S. Garretson, The American Bison: The Story

of Its Extermination as a Wild Species and Its Restoration under Federal Protection (New York: New York Zoological Society, 1938), p. 140.

28 Ibid., p. 142.

85

avoid the sheriff or the outraged father of a trusting

29 girl." When the hunting was over, many of these men

took on other trades, some engaging in ranching and other

legitimate occupations such as those of cowhands or sol­

diers. A few "turned to cattle rustling or horse thieving

30 and soon tangled with vigilante law. "

Despite numbers estimated at seven million even

31 as late as 1865, between the years 1865 and 1880, the

buffalo was all but exterminated by the hunters on the

Southern plains, and most of the Northern herd was gone

32 by 1883. Since the bison was the staple ingredient of

the Indian diet, many whites favored the extermination of

the huge herds as a method of controlling the nomadic life

of the Plains Indians. And indeed the effect was the one

foreseen, but not before the Indians themselves fought, as 33

at Adobe Walls and in other skirmishes, to keep the herds

from being decimated by the hunters. Yet to no avail.

The devastation of the buffalo continued, ultimately sixty

^^Gard, The Great Buffalo Hunt, pp. v-vi.

Ibid., p. VI.

31 Odie B. Faulk, Land of Many Frontiers: A His­

tory of the American Southwest (New York: Oxford Univer­sity Press, 1968), p. 205.

32 Ed Park, The World of the Bison (New York: J. B.

Lippincott Company, 1969), p. 50. " Gard, The Great Bufralo Hunt, pp. 166-181.

86

34 mi l l ion of t h e an imal s b e i n g s l a i n , a hundred thousand

being k i l l e d i n December, 1877, and J a n u a r y , 1878, on t he 35

Texas ranaes a l o n e . These h u n t e r s , a long wi th t h e Rangers

and s o l d i e r s , e v e n t u a l l y s p e l l e d t h e end of t h e Ind ian

t h r e a t on t h e P l a i n s . 0

According to Branch, in 1865 the buffaloes on the

36 southern ranges were more numerous than in the north,

but the good fur caused by the cold weather made the pelts

valuable and hunting persisted until the animals had al­

most disappeared. Many great hunts in this area were or­

ganized at Pembina, a town located where the Pembina and

Red Rivers meet in present"North Dakota. Twice a year the

families of the Metis or French-Indian half-breeds in this

area proceeded to the plains to hunt the buffalo. A

37 "gipsy-like class" which spoke "a medley of French and

Indian dialects,"^ these "generous, warmhearted, and

Albert J. Rorabacher, The American Buffalo in Transition: A Historical and Economic Survey of the Bison in America (Saint Cloud, Minn.: North Star Press, 1970), p. 21.

35 . Richardson, Wallace, and Anderson, Texas: The

Lone Star State, p. 257. * E. Douglas Branch, The Hunting of the Buffalo

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962), p. 128. 37 Alexander Ross, Red Ri'/er Settlement (London:

Smith, Elder, and Company, 1856), p. 242. ^^Louis Wood, The Red River Colony (Toronto: Glas-

cow. Brooks, and Company, 1920), p. 54.

87

39 brave" men took their families, often at the point of

starvation because of their not planning ahead for food

supplies, on the hunt. The hunt itself was a carefully

planned chase or race, much different from the hunting

practices on the southern Plains. The buffaloes were shot

on the run and then skinned. The meat was dried for the

markets in Canada; turned into pemmican, a staple of the

diet of many frontiersmen, selling in 1840 for a mere two

40 pence a pound. At least some use was made of the meat

by these hunters, a practice in sharp contrast with the

southern one of leaving the carcasses on the prairies for

the coyotes and buzzards. Since in the North the ground

was frozen in the winter, the creatures were propped on

their backs by twisting their heads so that the horns held

the body in a perpendicular position, much as was done in

the southern areas but with the natural prop provided by

the horns.

Thus ended an epoch, of which Gard relates the

following:

With the gathering of trainloads of buffalo bones and the disintegration and plowing under of others, no reminder was left—except for an occa­sional wallow—of the vast herds that had roamed the plains a dozen years earlier. Live buffaloes became so scarce that in 1886, when the National

39 Ross, Red River Settlement, p. 242.

40 Branch, The Hunting of the Buffalo, p. 82

88

Museum at Washington wanted a mounted group to ex­hibit, it had difficulty finding suitable speci­mens. -'-

Outlaws

A singular contribution of the Old West to the

general body of Americana was -a group of figures well de­

scribed in Drago's phrase of "outlaws on horseback"—or

more precisely, the outlaw gang on horseback. A great

deal has been written on the subject collectively and on

each of the several well-known men individually; and much

folklore and fiction have grown up around the men and the

subject, even though the period during which such groups

flourished lasted only from the 1850's until the death of

42

Henry Starr in 1921. These men who set themselves out­

side the law are usually recalled in the popular imagina­

tion as handsome, dashing, and incredibly brave as well as

unbelievably adept with their weapons. And many were.

Some, such as Jesse James and Sam Bass, are cited as Robin

Hoods of the West because of their kindness, real or imag­

ined, to the poor; and Billy the Kid, though a cold-blooded

murderer, is also looked upon as a kind of frontier hero.

41 Gard, The Great Buffalo Hunt, pp. 307-308.

42 Harry Sinclair Drago, Outlaws on Horseback: The

History of the Organized Bands of Bank and Train Robbers Who Terrorized the Prairie Towns of Missouri, Kansas, _Indi; n T*= >-ritory, and Oklahoma for Half a Century (New York Bramhall House, 1964), p. 1.

89

But the fact remains that they killed and robbed and that

most died early, either from bullets or from a hangman's

noose, or languished for lengthy periods in prison for

their misdeeds.

Conditions which fostered outlawry in the West

were many. Basically this form of outlawry got its start

in the late 1850's in the state of Missouri, which is some­

times called "the cradle of outlawry"; for many of the

men who became outlaws on horseback were natives of the

state and operated within its confines and that of neigh­

boring states. A prominent theater of action in which some

of them got their training was the area of border warfare

between the groups for and against slavery in Kansas and

Missouri, and in the guerilla warfare both during and after

the Civil War. One of the main catalysts of this conflict

44 was William Clarke Quantrill, an infamous guerilla leader

whose influence on the James and Younger brothers was sig­

nificant in leading them to the wrong side of the law.

The methods used in Quantrill's raids, that of striking

swiftly and ruthlessly and then dispersing until pursuit

43-rT- • J • • •

Ibid., p. xviii.

" See William Elsey Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, la.: The Torch Press, 1910); and J. W. Buel, The Border Outlaws (St. Louis, Historical Publishing Company, 1881); as well as the opening chapters of Drago's book cited above.

90

subsided, served as models for the techniques successfully

used by the gang later. Quantrill is perhaps most famous

for his raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in 1863; and he waged u

bloody campaign against Northern sympathizers, called

Jayhawkers and Red Legs, until May, 1865, when he was shot

down in Bloomfield, Kentucky, by Federal guerillas. He

died on June 6, after being wounded earlier. Drago credits

Quantrill with forging "the link with the most far-reaching

45 effect" in outlawry, and Wellman traces from him a com­plete outlaw lineage ending only in the twentieth century

46 with Pretty Boy Floyd.

One of the primary causes of this outbreak of out­

lawry resulted from the poverty of four years of war and

the fact of the disastrous Order No. 11, issued by General

Thomas Ewing, Commander of the Union forces along the

Missouri border, which resulted in houses, building, and

crops being burned in the home counties of the guerillas

in Missouri. This group endured a hard, demanding life,

and the men who survived were hardened men, inured to per­

sonal danger: seasoned irregulars such as the James and

Younger brothers. The James-Younger Gang, as it was com­

monly known, left a bloody mark on Missouri and surrounding

Drago, Outlaws on Horseback, p. 1.

" Paul I. Wellman, A Dynasty of Western Outlaws (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1961), p. 20.

91

territory and was contrastingly revered and reviled by

the people, as their conduct and general behavior shifted:

public sentiment going against them for the brutal murders

incurred in holdups and raids, or shifting the other way

when, for example the Pinkerton detectives threw a bomb

into the home of Jesse and Frank's mother. The leader of

the gang was Jesse, who had followed his brother Frank into

the Quantrill group at age fifteen or sixteen and remained

with the guerilla leader until near the end of Quantrill's

career. Then the Jameses and Youngers entered permanently

into the profession for which their previous experience

had prepared them, that of outlawry on horseback, using

techniques learned from Quantrill and practiced vigorously

under demanding circumstances.

Jesse James, a cool-headed and resourceful bandit,

led a group of ten or so men as they proceeded to rob banks

and stagecoaches, and on one occasion the main office at

the Kansas City Fairgrounds. Jesse's career covered six­

teen years and two months, counting from his first holdup;

i.e., from his robbery of the Clay County Savings Bank and

Loan Association in Liberty, Missouri, February 13, 1866,

47 to his death on April 3, 1882. One of the unique

^^Drago, Outlaws on Horseback, p. 19. For accounts of the career of this outlaw, see Carl W. Breihan, The Day Jesse James Was Killed (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962); and William A. Settle, Jr., Jc pStj James Was His Name; or. Fact and Fiction Concerning the Career of the Notorious

92

contributions of the gang to outlawry was its proficiency

in the art of train robbery, some passenger trains carry­

ing gold shipments from California fields to the indus­

trialized East constituting exceedingly rich wages. In

48 all they robbed seven trains; and though they were blamed

for many incidents for which they were not responsible,

they were exceedingly active in the practice, staging

robberies on the average of one every nine months during

their careers.

One of Jesse's ablest men was Cole Younger, who

along with his brothers Bob, Jim, and John composed a

significant and stable element of the James-Younger Gang.

Cole began his career with Quantrill and as one of his

lieutenants, distinguished himself both in guerilla en-50

gagements and m stealing horses in the Indian territory

James Brothers of Missouri (Columbia: University of Mis­souri Press, 1966) in addition to those other sources foot­noted in this section.

48 Drago, Outlaws on Horseback, p. 39.

49 See Buel, The Border Outlaws, for a study of the

brothers. See especially in addition W. C. Bronaugh, The Youngers' Fight for Freedom: A Southern Soldier's Twenty Year's Campaign to Open Northern Prison Doors—with Anecdotes of War Days (Columbia, Mo.: E. W. Stephens Publishing Company, 1906); Carl W. Breihan, Younger Brothers (San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1961) ; and Homer Croy, Last of the Great Outlaws: The Story of Cole Younger (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1956).

50 See Buel, The Border Outlaws.

93

when the gang was gathering suitable mounts for the

Lawrence raid. Leaving Quantrill after the escape of the

leader from captivity at Bonham, Texas, Cole turned to

full-scale outlawry, perhaps just for the thrill of it,

though Captain Irvin Wally, commander of some federal

militia from Independence, may also have been part of the

impetus toward an outlaw's life, since the father of the

Younger boys, a sedate, legitimate business man, had been

killed by a group of men thought to have been led by Wally.

Since train robberies are the subject of several

Western ballads about the James-Younger gang, it will per­

haps be useful to comment on the methods and results of

several of the seven committed by the group. The gang

first robbed a train belonging to the Chicago, Rock Island,

and Pacific Railroad on July 21, 1873, in Adair, Iowa, in

which John Rafferty, the engineer, was scalded by a broken

steam pipe and the fireman badly burned. They next robbed

one of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern trains

51 at Gads Hill Station in Missouri on January 31, 1874.

The next two victims were the Kansas Pacific's Denver-

Kansas City train near Muncie, Kansas, and the Missouri

Pacific's Kansas City-St. Louis Flyer at Otterville near

Sedalia, Missouri. These were the only holdups in which

the Younger brothers actually participated, though the

51 Drago, Outlaws on Horseback, p. 56.

94

James brothers continued the practice after the Youngers

had been sent to prison following the James-Younger gang's

attempt to rob the bank in Northfield, Minnesota. The

other trains were a Chicago and Alton train at Glendale

52 Station on October 7, 1879, and a Rock Island train on

0

July 15, 1881. In this last robbery they killed the con­

ductor William Westphal, who had helped transport the

trainload of Pinkerton detectives to Kearney, Missouri, on

a raid of the James home. In that raid their mother had

lost an arm; the step-father Dr. Samuel, along with a

daughter and a Negro servant, had been wounded; and a young

son Archie killed when, according to reports, a lighted

grenade had been tossed into the home. The James brothers

were supposed to be hiding there at the time, but were

actually not. The last train robbery committed by the 53

James brothers was on another Chicago and Alton train.

The abortive robbery at Northfield, Minnesota, was

a severe blow to the James-Younger Gang, because it cost

them the services of the Younger brothers. The group had

gone to Minnesota to rob what they thought would be wealthy

banks held only by unsuspecting officials who would be

readily cowed. The gang selected the Northfield bank when

their first plan to rob the bank at Mankota had to be

^^Ibid., p. 78.

^^Ibid., pp. 80-81.

95

54 abandoned. The James brothers and Sam Wills, known by

the alias Charlie Pitts, sauntered into town, had a lei­

surely lunch, and positioned themselves close to the bank.

As the clock in the Lutheran Church struck one, the

Youngers with Bill Chadwell and Clell Miller raced into

town from two directions firing their pistols to clear the

streets. Then the first group, composed only of Jesse,

Frank, and Pitts, entered the bank. Cole and the others

remaining in the street to take care of any opposition.

The opposition that arose, however, was stronger than the

outlaws had expected. The citizens, led by Henry M. Wheeler,

a young medical student home for summer vacation, began

firing at the group from across the street, mostly with

rifles, some of which had been secured from the hardware

store. The resulting fire was devastating for the exposed

outlaws. Cole, wounded by a load of birdshot from a shot­

gun blast, was covered with blood and part of Jim's jaw

was shot away. Bob was wounded in the right elbow. Chad-

well and Miller lay dead in the street by the time the

inside group emerged. The amount of money they carried

was small, for they knew the rifle fire outside meant

trouble and had been reluctant to take the time to look

for more. Cole had earlier ridden up to the door to tell

them that the situation outside was bad, especially since

54 Ibid., p. 68.

96

the members of the gang had only pistols with which to

face the rifle fire which was coming from positions pro­

viding both cover and concealment. The remaining outlaws

left town quickly. Bob riding with Cole on one horse,

without even pausing to cut the telegraph lines to retard 0

the spread of the news of the robbery.

During a fierce manhunt which followed, Jesse and

Frank escaped to Missouri, but the Youngers and Charlie

Pitts were surrounded near Medelia, Minnesota, where Pitts

was killed and the Youngers captured. They were tried

and sentenced to life in prison in the Minnesota State

Penitentiary at Stillwater. In 1901 Cole was paroled,

and pardoned in 1903, after which he joined a reformed

Frank James in a Wild West Show and made enough money to

live until his death in 1916.

But the Northfield episode had not finished the

career of Jesse and Frank James, even though both settled

down to a more staid form of existence; Jesse marrying

Zerelda Mimms, by whom he had five children and Frank,

Annie Ralston. Jesse and his family had taken up resi­

dence in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he had assumed the

name of J. O. Howard, and which became the headquarters of

his outlaw activities. Here, bereft of his most capable

men because of the abortive Northfield robbery attempt, he

was forced to deal with men of inferior quality, among

them Robert and Charles Ford. With the Fords he made plans

/ /

97

on Sunday, March 28, to ride on a raid on the Platte City

Bank. As the story goes, Jesse and Charles had returned

to the house from currying the horses in the stable behind

the house. Jesse entered a bedroom, took off his coat

and vest, since the day was warm, and his two pistols so

that no one could see them if he walked in the yard. He

then stepped up onto a chair to dust some pictures. The

Fords, who had agreed earlier with Governor Thomas T.

Crittenden of Missouri to kill Jesse, saw their chance,

and Bob Ford shot Jesse in the back of the head with a

Colt .45 caliber pistol at the range of four feet. Jesse

55 tumbled to the floor dead.

People were enraged at this cowardly murder, and

the Fords, instead of becoming heroes, were despised,

receiving only about a hundred of the expected $10,000

reward. Charles, despondent, committed suicide four years

later, and "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard"

was killed in an argument over a woman in his saloon in

Creede, Colorado, ten years later, to bring to an insignifi­

cant close the colorful Jesse James saga.

55 Various records of the deed are available. One

is the St. Joseph Evening News of April 3, 1882. See George Henricks, The Bad Man of the West (Rev. ed., San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1959), pp. 182-184, for a reprinted version of the news item.

98

The career of Sam Bass^^ provides another color­

ful page of the story of outlaws on horseback. Born in

Indiana, he was orphaned at age twelve, after which he

went to live with an uncle named Dave Sheeks, who owned a

large farm and a lumber mill. Hard work was the order of

the day, every day, and Sam longed to go to Texas to what

he believed was the romantic life of a cowboy. An occur­

rence in his childhood which may have exerted an influence

later was the first train robbery in America by some

brothers named Reno, who had robbed an Ohio and Mississippi

train in 1866 just out of Seymour, Indiana. Sam broke

with his uncle in 1869 after an argument over Sam's coming

in late and his gambling. Leaving behind what few posses­

sions he had, he headed for Texas, determined to be a

cowboy. On the journey after working for a while in a

sawmill at Rosedale, Mississippi, he saved enough to buy

the horse and saddle he had always wanted, and in 1820 at

age nineteen left to make Texas his future home, settling

in the northern town of Denton.

56 The career and legend of Sam Bass are well

chronicled in the following studies: Will C. Brown, Sam Bass and Company (New York: Signet, 1960); Wayne Gard, Sam Bass (1936; rpt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969); Noel Grisham, Tame The Restless Wind: The Life and Legends of Sam Bass (Austin: San Felipe Press, 1968); John R. Hughes, The Killing of Bass Outlaw (Austin: The Brick Row Book Shop, 1965); and Charles Lee Martin, A Sketch of Sam Bass, the Bandit (1880; rpt; Norman: Uni­versity of Oklahoma Press, 1956).

99

It was in Denton that, as Gard says, Sam showed

57 "a passion for horse-racing,"-^' ultimately buying his own

horse, a mare named Jenny, more commonly known later as

the Denton mare, sired by Silver Dust, a famous quarter

horse in Texas. The horse was fast and seldom lost a race

while in her prime. But Sam gambled and drank or gave his

money away (it is said that he paid his jockey a hundred

dollars for each race), and became famous for his exorbi­

tant generosity.

Sam had originally come to Texas to be a cowboy,

and he did work at the trade for a time. With a man named

Joel Collins, he bought a herd of cattle on credit and

drove them up the trail and sold them; but hearing that

gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, they continued

with a smaller herd on up into Dakota Territory and spent

some time in Deadwood, where they gambled, drank, and lost

most of the $8,000 the herd had brought, most of which be­

longed to their creditors. While still in the north,

after other unsuccessful attempts at making money, such

as freighting and even one abortive stagecoach robbery,

he and Collins along with four other men, went south and

robbed a Union Pacific train at Big Spring, Nebraska, near

Ogalla, to launch a colorful career in crime though the

latter lasted for less than two years, the period between

57 Gard, Sam Bass, p. 40.

100

1877 and 1878. It was in this robbery that they came into

possession of the famous twenty-dollar eagles or gold

pieces thet are so frequently mentioned in Bass lore.

After the robbery they separated into pairs, and Joel

Collins and his partner Bill Heffridge were killed by a 0

posse which came after them. All had sworn not to be taken

alive, and these two were true to their pledge. Sam/how­

ever, and Jack Davis, his partner after the gang split up,

traded their horses for an old buggy and horse, and pre­

tending to be hard-luck farmers from Kansas, made their

way safely back to Texas. Sam, after a short stay in Ft.

Worth, returned to Denton, where he was soon spending his

money and planning new robberies. He gave part of his

stolen money to Jim Murphy to keep for him, informing him

that he had had good luck in Dakota and had changed his

dust into coins. Shortly afterward, Bass and his gang

robbed two stagecoaches in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and

at least four trains within a period of two months with

moderate success, though some of the robberies netted only

slight amounts of cash.

Sam's companions in these robberies were usually

the same, except for some replacement of those who were

killed or quit. Frank Jackson, a tinsmith, rode with him

in Texas as Joel Collins had in Dakota. Arkansas Johnson

was cincthor of Sam's men, but his end came when he was

shot in a gun fight, probably by Sgt. Thomas Floyd of the

101

Texas Rangers, though several Rangers were involved in the

episode. One of Sam's early friends on the side of the law

was Sheriff Dad Egan, who tried to help the boy at first

by giving him a job, but later dismissing him when Sam got

involved with bad company because of his dealings with the

Denton mare. Egan was later involved in the final breakup

of Bass's empire.

Bass' end came through his betrayal by Jim Murphy,

whom Bass had given some of the Union Pacific gold to keep

for him and who belonged to a family which had always been

faithful supporters and protectors of Sam and his gang.

Murphy had been arrested for harboring Sam and put in jail

in Tyler, Texas, but made a deal with Major John B. Jones

of the Texas Rangers to betray Bass. The betrayal was

accomplished at Round Rock, Texas, near which Bass was en­

camped for the purpose of robbing the bank. On Murphy's

information the Rangers had also come to Round Rock for

the purpose of apprehending Bass. Sam and his group had

come into town on Saturday to buy supplies that they would

need during and after their escape, and a deputy sheriff,

unaware of their identity, attempted to arrest them for

carrying pistols; whereupon Sam, Jackson, and Barnes

opened fire on the deputy and killed him. The Rangers

hearing the gunfire joined in the fray, killing Barnes and

wounding Sam in the hand and the abdomen. Jackson helped

Bass to his horse and the two sped away with Jackson holding

102

Bass in the saddle. But because of Sam's weakness they

could proceed no further than their camp just outside town;

Jackson, at Bass' insistence, rode away, leaving the

fatally wounded bandit. The Rangers returned Bass next

day to Round Rock, where he died on Sunday, June 21, 1878, 0

his twenty-seventh birthday.

Though his career in crime was short, the legend

and lore of Sam Bass have become extensive, with a strong

emphasis on the Robin Hood motif in his activities. Ap­

parently Bass would not leave any of his victims completely

destitute; on several occasions he assured himself that

they were left with enough" money for meals and transporta­

tion. Since during the whole course of his depredations

he had killed only one man—the deputy sheriff at Round

Rock—he failed to arouse the type of opposition which had

occurred with respect to the James-Younger Gang, who, for

example, often murdered their victims. The legend of

Bass' many daring escapes and his friendly relationships

with people is often reminiscient of the deeds of the hero

of the Robin Hood songs.

One of the most famous of the Western outlaws,

though known more as a gunfighter—or more precisely a

killer—than as a holdup artist or cattle and horse thief . , 58 ^

was William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid. Much has

^^The life of this young but widely known killer is told, with various amounts of elaboration and flair.

103

been written about him, and the accounts of his exploits

have grown all out of proportion to the provable facts.

Thus the published literature on the subject is filled

with legend and speculation; such as Billy's death, for

59 example, at the hands of Pat Garrett. The truth of the

matter is that the authentic facts about Billy the Kid are

much scantier than the deeds attributed to him by the

legend.

According to the basic facts of Billy's career,

he was born in New York City on November 23, 1859. At an

early age his father died; and the family moved to Kansas,

where his mother remarried when the youth was about five

in the following sources: Ramon F. Adams, A Fitting Death for Billy the Kid (Norroan: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960); William Brent, The Complete and Factual Life of Billy the Kid (New York: Frederick Fell, 1944); Walter N. Bums, The Saga of Billy the Kid (New York: Doubleday, 1926); Edwin Corle, Billy the Kid (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1953); Pat Garrett, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, The Noted Desperado of the Southwest, Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood Made His Name a Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico (New ed.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954); William Lee Hamlin, The True Story of Billy the Kid (Caldwell, Id.: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1959); Frazier Hunt, The Tragic Days of Billy the Kid (New York: Hastings House, 1956); William A. Keleher, Violence in Lincoln County (Albuquerque: Uni­versity of New Mexico Press, 1957); Miguel Otero, The Real Billy the Kid (Elmira, N. Y.: Wilson-Erickson, 1936); and John W. Poe, The Death of Billy the Kid (1922; rpt., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933).

See C. L. Sonnichsen and William V. Morrison, Alias Billy the Kid (Albuquerque: University of New Mexix) Press, 1955), for a discussion of one who claims to be the famous outlaw long after he was supposed dead.

104

years of age. The mistreatment of his mother and her son

by the stepfather is often cited as one cause of Billy's

career in crime. According to the accounts he killed his

first man when he was twelve in a barroom in Silver City,

New Mexico. From then to the Lincoln County war, he left

a trail of murder and horse theft, typical victims being

a soldier blacksmith at Fort Bowie and a Mexican named

Jos6 Martinez.

The Lincoln County conflict in New Mexico erupted

in the spring of 1877 and continued for almost two years.

Billy was originally on the side of the Murphy-Sloan ele­

ment against the Chisum-McSween-Tunstall element. Later

when Tunstall, who had befriended him, was killed, Billy

launched a career of revenge which resulted in a gunman's

career ending only with his own death. Subsequent to the

Lincoln County war Billy had turned to cattle rustling

and horse stealing, but he and his gang were finally ar­

rested by Pat Garrett, famous for his own exploits as a

sheriff and the man who according to the accounts finally

accomplished Billy's demise. Billy was convicted of the

murder of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady in 1878,

but he did not remain long incarcerated in the Lincoln

County jail, for he shot his two jailers, a deputy sheriff

named Bell and a deputy marshall named dinger, and escaped.

Billy's death occurred in 1881 in the Maxwell House in

Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where he had gone to secure a

105

piece of meat for his supper. Though without his hat or

boots, he did have his pistol with him, but, according to

Garrett, for some reason he hesitated in reaching for his

revolver and Garrett shot him down in the darkened room.

He was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Sumner on

July 15, thus ending a colorful and bloody career.

During his career in crime Billy was aided and

abetted by numerous friends, many of whom stemmed from the

days of the war. One example is a young Mexican, who, as

one authority theorizes, hid a pistol in the Lincoln

County jail outhouse to which Billy was taken by the deputy

Bell just before his escape. It was with this pistol that

he killed the deputy. Others hid him at various times dur­

ing his flight from the law, but even on such occasions

he often openly flaunted the law by appearing in public

places. Because of his reputation as a killer and because

of his friends, he was thus able to survive under rigorous

circumstances for a comparatively long time. Garrett's

bullets ended the career of a man who, legend says, killed

twenty-one men in his twenty-one years. That the number

is inaccurate is commonly accepted, but that there were

many who breathed easier once the outlaw was dead is cer­

tainly true.

Many of the outlaws of the West, during their slack

seasor>«=.- engaged in stealing horses and cattle. The steal­

ing of a horse was the most heinous of crimes in the West,

106

and the culprit's fate was norroally hanging. According

to Gard, the horse thief was the lowest form of outlaw;

"Of all the frontier villains, the horse thief was held in

the greatest contempt and was punished the most quickly

and severely when caught. In the more sparsely settled

areas, any horse thief who was caught could expect to be 60

hanged immediately." Since a man's horse was often the

difference between life and death in the arid West, taking

a man's animal was a despicable crime, being, as Gard says, 61

"considered a vicious type of murder." Such vigilante

justice, however, did not prevent rustling, and the steal­

ing of cattle was a fairly common occurrence. When un­

branded cattle were to be found in abundance, all a man

needed to do to start or build a herd was to put his mark

on an animal and he owned it. And he could also claim it

if he could "run" or change an already existing brand and

make it look like his own. Among other possibilities was

the driving off of someone else's cattle from the unfenced

range and selling them some distance away. If the buyer

could get away with the cattle, or slaughter them, he could

get cattle cheaply enough to make the risk worthwhile. As

^^Wayne Gard, "The Law of the American West," The Book of the West, ed. Jay Monaghan (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1963), p. 264.

^^Ibid.

107

Charles Siringo divulges in the narrative of his travels,^^

the tracking of cattle which had either become lost by

straying, or which had'been stolen, was a problem confront­

ing ranchers throughout the cattle country: though, as

Gard notes, after the advent of barbed wire, ranchers be­

gan to look upon cattle stealing as a more serious crime

than previously when cattle had multiplied freely on the

open range. In later times losses were less obviously

a matter of alterations by free-lance branding of un­

branded calves by beginners building up their own herds

under such circumstances. Many a man found himself on the

wrong side of the law and subject to the rough and ready

justice of the times.

62 Charles Siringo, A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years

on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony (1885; rpt. Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 1966), pp. 111-116.

GOLD SEEKERS, IMMIGRANTS, AND SETTLERS

Three other important factors in settlement of the

West were the persecution of the religious group known as

the Mormans or Latter Day Saints, the discovery of gold in

California, and the implementation of mining and farming.

Ultimately these forces opened the way for the transcon­

tinental rail lines and their subsidiary systems, which

would bind America together with bands of steel.

Mormons

The Mormon migration-^ was strongly motivated by a

quest for religious freedom under the able leadership of

For discussion of Mormons and their history, see John Hanson Beadle, Life in Utah; or. The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1870), William Alexander Linn, The Story -of the Mormons: From the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 (New York: Russell and Russell, Inc., 1963); Wallace Stegner, Mormon Country (Duell, Sloam and Pearce, 1942); and Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1947). See also Nels Anderson, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942); Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1886 (San Francisco: History Com­pany, 1889); Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960); Milton R. Hunter, Brigham Young the Colonizer (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1940), and Milton R. Hunter, Utah: The Story of Her People, 1540-1948 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1956) ; William Mulder, Homeward to Zion: The Mormon Migration from Scandinavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957); M. R. Werner, Brigham Young (New York: Harcourt, Brace, '\^'?'^) • and Levi E. Young, The Founding of Utah (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923) .

108

109

Brigham Young. The original colony, formed at Great Salt

Lake in the present state of Utah in 1847, was later aug­

mented by converts from Europe and other areas, who came

prompted by false promises of the good life in Mormon 2

country. After much ini t ia l deprivation and want, the *

colony began to make progress in turning the desolate

waste into productive farmland through the use of irri­

gation. Since the Mormons were dedicated to developing

a self-sustaining commonwealth free from outside influ­

ence, they resented the passing through their domain of

the immigrants bound for the California gold fields, be­

cause some of the travelers might decide to settle in

Mormon country.

One way to keep such intruders out, as Miller

writes, "was to call members on missions to colonize a

region which Church leaders wanted occupied." Colonies

founded on this principle were placed in Arizona, Nevada,

California, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, eastern,

central, and southern Utah, and in some foreign countries.

^Linn, The Story of the Mormons, pp. 411-412.

3 David E. Miller, Hole-in-the Rock: An Epic of

the Colonization of the Great American West (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1959), p. 3. See also Joel Edward Ricks, Forms and Methods of Early Mormon Settlement in Utah and the Surrounding Region, 1857-1877, Utah State University Press Monograph Series, Vol. XI (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1964), pp. 68-69.

110

One of these groups was located on the southwestern edge

of the present state of Utah in the Virgin River Valley,

where Washington was settled in 1855 as a cotton experi-

. . 4 ment in "Utah's Dixie."

Headed for points further West, immigrants who

crossed Mormon territory were often subjected to violence,

and even murder. Among several outright murders of out­

siders by Mormons is the killing of the members of the

5 Aiken party, a group of six men who, m order to be more

secure from Indian attack, joined a Mormon wagon train

traveling to Utah Territory from San Francisco in May,

1857. When the train reached Mormon territory, the people

in the Aiken party were arrested and charged with being

federal spies, the Mormon's relationship with the govern­

ment of the United States not being friendly at that time.

Following a previously agreed upon plan, the Mormons,

among them O. P. Rockwell and Bill Hickman, killed the

members of the group. Other acts include the murder of

Dr. J. K. Robinson in 1866, as well as other attacks on

both Mormons and non-Mormons alike.

"^Workers of the Writer's Program of the Works Projects Administration for the State of Utah, Utah: A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), p. 302.

^Linn, The Story of the Mormons, pp. 450-451.

Ibid., pp. 554-555.

Ill

One outstanding incident of this sort is the in-7

famous Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, in which more

than one hundred twenty California-bound immigrants from

Arkansas were slaughtered by Mormons and Indians, for

reasons largely unknown, though one cause can easily be

cited. Hatred against anyone from Arkansas was easily

aroused by Mormon leaders, because Park P. Pratt, a Mormon,

had persuaded the wife of Hector H. McLean, a non-Mormon

in California, to become a member of the sect and be one

of his wives. Enraged, McLean followed Pratt to Houston,

Texas, and finally to Van Buren, Arkansas, where he had

Pratt arrested. When Pratt was released from jail, McLean o

killed him. This murder understandably caused ill will

among the Mormons toward anyone from Arkansas.

The actual slaughter of the immigrants occurred

in a place called Mountain Meadows, some three hundred or

so miles south of Salt Lake City. Prompted by Mormon

leaders, Paiute Indians attacked the train as it was en­

camped, but so strongly did the immigrants defend them­

selves for nearly a week that it became apparent that the

Indians would become discouraged and quit before the goal

was reached. Under new strategy John D. Lee and other

" See Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (2d ed.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962).

8 Linn, The Story of the Mormons, p. 519.

112

Mormons approached the train posing as rescuers of the

beseiged group. They convinced the travelers to surrender

to them under the ruse that the Indians would allow the

group to pass unharmed if the travelers would surrender

their arms to their "protectors." Since the supplies

necessary for defense were almost exhausted, the group

followed the suggestion of the Mormons. Immediately there­

after the people were separated into groups by age and sex,

the Mormons killed all of the men, and the Indians swept

down on the women and older children. The wounded, the

smaller children, and the weapons were in two wagons ahead

of the group, and the oldest of the children and all of

the wounded were killed. The surviving children were put

into Mormon homes to be reared, but contrary to the belief

of Mormon leaders, some of the young children were old

enough to remember the deed, recalling details of it later

under questioning by outside authorities. Unsatisfactory

attempts were made to bury the dead after they were strip­

ped, and their possessions were plundered to be sold at

auction in Salt Lake City. The men made a vow to keep the

deed a secret, but by the next spring the bones of the

victims lay scattered by wild animals all over the area

of the slaughter.

All of these deeds the Mormons performed through

the desire to keep the territory firmly under their control,

evidently feeling no qualms in committing such acts.

113

John D. Lee, later executed for his part in the Mountain

Meadows Massacre, stated that he was told by Mormon lead­

ers before the attack that he would "receive a crown of

celestial glory" for his part in the affair. Many recu­

sant Mormons were murdered by "Indians" after 1852, but

these "Indians" usually had good rifles, did not use arrows

for killing, and spoke good English.

The practice of blood atonement provided another

frequently employed means of keeping members in line. Linn

calls it "in reality . . . the doctrine of human sacri­

fice,* though based on the Mormon interpretation of the

Biblical statement that the shedding of blood is necessary

for the remission of sin. In their hands the practice

became a way of silencing opposition in members, keeping

anyone from leaving the locale in which they had been

settled, and in the case of some church leaders, gaining

private ends. One such case is that of Bishop Warren Snow

of Manti, who had the suitor of a young woman castrated so

that the woman would have no choice but to marry the bishop,

who already had several wives. The Mormons dominated

^Ibid., p. 529.

••- Beadle, Life in Utah, p. 173.

•'-•'•Linn, The Story of the Mormons, p. 454.

•'• Ibid. , p. 457. See Beadle, Life in Utah, p. 174, for additional cases.

114

their wives completely, and the doctrine of blood atone­

ment could be applied to the women as well. For example,

one woman who had been guilty of adultery confessed her

infidelity to her husband, kneeled before him, kissed him,

and then allowed him to cut her throat.

In the 1850's the resentment against the Mormons

by other citizens of the country was extreme, and the

situation in Utah Territory had become so severe that a

13

state of rebellion seemed to exist. To control the situ­

ation General Albert Sidney Johnston was sent to the area

in 1857 with a force charged to maintain order and enforce

loyalty of the people to the laws of the United States.

14 They were to serve as a "posse comitatis." In response

to this move by the federal government, Brigham Young sum­

moned his forces, which were well equipped and efficient,

and began a guerilla type of warfare against Johnston's

forces and supply trains. The result was that many fed­

eral supply trains were burned and animals stolen. Since

the conflict never became too severe, the Mormon War never

assumed large proportions.

When Brigham Young died, he was succeeded by John

Taylor, who directed the work of the church even while

"'•" Linn, The Story of the Mormons, p. 482

l^Ibid.

115

hiding to prevent arrest for practicing polygamy, one of

the chief causes for distrust and even hatred of the Mor­

mons by others. Pronounced as policy by Brigham Young

in 1852, this doctrine, based on a dream of the father of

Mormonism, Joseph Smith, has been the basis for much 0

criticism of the Mormons; and a law passed by the United

States Congress against this practice seemed directed

specifically at the Utah group, since they were the most

ardent practicers of this form of marital relationship.

Story and song have much to say about these Mormons, with

their many wives and the lurid crimes enacted in the name

of their religion.

The Discovery of Gold

The discovery of gold at John August Sutter's mill

15 on the American River in January, 1848, added a new

15 In addition to works cited specifically m foot­

notes, see John Walton Caughey, History of the Pacific Coast of North America (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1938); William S. Greever, The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 (Norman: Univer­sity of Oklahoma Press, 1963); Archer Butler Hulbert, Forty-Niners; The Chronicle of the California Trail (Bos­ton: Little, Brown and Company, 1931); Marvin Lewis, ed.. The Mining Frontier: Contemporary Accounts from the American West in the Nineteenth Century (Norman: Univer­sity of Oklahoma Press, 1967); Rodman W. Paul, California Gold: The Beginning of Mining in the Far West (Cam­bridge: Harvard University Press, 1947); G. C. Quiett, Pay Dirt: A Panorama of American Gold Rushes (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1936), Thomas Arthur Rickard, A Hictcry of American Mining (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1932) ; Charles Howard Shinn, Mining Camps:

116

dimension to the advancement of settlement in the West.

Klappholz says of the event: "This was the beginning of

a new era; countless men became famous; territories became

states; industries grew as men hungered with the want of

gold and made their way over treacherous trails, and

crossed oceans and streams in search of it."'' ^ James W.

Marshall, who actually discovered the initial deposit,

and Sutter, who had the land under lease, profited little

from their efforts and were all but overcome by the mob of

people who flooded into the area of the strike. The invad­

ing men with ideas of quick wealth came to be known as

Forty-Niners, for it was not until the next year that they

were able to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range after

the melting snows allowed them to pass. When conditions

permitted, they came by all manner of transport: by ships,

by wagons, on horses and mules, and on foot.

Those who came by ship went either around Cape Horn

or by ship to the Isthmus of Panama, then across by land,

and from there on another ship to California. To cope with

the vast demand for transportation many "old and unseaworthy

A Study of American Frontier Government (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885); and Stewart E. White, The Forty Niners: A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918).

l^Lowell Klappholz, Gold! Gold! (New York: Robert M. McBride Company, 1959), p. 33.

117

vessels . . . were pressed into . . . service, "•'• the

latter, in addition, being manned and often overcrowded.

The dangers at sea around Cape Horn were many, but so were

the hazards of a trip across the isthmus and its unhealthy

swamps and other hazards. Food for the travelers was

poor at best, for profiteering was a primary motive among

those who provided the travel by sea.

Using the Oregon Trail, many prospectors headed

for California overland, via the Oregon Trail, turning

off the Trail at Fort Hall in the present state of Idaho

on another trail that came to be known as the California

Trail. Like the sea journeys, these trips were anything

but pleasant; and large numbers of people and animals died

on the way. Early records bear witness to a seemingly

never-ending series of graves and discarded goods along

the trail. The transition from civilized life to life

on the trail was difficult. The emotional strain of danger

and boredom took as deadly a toll. Dick describes the life

on the trail as devoid of diversion, except when Indians

came to the camp to trade with the travelers. He states

further that

the pilgrims lived a narrow, circumscribed life. Their thoughts, hopes, fears, and anxieties all centered about the train, the health of the com­pany, grass and water for the stock, fuel for

17 Ibid., p. 23.

118

cooking, and the dread of Indians. Their lives scarcely extended beyond the moving cloud of dust that enveloped them on their westward way. Day in and day out the monotonous tramp con­tinued with scarcely a break.1^

All circumstances considered, the trip to Califor­

nia was both unpleasant and dangerous, whichever means of

travel was chosen. The great tragedy of the rush, of

course, was that few of the horde of gold hunters who made

the arduous journey and faced the privation of life in the

gold fields actually struck it rich. To make it even worse,

much of the gear necessary for both living and working the

new land had been lost or abandoned on the trail, and the

cost of all goods purchased at the end of the trek sky­

rocketed. Life was hard, and most of the people were ill-

equipped to cope with the new routine. Many, indeed, had

turned back on the trail when they saw how life was and

even more quit as it grew apparent that not all could be

19 expected to become rich. Nonetheless, when new strikes

were made, miners who had been unsuccessful in finding a

rich strike where they were rushed to new areas in hope of

finding quick wealth. Great strikes were reported in Colo­

rado, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and

•'- Everett Dick, Vanguards of the Frontier: A _Social History of the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains from the Fur Traders to the Sod Busters (1941; rpt., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1941), p. 245.

l^Ibid., pp. 251-252.

119

British Columbia during the 1850's and 1860's.^^ In 1874

a later strike was reported in the Black Hills of Dakota,

with a consequent boom of such mining towns as Custer,

21

Deadwood, Rapid City, and others. But this time, ac­

cording to Dick, "transportation had so improved that the

gold-seeker could ride most of the way by train or steamer

22 and stage-coach."

Immigrants and Settlers

Like the Spanish treasure hunters, the gold seekers

of the American West were a transient group, especially

those who did not make a quick or substantial strike. But

they did promote extensive movement on the frontier and

stimulated movement to the areas by people in a variety of

23

pursuits. The "first avowed homeseekers" came to the

Pacific Coast in 1841, but following the discovery of gold,

mostly miners flocked to the area. In their wake, however,

came masses of immigrants to the new areas of the West.

^^Klappholz, Gold! Gold!, p. 32.

-'•Robert Joseph Casey, The Black Hills and Their Incredible Characters: A Chronicle and a Guide (Indian­apolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1949), p. 49.

22 Dick, Vanguards of the Frontier, pp. 254-255.

^^LeRoy Hafen and Carl Coke Rister, Western America: The Exploration, Settlement, and Development of the Region Beyond the Mississippi (2d. ed.; Englewood Cliff's, N. J. : Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1950), p. 320.

120

Part of the new settlers consisted of disappointed gold

seekers who gave up their dreams of wealth in the gold

24 fields to pursue farming. Others came from the East

expecting to wrest a living from the soil by farming it.

The railroads later helped promote agriculture on the

Plains in order to increase their profits.^^ Though early

immigrants had seen the Plains as a barrier to cross in

order to get to the locale in which they wanted to settle,

settlers by 1854 were crowding the ninety-eighth meridian

in Kansas and Nebraska, settling on the land.

The greatest influx into the Plains came in the

early 1870's following the passage of the Homestead Act

of 1862, which allowed a qualified head of a household to

settle one hundred sixty acres (eighty in some areas) for

26 a fee of $18.00. Settlers by the thousands came to the

Plains on these claims, only to find survival difficult in

a hostile country. Drought was a constant problem, espe-

27 cially during 1885-1886 and in the 1890's, as were also

^^Everett Dick, The Sod House Frontier, 1854-1890: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas and Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1937), p. 17.

^-'Carl Frederick Kraenzel, The Great Plains m Transition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955), p. 145.

26 Dick, The Sod House Frontier, p. 118.

27 '"Kraenzel, The Great Plains m Transition, p. 141

121

hail/ grasshoppers, blizzards, downpours, heat, and dust.

Though population fluctuated as the years were seasonable

or unseasonable, the press of newcomers continued to in­

crease until most of the land was taken, though some of

it not until after World War I. The area became known as

the Sod House Frontier, for building materials such as

lumber and stone were not present in sufficient quantity

on the treeless stretches. The answer to the problem of

housing was found in either a dugout, a house formed from

a hole dug into an incline or hill and roofed over with

timbers and covered with sod; or a sod house with the walls

made of sod cut from the prairie and roofed with the same

material. Fuel for cooking and heating was afforded by

cow and buffalo chips where they were available, but

twisted hay was all that was available to many. But arid­

ity, as well as the absence of timber on the Plains, was

a formidable deterrent to the development of the type of

life possible in the older parts of the nation; for, al­

though the land was rich and produced abundantly when

adequate rainfall occurred, rainfall was totally unpredic­

table in this semi-arid region. After the Civil War the

28 "myth of the garden" was created to suggest that the

2%enry Nashe Smith, Virgin Land: The American-West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 175.

122

area was becoming more humid, and many believed that plant­

ing timber and plowing the land would increase this humid-

ity. The idea was erroneous, as the droughts of the late

1880's and the 1890's proved.

Irrigation seemed to promise stability for the

' 30 agricultural use of the Plains. Some Indian tribes had

once utilized the practice even before the Spanish came,

and the Mormons were successful in diverting streams to

produce abundant crops in the wastes of the far West. But

on the Plains there were no such streams in many areas,

and the streams present were in canyons, not up on the

level of the land on which- the water was needed. Efforts

to find subterranean supplies were begun in the 1870's, but

as Clark notes, water in sufficient amounts for irrigating

crops was rarely found. Wells on the XIT Ranch and the

Francklyn Land and Cattle Company holdings in Texas, for

^^Donald E. Green, Land of the Underground Rain: Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1910-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), pp. 20-21.

^^See particularly William E. Smythe, The Conquest of Arid America (2nd ed. ; New York: The Macmillan Com­pany, 1905). Green, The Land of Underground Rain, pp. 241-275, has an excellent bibliography of the development of irrigation on the Plains, especially in Texas.

•'•Dan Elbert Clark, The West in American History (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1937), p. 615.

123

example, furnished enough for drinking by people and cat­

tle, but not for agriculture.^^ Artesian water, that which

will flow to the surface when tapped, was scarce, but there

proved to be a considerable quantity of nonartesian sub­

surface water available through the use of windmills and

pumps, a source called by some, "underground rain."^^ Not

all areas had this water available, yet men continued to

look for it, though often unsuccessfully in some locales.

Many people did not believe irrigation from underground

water to be feasible, but, as in most developments, a few

men continued to believe in the idea and saw it come to

fruition.

34 Transportation

The wholesale movement of population into the West

heightened the need for transportation into and within the

new areas, and the demand was met in various ways, depend­

ing on what was available, the promise of lucrative profits

^^Green, The Land of Underground Rain, pp. 6, 8.

-3 0

^•^Zenas E. Black, "The Land of Underground Rain, " The Earth, XI (April, 1914), 13-14.

^'^Histories of the development of animal-powered transportation are numerous. In addition to those cited specifically, the following are helpful: Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America (New York: Tudor Press, 1937); Nick Eggenhofer, Wagons, Mules and Men: How the Frontier Moved West (New York: Hastings House Publishers. 1961); LeRoy R. Hafen, The Overland Mail, 1849-1869: Promoter of Settlement, Precursor of Railroads (Cleveland:

124

being quite real. Where waterways were available, crafts

ranging from rafts to steamboats satisfied the demand.

Overland transportation grew with the development of wag­

ons to haul freight and stagecoaches to handle passenger

service. The widespread use of wagons for trans-continen-0

tal hauling became feasible when in 1832 Captain Benjamin

L. Bonneville first moved a wagon train across the Rocky

35 Mountains. A wagon could carry more freight than the

same number of horses used to pull it could carry in packs,

and the wagon was easier to protect from Indians or rob­

bers. The immigrants drove their own wagons, but drivers

The A. H. Clark Company, 1926); William F. Hooker, The Prairie Schooner (Chicago: Saul Brothers, 1918); Tur-rentine W. Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1864-1869 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952); Robert Malcolm Kier, The March of Commerce (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927) ; Ralph Moody, Stagecoach West (New York: Thom-s Y. Crowell Company, 1967); Agnes Wright Spring, The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and. Express Routes (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1949); George R. Taylor, The Transporta­tion Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Rinehart, 1951); Oscar O. Winther, Express and Stagecoach Days in Califor­nia, from the Gold Rush to the Civil War (Stanford, Calif. Stanford University Press, 1936) ; Oscar 0. Winther, Via Western Express and Stagecoach (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1945); and Oscar O. Winther, Transporta­tion on the Trans-Mississippi West Frontier, 1865-1890 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964).

^^Oscar Osborn Winther, "Transportation in the American West, " The Book of the American West, ed. "by jay Monaghan (New York: vTulian Messner, Inc., 1963), pp. 105-106.

125

of commercial freighters were characters of their own type

and were known by various titles: the term "bull whacker,"

describes the man who had to "whack" the oxen pulling the

wagon to keep them moving and the term "mule skinner"

describes one whose wagon was pulled by teams of mules,

which were faster than the oxen. Cattle were used more

often than mules or horses to pull the wagons because they

could subsist on the forage they gathered along the way.

By 1843 the prairie schooners, or Conestoga wagons, with

great white billowing canvas tops, made their contribution

to the story of the great migration westward.

One mode of passenger and mail service, the stage­

coach, evolved from the coach and four popular in the time

of Queen Elizabeth I, was by 1820 in operation west of the

. 37 Mississippi. As the cowboy was the apex of one phase

of Western life, so the driver of the coach was the "key

38 figure in stagecoach transportation." Winthers describes

him as follows:

Although variously characterized in the literature of the day as taciturn, loquacious, sober, depend­able and all the rest, he had to be, first of all.

p. 116

•3 r:

Dick, Vanguards of the Frontier, p. 347.

" " Winther, "Transportation in the American West,"

^^Ibid., p. 118.

126

a master at the reins. His fingers controlled the activities of spirited mustangs that usually took the road at a goodly gallop. He was responsible as well for the comfort and safety of his passen­gers and had to be able to drive over roads so convulsed with curves that, as was said, "the horses could eat from the baggage boot." in addition it was up to the driver to collect the passenger tickets and try to hold, insofar as possible, to a fixed schedule from one station to the next, usually a distance of ten to twenty miles.-^^

That he was a colorful figure is undeniable, and several

of them gained a popularity making them a kind of folk

hero.

40 The coming of the transcontinental railroad sys­

tem was a great aid to traffic and freight going both

ways, and grants of land given to the railroads opened

up additional settlement along these bands of steel. When

the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads met

at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869, a great step

had beer made in binding this country into one nation.

39 Ibid

40 See John Moody, The Railroad Builders (New Haven

Yale University Press, 1919); Robert E. Riegel, The Story of Western Railroads (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926); James McCague, Moguls and Iron Men: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1964); Robert West Howard, The Great Iron Trail: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962); and Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants: Building the First Transcon­tinental Railroad (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1962).

127

Construction pushed forward feverishly until rail service

for the entire nation was eventually accessible. A new

era of travel and transportation opened up across the

entire country.

The conditions under which the roads were built 0

proved brutal, the work lasting from daylight to dark,

with many lives lost in accidents and to the Indians.

The work of the surveyors, graders, and bridge gangs

sometimes strung out for two hundred miles in advance of

the end of the track of the Union Pacific line in its 41 westward push. During the winter, the work was not

stopped, and ice and snow made the work even more hazard­

ous. But at long last the track was completed, and the

flow of goods and gold increased. As Dick sums up the

saga of the coming of adequate transportation to the West:

The discovery of gold led to the establishment of permanent systems of transportation and communi­cation—the stage-coach. Pony Express, telegraphy, and the railroad—opening a new era on the northern plains and mountains and leading to the coming of the permanent homemaker, the farmer, and the town-builder.'^^

"^^Dick, Vanguards of the Frontier, pp. 370-374

A o '"Ibid., p. 255.

PART TWO: THE SONGS

SONGS OF THE RANGE AND TRAIL:

THE COWBOY AT WORK

J. Frank Dobie in his Guide to Life and Literature

of the Southwest has mentioned that he was not so much

interested in the fact that the first trail herd of long­

horn cattle reached the market in Abilene, Kansas, in 1867,

as in the truth revealed of the character and motivation

of those men who drove the herd. The same significant

insight into frontier life is offered by the songs in Cow­

boy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, for they record with

equal sharpness the attitudes and reactions of the fron­

tiersmen in general and the cowboys in particular. As

Lomax remarks in his article on cowboy songs in Encyclo­

pedia Britannica, "The whole cycle of the cowboy's experi­

ence—its monotony, its fun, its heroes, its love affairs,

its dangers, and the epics of the long drives overland

from Texas to Montana—is set forth in the songs made and

sung by the men themselves." The same observation could

Ij. Frank Dobie, Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest (Rev. ed., Dallas, Southern Methodist Univcr' sity Press, 1952), p. 13.

2John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943, IX, 448.

128

129

have been made with respect to his own collection as well.

As will be shown in this and the following sections, the

songs in the latter deal variously with the major aspects

of the cowboy's life and belief: his experiences with the

land and his occupation; his attitudes toward himself and 0

his fellows; his personal and social relationships; and

the particular quality of his fundamental beliefs regard­

ing death and the Deity.

The Quality of the Land

Although a sense of the Western landscape permeates

almost all of the songs in Lomax's volume, it is especially

evident in two songs, "Hell in Texas" and "A Home on the

Range," both of which offer a cross section view of the

Western setting. The wild, rough nature of the land south

of San Antonio, Texas, on which the cowboy way of life

originally developed is realistically but humorously

depicted in the song "Hell in Texas" (No. 68). Much of

this area is quite arid with much shrub-like brush—chap­

arral and mesquite—and the ever present cacti. The one

quality that all three have in common is that they prove

painful and dangerous to the cowboy and his horse as they

chase cattle through the brush or attempt to oust them

from those areas so thickly overgrown that the less co­

operative outlaw cattle may hide and successfully defy the

cowboy to come get them. It is in this kind of country

130

that chaps or leather leggings and "brush" jackets of

heavy canvas or leather were absolute necessities and thus

became part of the cowboy's traditional costume.

In "Hell in Texas" Satan, after being in Hell for

"a thousand years," decides that he will start a Hell of

his own so that he can "torment the souls of men" even

more readily. The Lord agrees to give Satan some land on

the Rio Grande River left over "when he made the land."

This ground, the Lord says, is "so poor / I don't think

you could use it in hell anymore" (11. 11-12) . After look­

ing it over, the devil concludes that it is "too dry for

hell," but remedies the situation by outfitting it appro­

priately by putting fleas in the sand with plenty of taran­

tulas, snakes, ants, mesquites, and sand burs on the side

to pester man. His ultimate gesture is to put thorns on

the trees and horns on the cattle. The song concludes:

The heat in the summer is a hundred and ten. Too hot for the devil and too hot for men. The wild boar roams through the black chaparral,— It's a hell of a place he has for a hell. The red pepper grows on the banks of the brook; The Mexicans use it in all that they cook. Just dine with a Greaser and then you will shout, "I've hell on the inside as well as the out!"

(11. 41-48)

Perhaps the most famous song on the land in Lomax' s

collection is "A Home on the Range" (No. 7 2), an extremely

popular and somewhat idealized view of the grasslands.

The latter, it may be noted, are relatively free of the

thorny brush mentioned in "Hell in Texas." It was in

131

areas such as this that ranching became popular following 3

the suppression of the Indians. As a matter of fact, as

the song suggests, the Indians have been completely pushed

from "the banks of Red River," which forms the southern

dividing line between Texas and Oklahoma. The song begins:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam. Where the deer and the antelope play. Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Home, home on the range. Where the deer and the antelope play; Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day.

(11. 1-8)

The view of the heaven pictured here is a startlingly beau­

tiful one, since there are no trees and the whole panorama

is visible from one horizon to another. The description

throughout "A Home on the Range" is highly idealized and

includes reference to the beauty of the land and to the

swan and curlew, both aquatic birds which seem out of

place on the prairies, though, it should be pointed out,

the whistling swan does migrate from the Artie to Mexico

and the Red River is conceivably in the path of the migra­

tion. And the curlew, a fairly large bird with a long

bill, does frequent these areas in the summer. Therefore,

two details which might seem incongruous to a casual reader

^Odie B. Faulk, Land of Many Frontiers: A History of the American Southwest (Nev7 York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 239.

132

are legitimate. The song ends with a statement of the

speaker's complete contentment with the range.

The Cowboy's Life and Point of View

The life of a cowboy was actually not nearly so

romantic as it is imagined by those who admire it from a

distance of time and space, and several of the songs give

a quite accurate view of the day-to-day routine of the men,

though some do reflect a tendency even of the cowboy to

visualize his life in somewhat realistic terms. The first

of these, "The Lone Buffalo Hunter" (No. 90), traces the

annual cycle of the life of the cowboy. The cowboy's life

is seen from the point of view of one of the men who hunted

the bison for a living. In the opening stanza the speaker

remarks that his purpose is to give a general picture of

cowboy life: "It's of those Texas cowboys, a story I'll

tell." Then the song mentions typical cowboy events and

comments on his general character:

When the fall work is all over in the line-camp they'll be found.

For they have to ride those lonesome lines the long winter round;

They prove loyal to a comrade, no matter what's to do;

And when in love with a fair one they seldom prove untrue.

But springtime comes at last and finds them glad and gay;

They ride out to the round-up about the first of May;

^33

About the first of August they start up the trail. They have to stay with the cattle, no matter rain

or hail.

They will ride into the branding pen, a rope within their hands.

They will catch them by each forefoot and bring them to the sands;

It's altogether in practice with a little bit of sleight,

A-roping Texas cattle, it is their heart's delight.

(11. 5-12, 20-24)

The song concludes with a prediction related to the destined

end of this kind of life, and its replacement by those of

the farmer and an industrialized society.

Somewhat less romantic is the song simply titled

"The Cowboy" (No. 27), stressing the harshness of the cow­

boy's life as opposed to his more routine adventures:

All day long on the prairies I ride. Not even a dog to trot by my side; My fire I kindle with chips gathered round. My coffee I boil without being ground. I wash in a pool and wipe on a sack; I carry my wardrobe all on my back; For want of an oven I cook bread in a pot. And sleep on the ground for want of a cot.

My ceiling is the sky, my floor is the grass. My music is the lowing of the herds as they pass; My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones. My parson is a wolf on his pulpit of bones.

(11. 1-12)

^Although this date seems late for the drive, Gard notes that "fall drives were not uncommon." Wayne Gard, Sam Bass (1936, rpt., Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1969), p. 54.

134

The remainder of the song traces the cattle industry back

to Esau and Isaac of Biblical days, and the narrator states

that he, like the shepherds in the Bible, feels "a message

from heaven of peace and goodwill [sic]." Finally, though

the speaker indicates the loneliness and hardships of the 0

life, the privation represented by cooking on fires kindled

from dried cow dung, the use of unground coffee beans, the

poor food, he nonetheless finds it a challenging life.

Less optimism concerning the cowboy's life is

reflected in some songs. "The Texas Cowboy"(No. 135), for

example, laments the hardships of a cowboy who had left

Texas to go to other states to which the practice of cattle

raising had spread but who now regrets his decision. The

song begins:

Oh, I am a Texas cowboy. Far away from home. If ever I get back to Texas I nevermore will roam.

(11. 1-4)

For him "Montana is too cold" and the winters too long; he

cannot keep warm even with the "old hen-skin bedding," i.e.,

feather bedding. After describing in some detail the vari­

ous ranching areas in the West, including Montana, Nebraska,

and the area along the Platte River, he concludes, as he

begins, that Texas is best because the work there lasts

"all the year around" and the men "will never get consump­

tion / By sleeping on the ground" (11. 67-68). Ironically,

he warns other cowboys to avoid repeating his rash deeds

135

and to "stay at home in Texas" where working conditions

are much better than anywhere else.

An even more pessimistic picture of the cowboy way

of life appears in "The Dreary, Dreary Life" (No. 47) ,

where it is pictured in starkly realistic terms:

The cowboy's life is a dreary, dreary life. He's driven through the heat and cold; While the rich man's a-sleeping on his velvet couch. Dreaming of his silver and gold.

Spring-time sets in, double trouble will begin. The weather is so fierce and cold; Clothes are wet and frozen to our necks. The cattle we can scarcely hold.

(11. 13-20)

The hours of work, he continues, are long during the day,

and even at night the cowboys must ride herd, sometimes

in a slicker on a cold, rainy night, and often after very

little sleep. So discouraged is the speaker that he has

given up the cowboy way of life to stay at home to take

care of his wife and childJ

Similar pessimistic views appear in "The Kansas

Line" (No. 84)^ and "Poor Lonesome Cowboy" (No. 114). The

^other aspects of the song, which are repetitive of information given in the other songs, include, in stanza two, mention of the "lightnin' tangled in [his] eyes," which threatened to stampede the cattle as well as hearing the "boss" call for "all brave-hearted men who ain't afraid to die / To whoop up the cattle from morning till night" (11. 12-13) in Kansas. Stanza three advises that from a "cowman's" viewpoint to "marry you a true and lovely little wife, / Never to roam, always stay at home" (11. 17-18). In the last starz?. > e states that he hears

136

first is initiated by an a "Come-All-Ye" beginning though

the device is not so much an appeal to hear a story, the

usual function of the "Come-All-Ye" opening, as an invita­

tion to go "up on the Kansas line" to herd cattle. The

refrain provides a strong hint of what such an adventurer 0

might expect :

The cowboy's l i f e i s a dreadful l i f e . He's driven through heat and cold; I'm almost froze with the water on my clothes, A-ridin' through heat and cold.

(11. 5-8)

In "Poor Lonesome Cowboy," the speaker, who characterizes

himself as an orphan, laments not having father, mother,

sister, brother, or sweetheart; as a consequence of which

he states in somewhat prolix terms:

I'm a poor, lonesome cowboy, I'm a poor, lonesome cowboy, I'm a poor, lonesome cowboy. And a long ways from home.

(11.5-8)

"The Horse Wrangler" (No. 73) also comments on the

hardships and loneliness, but is enlivened by an account

of one of the jokes traditionally played upon the newcomer,

the saddling of a wild horse for the beginner to ride. The

narrator states that one spring he decides that he will see

how "cow-punching" is done and takes a job on a ranch. The

the cook waking them up and "will rise with the sleepy feeling eyes" to face another day on the Kansas line.

137

foreman, a man named Brown, tells him that herding cattle

is "nothing but play," but before long the man realizes

that the foreman has simply led him along. As the newest

member of the outfit he has to keep the "cavyard" or extra

horses, all one hundred and sixty of them, from straying

or running away—a troublesome and unpleasant task, as he

relates: "When one got away, Brown's head turned red, /

And there was the devil to pay" (11. 23-24) . Nor do his

troubles with horses end here, for sometimes when chasing

one of the runaways, his horse falls and he finds himself

shooting "like a cannon ball" through the air. The greatest

ignominy, however, is the trick that the men play on him,

saddling for his convenience a seemingly gentle "old gray

hack." As it turns out, it is a devil in disguise and,

suddenly bucking and snorting, abruptly unseats him. Their

subsequent solicitation and railing is scarcely less easy

to bear: ,

They took me up and carried me in " And rubbed me down with an old stake pin. "That's the way they all begin; You're doing well," says Brown. "And in the morning, if you don't die, I'll give you another horse to try." "Oh say, can't I walk?" says I. Says he, "Yes, back to town."

(11. 41-48)

At the end of the song, sadder but wiser, the speaker

comments:

Before you try cow-punching, kiss your wife. Take a heavy insurance on your life.

138

Then cut your throat with a barlow knife,— For it's easier done that way.

(11. 53-56)

The hero of "Dan Taylor" (No. 39), like the speaker

in the preceding song, is also determined to have no more

of the cowboy's trying life, though not because he cannot

cope with it. Indeed, he has been a successful practitioner

and simply wants to marry and settle down. As the opening

stanza suggests, he has always had an eye for the ladies: Dan Taylor is a rollicking cuss, A frisky son of a gun. He loves to court the maidens And he savies how it's done.

(11. 1-4)

As the song relates, he is good at the cow business; a

capable rider of bucking horses, he could rope "a maverick

by the head / Or heel him on the fly," (11. 9-10) or rope

just the forefeet when he wanted to. The ability to per­

form these techniques of roping, snaring either the head

or the back or the front feet, distinguish Dan Taylor as a

quite capable roper, though such ability was not an uncom­

mon one in the profession who might equally pride them­

selves in their capabilities with the tools of their trade.

But, as the song concludes, Dan Taylor "got his fill" and

settled down to look for a wife, one evidently with domestic

sense who could keep his clothes clean, milk the cows, and

rear the child he hopes to have. For his part he promises

to build and furnish "a cozy cottage" and do what he can

"to please his wife." The writer of the song concludes on

139

felicitous note regarding Dan Taylor's future:

May your joys be then completed And your sorrows have amend. Is the fondest wish of the writer,— Your true and faithful friend.

(11. 37-40)

The list of pessimistic songs may be concluded

appropriately with the song "A Man Named Hods" (No. 94) , an

account of a cowboy who comes to the West but does not

remain with the cowboy life. Instead, he leaves the pro­

fession to become a successful frontier entrepreneur. The

narration of the song opens with a "Come-All-Ye" call to

"cowpunchers" to listen to the story, and then states that

when he was young he had known Hods, who, in the narrator's

words, "wasn't fit fer nothin' 'cep turnin' up the clods,"

an occupation disdained by the cowboys. Hods' advent into

frontier life occurs in 1853 when he appears driving a pair

of mules, but, the narrator says, "'twas hard to tell be­

tween the three which was the biggest fools." Trouble

begins when Hods meets a group of Indians led by Geronimo,

who scalp him and leave him for dead. But taken to Santa

Fe by the narrator, he later recovers. Hods now opens a

gambling house and a house of prostitution, establishments

not uncommon to the frontier, and is evidently successful

because of his shrewd business practices: "He got the

prettiest dancing girls that ever could be found,— /

Them girls' feet was like rubber balls and they never staid

on the ground" (11. 20-21). But Hod's troubles are still

140

not over:

And then thar came Billy the Kid, he envied Hodsie's wealth.

He told old Hods to leave the town, 'twould be better for his health;

Old Hodsie took the hint and got, but he carried all his wealth.

(11. 22-24) 0

But this interruption of his Western life turns out well

for Hods. The song concludes: "And he went back to Noo

York State with lots of dinero, / And now they say he's

senator, but of that I shore don't know" (11. 25-26).

But often enough, despite the sometimes dreary life

presented, the cowboy, as pictured in the songs, found his

life eminently worthwhile. Part of "The Cowboy's Life"

(No. 33) is worth quoting here because it completely con­

tradicts, almost point by point, the views presented in

songs just described:

The bawl of a steer. To a cowboy's ear. Is music of sweetest strain; And the yelping notes Of the gray cayotes To him are a glad refrain.

And his jolly songs Speed him along. As he thinks of the little gal With golden hair Who is waiting there At the bars of the home corral.

For a kingly crown In the noisy town His saddle he wouldn't change; No so free As the life we see Way out on the Yaso range.

141

His eyes are bright And his heart as light As the smoke of his cigarette There's never a care For his soul to bear. No trouble to make him fret.

(11. 1-24)

After further and similar comment, "The Cowboy's Life"

concludes with the admonition to his listeners to "Saddle

up" and join the happy life in question.

"The Jolly Cowboy" (No. 82),^ exhibits the same

optimistic tone. As told by a cowboy's beloved, Mary, whom

he has promised to marry "some day, " the narrative recounts

the more exciting parts of cowboy life, including the annual

roundup, and the trail drive to Kansas, the latter char­

acterized by in bad weather, the cov/boy' s singing, his

receiving of wages, and his "parting cup' before returning

"to dear old Texas, the cowboy's native home."

"stanza I recounts that he is a cowboy "brave and kind and true" who "rides a Spanish pony" and "throws a lasso." Stanza two recalls the routine of an early start on the job of rounding up the cattle and the roping, branding, and ear marking that must be done before the herd can be started to Kansas. Stanza three gives no further details of his life other than his living the "lighthearted, brave, and free" life on the "wide, wide prairie" while he rides his "trusty little pony," his "companion true." A comment on the singing by the cow­boys and the effect that it has on the herd. Makes up stanza four. In stanza five the crew receives its pay in Kansas City and starts home. In the next stanza, Mary identifies herself and looks forward to his homecoming and the time when he will leave her no more. The last stanza is spoken by the cowboy who promises that someday he will quit herding cattle and stay at home with his wife.

142

Two other songs in this same optimistic group of

pieces seem to be merely variants of the same song. Their

structure, statement, and tone are quite similar. in fact,

the opening stanzas of each are almost identical in wording,

viz. : "The Melancholy Cowboy" (No. 95) :

Come all you melancholy folks and listen unto me, I will sing you about the cowboy whose heart's so

light and free; He roves all over the prairie and at night when

he lays down His heart's as gay as the flowers of May with his

bed spread on the ground.

They are a little rough, I must confess, the most of them at least;

But as long as you do not cross their trail, you can live with them in peace.

But if you do, they're sure to rule, the day you come to their land.

For they'll follow you up and shoot it out, they'll do it man to man.

(11. 1-8)

"Old Time Cowboy" (No. 110):

Come all you melancholy folks wherever you may be, I'll sing you about the cowboy whose life is light

and free. He roams about the prairie, and, at night when he

lies down. His heart is as gay as the flowers in May in his

bed upon the ground.

They're a little bit rough, I must confess, the most of them, at least;

But if you do not hunt a quarrel you can live with them in peace;

For if you do, you're sure to rue the day you joined their band.

They will follow you up and shoot it out with you just man to man.

(11. 1-8)

The remaining material in the two songs, though depicting

similar adventures, is at the same time sufficiently

143

different to have led Lomax to include both versions as

separate entries in his collection.

The last three songs in the present grouping offer

a rather wide range of attitudes concerning the typical

life of the average cowboy. "The Cowboy at Work" (No. 29) 0

shows the cowboy as a hard-working but gentle. God-fearing

man who though he may appear "wild and wooly" is nonethe­

less "warm and tender" in heart. Still also, when need

be, he is daring and courageous:

When the storm breaks in its fury and the lightning's vivid flash

Makes you thank the Lord for shelter and for bed. Then it is he mounts his pony and away you see

him dash. No protection but the hat upon his head.

(11. 9-12)

"The U-S-U Range" (No. 140) presents a realistic picture

of ranch life described by a "cow-puncher" who had been

one of the U-S-U crew. If one is desirous of a job as a

cowboy, he explains, one should go to Stamford, Texas,

where he will find a man who does the hiring for the ranch

Once employed, he will be put in a wagon and sent to the

ranch headquarters, "a little sod house with dirt all on

top." This structure, which contains little more than

"some blankets rolled up on the floor," is the bunk house.

The routine, the speaker promises, will be regular and

monotonous: You are up in the morning at the day break To eat cold beef and U-S-U steak.

144

And out to your work no matter if it's rain,— And that is the life on the U-S-U range.

(11. 19-22)

Always the work schedule and the food are the same, and,

the narrator warns any newcomer, "if you don't like that you needn't complain, / For that's what you get on the

0

U-S-U range" (11. 29-30). This picture is certainly not

an appealing one, but it can be presented as an accurate

enough reflection of what the typical cowboy's life was

really like without the romantic aura attributed to it by

popular literature. Finally, "A Cow Camp on the Range"

(No. 3 5), views the ranching experience in an almost

idyllic spirit:

Oh, the prairie dogs are screaming. And the birds are on the wing. See the heel fly chase the heifer, boys! 'Tis the first class sign of spring. The elm wood is budding. The earth is turning green. See the pretty things of nature That make life a pleasant dr'':aml

(11. 1-8)

Though the diet of the cowboys is plain "baking powder"

biscuits, beef, and beans, they eat it with relish. The

song closes with a comment on life in the city:

To the dickens with your city Where they herd the brainless brats. On a range so badly crowded There ain't room to cuss the cat. This life is not so sumptuous, I'm not longing for a change. For there is no place so homelike As a cow camp on the range.

(11. 33-40)

145

Though there is an occasional realistic note in the picture

provided by this song—the parasitic heel fly, which lays

an egg in the soft space between the cattle's split hoofs,

causing great damage—-the song is marked generally by fre­

quent references to spring, and to the frisky "yearlings"

just beginning life; and the very factor of unpleasantness

that mars the general romanticization of cowboy living is

the cold of winter, which must be borne before spring comes

once again—"just living through the winter / To enjoy the

coming change" (11. 9-10).

The Cowboy and His Horse

Though the cattle were the raison d'etre of the

phenomenon of cowboying, only three songs, "The Last Long­

horn" (No. 86), "Windy Bill" (No. 149), and "Whose Old

Cow?" (No. 147) are devoted to any portrayal of the animals

themselves. In contrast, the horse is fully celebrated dn

numerous songs. This is not surprising, since the relation­

ships which grew up between the men and their mounts was

often extremely close. As Thorp remarks: "The horse was

the main thing in a cowboy's life. . . . A good cow

horse . . . was supper and breakfast, wife and sweetheart,

pal, means of conveyance, the main tool and brains of the

•I "7 cow business, and sometimes life itself."

" Nathan Howard Thorp and Neil M. Clark, Pardner of the Wind (Caldwell, Id.: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1945), p. 46.

146

Thorp supports his own observations by two songs

which he himself wrote. The first of these, "Freckles" 8

(No. 57) , deals with a horse whose name reflects its

coloration—"something like a paint shop in distress."

Moreover, he had a disposition to match: 0

He was little an' peaked an' thin, an' narry a no account horse,—

Least that's the way you'd describe him in case that the beast had been lost;

But, for single and double cussedness an' for double fired sin.

The horse never came out o' Texas that was half­way knee-high to him!

(11. 1-4)

The narrator had gained possession of this pony nineteen

years before, when a drover had asked to pen a "small

bunch of horses" over night. But the man remained "two or

three weeks," and since he had no money, paid his bill by

giving him Freckles, who was then "as wild as a deer, an'

would snort when he came to the branch, /An' it took two

cow punchers, on good horses, too, to handle him here at

the ranch" (11. 15-16). Nonetheless, when grass got short

and the narrator's mustang got thin, and he was forced to

ride Freckles, he found him "game" for all occasions—an

^Lomax calls this song a fragment, but Tliorp claims authorship of it. Thorp's song, entitled "Speckles," is the last one in his little songster and is quite close to the version in Lomax's collection, both of them having the same number of stanzas and other similarities. He accuses Lomas of printing the song "without credit." Ibid., p. 42.

147

important attribute in those "Indian times" when a good

horse "would save your life." And typically, the narrator's

admiration of, and affection for. Freckles deepens as they

become better acquained over the years through long hours

together.

Thorp's other song is equally complimentary. "Chopo" 9

(No. 24) constitutes a statement of praise for a comely

and versatile little horse. He is described as "sure­

footed," "a safety conveyance," always a willing servant,

"a good roping horse," and, as the last stanza shows,

courageous: One day on the Llano a hailstorm began. The herds were stampeded, the horses all ran. The lightning it glittered, a cyclone did blow. But you faced the sweet music, my little Chopo.

(11. 17-20)

A number of the pieces in Lomax's collection deal

with rough or outlaw horses, the riding of which was some­

times used as a means of testing a newcomer's fitness to

join the profession. "The Skew-ball Black" (No. 130)

deals with such a horse, which ended the short career of

one such would-be cowboy. Like the cowboy in "The Horse

^Ibid., pp. 51-52, carries an account of the horse about which the song was written, evidently by Thorp.

l^Skewball, or skewbald as Adams spells it, indi­cates" a "horse with patterns of white on any basic color except black." Ramon F. Adams, Western V7ords: A Dictio­nary of the American West (2d. ed., Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), p. 282.

148

wrangler" (No. 73) discussed earlier, the hero of this

song comes to the Red River country to begin his life as

a cowboy; but he has no sooner arrived than the older

hands throw him upon Skew-ball Black and settle back to

watch the fun:

They rolled and tumbled and yelled, by God, For he threw me a-whirling all over the sod,— Whoa! skew, till I saddle you, whoa!

(11. 13-15)

Shaken up by the episode, the narrator threatens to quit,

but the boss just laughs as though he "thought he was

dyin. ' "

"The Zebra Dun" (No. 152) illustrates the same

practice played by the established crew at a newcomer's

expense. But in this instance the greenhorn turns out to

be less a greenhorn than he seems and the joke backfires

on the prankster. This ballad begins with the cowboys

camped on the "plains at the head of the Cimarron," when

a seemingly unsuspecting greenhorn happens by; but after

he is welcomed and fed, he begins to boast loudly about

his past accomplishments:

About the Spanish war and fighting on the sea With guns as big as steers and ramrods big as

trees,--And about old Paul Jones, a mean, fighting son

of a gun. Who was the grittiest cus that ever pulled a gun.

(11. 9-12)

The stranger's interest in borrowing a horse to continue

on his way in search of a job provides the others with the

149

opportunity to teach him a well-earned lesson about the

manners proper for a visiting stranger. They quickly

throw a saddle on the Zebra Dun, quite obviously an outlaw

of considerable reputation, with the ability calculated to

support the name. So no sooner does the stranger find him-0

self in the saddle than the Zebra Dun begins—"A-pitching

and a-squealing, a-having wall-eyed fits, / His hind feet

perpendicular, his front ones in the bits" (11. 31-32).

But to the others' amazement the stranger, instead of fly­

ing through the air, sits calmly in the saddle while he

curls "his black mustache / Just like a summer boarder

waiting for his hash" (11. 35-36), even spurring the horse

vigorously to make him pitch better. When the outlaw is

finally subdued, the men are forced to confess that the

stranger is truly "a thoroughbred and not a gent from

town. " Much impressed, the boss offers him a job, which

he accepts, turning out to be a thoroughly competent hand.

The ballad ends with a moralizing couplet: "There's one

thing and a shore thing I've learned since I've been born,

/ That every educated feller ain't a plumb greenhorn" (11.

49-50) .

"Pinto" (No. 113) concerns another outlaw horse of

fame which the narrator wants to ride simply to prove his

horsemanship. "A vaquero by trade," the narrator follows

the "rodero," and with characteristic pride in his ability,

claims to be able to ride any horse—among them, Pinto.

150

His feeling for the occasion is reflected in the final

stanza when he learns of old Pinto's death:

My story is ended, old Pinto is dead; I'm going down [to] Laredo and paint the

town red. I'm going up to Laredo and set up the beer To all the cowboys that's on the rodero. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Pinto, whoa!

(11. 21-25)

The Trail Drives

Another phase of cowboy life, o * v/hich has pro­

vided cowboy life—at least in the popular imagination—

with much of its romantic glory is that of the trail drive,

which usually followed the spring roundups and afforded

the cowboys contact with civilization outside their regions.

Men who followed the familiar Chisholm, Goodnight, and

Loving Trails often found plenty of excitement, but the

job of trailing cattle north to Kansas and elsewhere also

involved hard work, with long hours in the saddle and the

ever-present danger of hostile Indians, cattle stampedes,

and other trail hazards, though in this respect, the drovers

could also look forward to the physical and social relief

offered by the towns at the end of the trails.

The nine songs in Lomax's collection dealing with

the trail drives offer pretty much an overall view of life

on the move, beginning with pictures of the actual gather­

ing of the cattle to ready them for the trail, and adven­

tures both along the way and at the drive's conclusion.

151

Thus, in "Whose Old Cow?" (No. 147), there is an account

of the procedures of the roundup typical of the open range

at which the cattle of various owners have been thrown

together to hold until time when their owners can each cut

out their own animals. For a week the cowboys have been

rounding up all loose stock, and now, after their separa­

tion into individual herds, three head still remain uniden­

tified. Nig Add, a veritable "directory on earmarks and

11

brands," manages to cut out two of the unidentified ani­

mals, but the markings of the last cow puzzle even Add.

The problem is that the animal bears too many identifying

markings. Add calls them off one by one:

Overslope in right ear an' de underbill Lef ear swaller fork an' de undercrop. Hole punched in center, an' de jinglebob Under half crop, an' de slash an' split.

She's got O Block an' Lightnin' Rod, Nine Forty-Six an' A Bar Eleven, T Te-^rapin an' Ninety-Seven, Rafter Cross an' de Double Prod.

Half circle A an' Diamond D, Four Cross L and Three P Z, B W I bar, X V V, Bar N cross an' A L C.^^

(11. 37-48)

^^Thorp and Clark, Pardner of the Wind, p. 285. Thorp recounts knowing this man well.

^^Manfred R. Wolfstine, The Manual of Brands, ed Ramon F. Adams (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), gives interpretations for these marks.

152

Finally/ since a cow that seems to belong to everybody

belongs to nobody. Add decides, jokingly, that to avoid

any troubles with the Livestock Association,"'" he will

brand her for his own.

Another song about the roundup, though less point-0

edly, is "Down South on the Rio Grande" (No. 45) , which has

its setting during the Civil War, when some cattle were

driven to feed Confederate soldiers. The song is rather

simple. After commenting initially on the task of cattle

driving—

From way down south on the Rio Grande, Roll on steers for the Post Oak Sand,— Way down south in Dixie, Oh, boys. Ho—

(11. 1-3)

it then briefly pictures a cowboy "a-straddle / Of a mus­

tang mare on a raw-hide saddle" who feels "Rich as a king."

The last three stanzas comment inconclusively on the slave

question with references to Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.

One widely-known song which belongs in this category

is "Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies" (No. 146) .

A dogie is usually defined as an orphan calf which is

forced to rely on grass before his stomach is able to digest

•^^Perhaps the reference is to the Live Stockmen's National Association, organized m 1873 in Kansas City, Kansas but soon defunct, or the National Cattle and Horse Grower's Association founded in St. Louis in 1884. See Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1959), pp. 232, 237.

153

it. Hence he develops an enlarged stomach and usually has

a fuzzy appearance characteristic of undernourished cat-

14 tie. It appears, however, that in this song the word

dogie has been generalized to mean any cattle:

Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies. It's your misfortune, and none of your own. Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies,* For you know Wyoming will be your new home.

(11. 5-8)

The last line also states, "You're going to be beef steers

by and by." This statement suggests that the animals are

being driven to Wyoming apparently on what became known as

the Texas-Montana Trail"^^ to be fattened for market. Adams

confirms this possibility."^^ The song begins with what is

perhaps the most famous of cowboy verses:

As I walked out one morning for pleasure, I spied a cow-puncher all riding alone; His hat was throwed back and his spurs was

a jingling. As he approached me a'singin' this song . . .

(11. 1-4)

The remaining stanzas of the song describe the roundup and

the drive up the trail. As he forecasts the future of

these animals as being "soup for Uncle Sam's Injuns," he

-^^Adams, Western Words, p. 96.

1 5 • -"Harry Sinclair Drago, Great American Cattle

Trails: The Story of the Old Cow Paths of the East and the Longhorn Highways of the Plains (New York: Bramhall House, 1965), p. 239.

- ' Adams, Western Words, p. 96.

154

imagines he can hear the Indians cry, '"it's beef, heap

beef.'"

One of the best known cattle trails, the Chisholm

Trail, has been made famous by an equally popular song,

"The Old Chisholm Trail" (No. 105). Initiated by Jesse

Chisholm, a half-Cherokee Indian and half-Scotch fron­

tiersman, this notable cattle trail stretched from the

coastal plains near present Houston, Texas, on north to

the Wichita-Abilene, Kansas area. The song begins with

a traditional opening and refrain:

Come along, boys, and listen to my tale, I'll tell you of my troubles on the old

Chisholm trail.

Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya. Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya.

(11. 1-4)

The song recounts in a series of casually related couplets

a typical journey up the trail. The drive begins on Octo­

ber 23, says the narrator, with a herd of cattle from the

2-U Ranch. He has taken a job with the outfit and is off

on the trail with his "ten dollar hoss and a forty dollar

saddle." Work daily begins early and the days are long:

"in the mornin' afore daylight / And afore I sleep the

moon shines bright" (11. 11-12). Then follows an account

- " For studies of this trail, see Wayne Gard, Chis­holm Trail (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), and Drago, Great American Cattle Trails, pp. 99-101.

155

of a stampede, though the men are able to contain the run­

ning cattle. The narrator thinks well of himself for his

actions in this and other adventures, being, as he suggests,

the "Best damned cowboy ever was born." The herd eventually

reaches the railhead and is loaded onto the cars, and when 0

the narrator goes to draw his pay, he finds himself to his

surprise $9.00 in debt to the outfit. Undaunted, however,

by this turn of events, he sells his horse and saddle,

determined from then on to quit herding cattle—though in

lines sixty-one and sixty-two, he quickly admits that that

time will come only "in the sweet by and by. " The fact

that some of the stanzas contradict and repeat material

given elsewhere in the song suggests that this particular

version of the song is the result of a constant reworking

and rewording of the song by numerous singers. As Lomax

remarks, each singer was apt to add a verse or two himself:

indeed, as one of his informants declared, if all the verses

made up were added end to end the song would be longer than

the cattle trail itself. " ^ 19

"John Garner's Trail Herd" (No. 81) , an account

of a cattle drive in which the narrator participated, opens

-'- John A. Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947), p. 41.

^^See J. Marvin Hunter, ed.. The Trail Drivers of Texasi Interesting Sketches of Early Cowboys and Their Experiences on the Range and on the Trail during the Days

156

with a "Come-All-Ye" type of opening and the narrator's

promise to "relate to you about the time you all remember

well / When we, with old Joe Garner, drove a beef herd up

the trail" (11. 3-4). The crew leaves the ranch in early

spring with a "good outfit through and through" and "a

jolly crew." Soon it is obvious that a hard task lies

ahead:

He had no little herd—two thousand head or more— And some as wild a brush beeves as you ever saw

before. We swung to them all the way and sometimes by

the tail,— Oh, you know we had a circus as we all went up

the trail.

(11. 9-12)

There are frequent stampedes—"every night," according to

the narrator—and the size of the herd dwindles as cattle

are lost in these nightly runs. The drive has other prob­

lems too. When they reach the Red River, the men have to

give "the dodge" to the cattle inspector,^^ who wants to

That Tried Men's Souls—True Narratives Related by Real Cow-Punchers and Men Who Fathered the Cattle Industry in Texas (2nd. ed. 2 vols in 1. Nashville, Tenn.: Cokes-bury Press, 1925), pp. 584-588, for an account of James Marion Garner, who may be, but is probably not, the sub­ject of this song.

20 This crossing of the Red River apparently took

place at the famous Doan's Store on the Western Trail. (Drago, Great American Cattle Trails, pp. 50-51). Posted there were the inspectors who were to examine the brands of the cattle to be sure that no herd contained cattle that did not belong to the herd. Many of these inspectors were corrupt, and drovers tried tc elude them. More than one situation similar to the one related in the song took

157

put Garner in jail. On the men's threat to "get his scalp"

if the inspector puts their boss in jail, they continue on

their way, crossing the Indian Territory, until they finally

reach Dodge City. Here they draw four months' pay, after

which they "drank and gambled and threw the girls around."

The song closes with a joking remark about Garner himself,

whom he calls "the biggest cow-thief that ever tramped out

there," and the suggestion that should anyone desire to

hear a "lively tale," he should ask John Garner about the

trip "up the trail."

"The Crooked Trail to Holbrook" (No. 38) , a "Come-

All-Ye" ballad, deals with driving cattle from an undesig­

nated point of origin, apparently in Texas, over the Mescal

Mountains in eastern New Mexico; thence across Gilson Flats

southwest of Globe, Arizona, and by Sombserva, a small creek

in eastern Gila County, Arizona; and finally across the

Mongollen Mountains, in central Arizona; and on to Holbrook,

Arizona, where the cattle are sold. The return takes the

crew across an Indian reservation, evidently the Fort Apache

Reservation, and on to Globe, the county seat of Gila County,

Arizona, apparently their home.

place. Gard recounts that two of the inspectors were cap­tured by men from whom they attempted to extort unfair fees. The men carried them some distance north before releasing them. Another was captured and thrown into a "plum thicket" with his hands and feet tied. His horse was set free so that its arriving riderless would sumKiOii help for the man. Gard, Chisholm Trail, pp. 195, 231.

158

Evidently dealing with a specific drive, this piece

is a good example of the kind of ballad Evelyn Wells de­

scribes as "spreading around" the news of an actual event,

for the story includes references to specific locales as

well as details of the drive, such as weather and stampedes.

As already suggested, the narrator opens with a traditional

statement:

Come all you jolly cowboys that follow the bronco steer,

I'll sing to you a verse or two your spirits for to cheer;

It's all about a trip, a trip that I did undergo On that crooked trail to Holbrook, in Arizona oh.

(11. 1-4)

Dating his journey from February 17, he relates that the

cattle under the jurisdiction of the crew were "As wild as

any buffalo that ever rode the Platte" River. Moreover,

there was bad weather at Gilson Flats, where the wind "blew

so fierce, we knew not where to go"; and to make matters

worse, that very same night the herd stampeded through

"prickly pear and catclaw brush." Yet the men nonetheless

remained undaunted, and while they "punched along" each of

the men "would sing a hearty song / To cheer up his comrade

as onward we did go" (11. 19-20) . Once Holbrook is reached

and the cattle are shipped, the men go home on tired horses

across the reservation, but cheer their spirits by thinking

of loved ones and the fact that they are returning from

what was evidently a successful cattle drive.

159

"The Dogie Song" (No. 44) is a brief song of only

sixteen lines giving a cowboy's view of the trail-bosses

who, whether "On the plains, in the mountains, in the

valleys," all "sing the same old song":

"Sift along boys, don't ride so slow; Haven't got much time but a long round to go. Quirt him in the shoulders and rake him down the hip; I've cut you toppy mounts, boys, now pair off and rip. Bunch the herd at the old meet. Then beat 'em on the tail; Whip 'em up and down the sides And hit the shortest trail."

(11. 9-16)

This song reflects both a common tendency of working men to

get off a good "gripe" at the boss under the disguise of

singing, as well as a typical enthusiasm for rapid movement

which the cowboys shared.

Driving on a trail drive usually started early in

the mornings, but near dark the herd was stopped in order

to allow time for grazing and water. "Night-Herding Song"

(No. 104) tells about this routine in a lullaby intended

to quiet the cattle while they are grazing and bedding

down. The cowboy asks the cattle to "slow up" and "quit .

roving round" and "graze along, dogies, and feed kinda

slow." He then tells of his tiring task in which he is

engaged:

I have circle-herded, trail-herded, night-herded, and cross-herded, too.

But to keep you together, that's what I can't do; My horse is leg weary and I'm awful tired. But if I let you get away I'm sure to get fired,— Bunch up, little dogies, bunch up.

Hi-oo, hi-oo, oo-oo. (11. 7-12)

160

He closes by asking further that the cattle bed down and

"Snore loud" to drown out any sounds of the night which

might spook them into running.

Once the cattle reach their destination, the rail­

road line, the long arduous drive was over. "The Railroad

21 Corral" (No. 116) a trail-end song, recounts first the

beginning of the drive:

Oh we're up in the morning ere breaking of day. The chuck wagon's busy, the flapjacks in play; The herd is astir o'er hillside and vale, With the night riders rounding them into the trail.

Oh, come take up your cinches, come shake out your reins;

Come wake your old broncho and break for the plains;

Come roust out your steers from the long chaparral.

For the outfit is off to the railroad corral.

(11. 1-8)

Stanza two continues the picture of the hot, dusty ride up

the trail as the steers plod on, "pounding to powder the

hot prairie sod." Like an army, the trail drive also

travels on its stomach, as witness the affection and con­

cern shown for the cook in stanza three, where the cowboy

says that at meal time "you can bet all true punchers will

help out the cook."

The song ends with a description of the cowboy's

elation upon reaching the destination:

2^Louise Pound, Poetic Origins and the Ballad (New York: The Macmillan Comoany. 1921), p. 226, credits this song to J. M. Hanson and says that it was published in the Literary Digest on April 25, 1914.

161

But the longest of days must reach evening at last.

The hills all climbed, the creeks all past; The tired herd droops in the yellowing light; Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's

in sight. So flap up your holster and snap up your

belt. And strap up your saddle whose lap you have

felt; Good-bye to the steers from the long

chaparral. For there's a town that's a trunk by the

railroad corral.

(11. 25-32)

Now that the drive is over, the cowboys may be paid and

start their trek homeward; and though the dangers are still

not completely over, the hazard of the stampede is no

longer with them and a more relaxed atmosphere may prevail.

Good-bye to the Old Days

The concern of four of the songs in Lomax's collec­

tion is with the passing of the great period of the open-

range cattle industry. The most important of these because

of its length and fulness of detail, "The Last Longhorn"

(No. 86) , is cast in the form of a dialogue between a dying

steer and a cowboy, watching over the animal's last hours.

The prevailing sentimental tone of the text as a whole is

projected in the opening stanza:

An ancient long-horned bovine Lay dying by the river; There was lack of vegetation And the cold winds made him shiver; A cowboy sat beside him With sadness in his face.

162

To see his final passing,— This last of a noble race.

(11. 1-8)

Raising his head, shaking from weakness, the steer laments

the passing of his fellows and the coming of the imported

breeds, the Jerseys, the Holsteins, the Durhams, and the

Herefords, which were the cause of the demise of the long-

27 horn breeds. The dying animal then asks the cowboy to

tell the coyotes that come to eat him that they will find

that his "bones and hide are petrified,— / They'll find

no beef on me" (11. 31-32) . The use of coyotes in the song

instead of wolves is perhaps linked with the Indian notion

that the coyote was the smartest of all creatures and that

23 the wily creature had the powers of a deity. In one

stanza the steer recalls the good grass and water in the

1870's, lamenting that "it was too good to last." What

could not be foreseen, however, was the fact that within

a mere twenty years there would come "the nester . . .

with his wife, his kids, / His dogs, and his barbed-wire

fence" (11. 39-40). Such factors, of course, hastened the

24 end of the free range and its particular way of life.

^^Webb, The Great Plains, p. 239.

2" J. Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote (Boston; Little, Brown and Company, 1950), pp. 265-266.

^^Webb, The Great Plains, pp. 231-232, has a good discussion of additional detail.

163

By stanza VI in the poem, the poor longhorn's voice

sinks to a "murmur" and his breath comes "short and quick";

soon he is gone. When the cowboy tries to skin the steer,

he finds his "rine" or hide too tough. Not only as a meat

producer but as a source of leather the longhorn has out­

lived his time; as has also the cowboy, since it is with

the longhorns that his heyday is associated.

Appropriately the song concludes:

The cowboys and the longhorns Who partnered in eighty-four Have gone to their last round-up Over on the other shore; They answered well their purpose. But their glory must fade and go. Because men say there's better things In the modern cattle show.

(11. 57-64)

The conclusion serves to sound the "moral" of this fable­

like ballad: A way of life is gone as all old ways must

go, but it will be replaced by something new and better.

The drama of the death of an era, represented by an animal

both proud and noble to the last, is ended.

"The Lone Buffalo Hunter" (No. 90), already dis­

cussed for the view it gives of the annual cycle of cowboy

life, likewise makes a comment in its last stanza on the

passing of the era. The time is evidently close to that

discussed in "The Last Longhorn, " for it is the open-range

type of cowboy life whose passing is being lamented, since

ranching is still a way of life for many people in the West.

It predicts the coming of "the rising generation," probably

164

a more industrialized class, and of "the corn-fed granger"

or farmer, who will one day replace the life of the older

West:

But now comes the rising generation to take the cowboy's place.

Likewise the corn-fed granger, with his bold and cheeky face;

It's on those plains of Texas a lone buffalo hunter does stand

To tell the fate of the cowboy that rode at his right hand.

(11. 25-28)

Since buffalo hunters disappeared in Texas in the 1880's,

the speaker must voice his view from the perspective of

one who has recently seen his breed pass out of existence

and who knows that changing times alter ways of existence.

He is an appropriate spokesman for commenting on the dis­

appearance of another frontier phenomenon.

The third song, "The Camp Fire Has Gone Out" (No.

22) , also deals with this disappearance of a way of life,

but the reason is different—the coming of the railroad to

the frontier. It was to the railheads that the trail

drives were bound; when the railways expanded into all

parts of the West, the trail drive quickly became an out­

moded institution. Moreover, the railroad brought settlers

to inhabit the vast, empty plains. Such "progress" the

song rightly blames for the cowboy's final plight:

Through progress of the railroads our occupa­tion 's gone;

So we will put ideas into words, our words into a song.

First comes the cowboy, he is pointed for the west;

165

Of all the pioneers I claim the cowboys are the best;

You will miss him on the round-up, it's gone, his merry shout,—

The cowboy has left the country and the camp-fire has gone out.

(11. 1-6)

The speaker in the song then warns the freighters, his

"companions," that they also will soon be put out of busi­

ness: "The railroads are bound to beat you when you do

your level best." His advice is, consequently, to "give

up to the grangers and strike out for the west." The

last stanza represents a deeply emotional response to the

end of the era:

When I think of those good old days, my eyes with tears do fill;

When I think of the tin can by the fire and the cayote on the hill.

I'll tell you, boys, in those days old-timers stood a show,—

Our pockets full of money, not a sorrow did we know.

But things have changed now, we are poorly clothed and fed.

Our wagons are all broken and our ponies most all dead.

Soon we will leave this country, you'll hear the angels shout,

"Oh, here they come to Heaven, the campfire has gone out."

(11. 13-20)

The final song of the end of the era songs under

25

discussion, "Bronc Peeler's Song" (No. 12), after review­

ing the hardships of the profession, points out the doom

^^Adams, Western Word^, p. 36, defines bronc peeler as a capable rider of horses.

166

of the type of life he has thoroughly enjoyed:

I've been upon the prairie, I've been upon the plain, I've never rid a steam-boat. Nor a double-cinched-up train. But I've driv my eight-up to wagon That were locked three in a row. And that through blindin' sand storms. And all kinds of wind and snow.

(11. 1-8)

Grass roots have been his only fuel; "fried dough and

beef / Pulled from red-hot tallow fat" (11. 19-20) his

only food. And he has seen the frontier of the past come

to an unglorious end, to be replaced by the influx of

Western migration and the settled pursuits of agriculture—

to which the average cowboy could not adjust:

We fellers don't know how to plow. Nor reap the golden grain; But to round up steers and brand the cows To us was alius plain.

(11. 25-28)

But his spirit is till indomitable:

So when this blasted country Is all closed in with wire. And all the top, as trot grass. Is burnin' in Sol's fire, I hope the settlers will be glad When rain hits the land. And all us cowdogs are in hell With a "set" joined hand in hand.

(11. 29-36)

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Along with songs in the cowboy's repertoire dealing

with the humdrum and tedious aspects of his working hours,

or his more exciting adventures, were many songs reflective

of his personal and social relationships as well: his

participation in various forms of social intercourse—

dances, socials; his attitudes toward women and the tradi­

tional situations of courtship and love; his particular

notions about morality and religion and the state of the

soul after death. Almost forty of the one hundred fifty-

two songs in Lomax's collection are concerned to some

degree with such matters.

Bragging Cowboys

A common occurrence on the American frontier, either

as a form of simply letting off steam or as the source of

a sense of pride in one's accomplishments or physical

prowess, was the phenomenon of the brag or boast. This

phenomenon is reflected in a number of the cowboy songs

collected by Lomax, sometimes only incidentally as in "The

Lone Star Trail," (No. 91); or in a more particular way, as

in "The Zebra Dun" (No. 152), already discussed, in which

the cowboys undertake to unmask a bragging stranger as a

fraud by giving him the outlaw Zebra Dun to ride. Other

songs are devoted explicitly to the phenomenon.

167

168

Thus in "Windy Bill" (No. 149), the first song in

this group, the hero lives up to his name by boring his

comrades with his excessive bragging, particularly about

his skill with the lariat: "He swore the steer he couldn't

tie,— / Well, he hadn't found him yet" (11. 3-4). Finally

to make Bill put up or shut up, the other ranch hands

challenge him to lasso a black outlaw steer in a rocky draw

nearby, with bets made at odds of two to one. Bill is

game, but he breaks one of the first rules of successful

roping, of which Bill claims to know so much: that is,

never to tie the rope to the saddle tree. So when Bill

loops his old "maguey" (a lariet constructed from the fibers

of the century plant), the steer makes off dragging Bill's

rope and saddle down the draw behind him and Bill lands in

disgrace on a heap of "flint rock." Bill admits his defeat

and pays off the bets all around, leaving as his message

to posterity the moral contained in the last stanze of the

song:

There's a moral to my story, boys. And that you all must see. Whenever you go to tie a snake. Don't tie it to your tree; But take your dolly welters 'Cordin' to California law. And you'11 never see your old rim-fire Go drifting down the draw.

(11. 41-48)

^Ramon F. Adams, Western Words: A Dictionary of the American West (2d. ed'. ; Norman: University of Okla­homa Press, 1968), p. 188.

169

Paraphrased, these lines state that when a cowboy

intends to tie a "snake" or outlaw steer, he should not

tie the rope to the saddle tree, i.e., the rawhide—

covered wooden frame on which the saddle is built; other­

wise, the cinch band securing the saddle to the horse might 0

break, as in Bill's case ("The cinches broke like straw"),

and the whole saddle pulled off, rider and all, by the

sudden movement of a captured animal. The "dolly welters"

are, according to Lomax's footnote, a "rope tied all around

the saddle." Bill's advice seems to be to wind the rope

end around the saddle horn so that slack may be given or

the rope released completely, should a steer make some

violent, or unexpected, movement. The term "rim fire"

designates a saddle without a flank girth.

The song "Top Hand" (No. 137) views somewhat ironi­

cally another typical character, who, if his account of

his own talents were true, would undoubtedly be a competent

and skillful ranch hand. But his efficiency in cowboy

chores is mainly a matter of imagination. As Thorp says

of this song, its theme is "ridicule of a cowboy too big

for his boots."^ Whenever the "top hand" goes to town,

says the song, he may be seen "Rollin' cigarettes and smokin

through his nose," and bragging about his "trip up the

^Nathan Howard Thorp and Neil M. Clark, Pardner of the wind (Caldwell, Id.: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., p. 41.

170

trail" and his ownership of a large herd of cattle. On

the job he always shirks the harder labor of the branding

pen, and out in the herd has difficulty in keeping a herd

stable. Whatever mistakes he makes, he automatically 3

blames on the "screws" or foreman, not himself. Jokes

on greenhorns are one of his specialities, making them

"sing and shout" by threatening them with a loaded pistol.

His father in Texas, he claims, is a rich cattleman, and

he himself rides a "fancy horse" and is able to get "more

credit" in town than the "common waddie" (a hand who fills

4

in during the busy season) . The last stanze, after sum­

ming up the "top hand's" typical antics, expresses the

narrator's true opinion of such a creature:

When you ship the cattle he's bound to go along To keep the boss from drinking and see that

nothing's wrong. Wherever he goes, catch on to his name. He likes to be called with a handle to his name. He's always primping with a pocket looking-glass. From the top to the bottom he's a bold Jackass.

(11. 37-42)

The speaker in "The Boozer" (No. 8), though he

makes the same sounds as the Ring-Tailed Roarer of frontier

fame, is induced to his account of his exploits not so

much by temperament as by strong drink. The song begins:

I'm a howler from the prairies of the West. If you want to die with terror, look at me.

Adams, Western Words, p. 327.

^Ibid., p. 338.

171

I'm chain-lightning—if i ain't, may I be blessed.

I'm the snorter of the boundless prairie.

He' s a killer and a hater! He's the great annihilator! He's a terror of the boundless prairie.

(11. 1-7)

The remainder of the song continues in much the same vein.

The boozer claims in his time to have wrecked railroads,

in the process of which he has proved himself a "double-

jawed hyena," a "blazing, bloody blizzard," and a "cele­

brated slugger." He closes by saying that he is that

"Beast" who "can snatch a man bald-headed while he waits."

Closely akin to the bragger is the bully of the

town mentioned in the song "Araphoe, or Buckskin Joe" (No.

1) , where the local representative of the breed. Hanky

Dean, tries to browbeat a newly arrived stranger, a small­

ish weak-looking individual who is also a "lunger." As

the ballad opens, in Araphoe, a town in Custer County,

Oklahoma, "the whiskey was running with a soft and gentle

flow," accompanied by music "in a dance hall across the

way." Around the gaming tables "a peaceful little stranger"

is seen standing nearby watching the action. Bully of the

town. Hanky Dean, suddenly rails out at the stranger for

causing his current losing streak: '"No wonder I've been

losing every bet I made tonight / When a sucker and a

tenderfoot was between me and the light'" (11. 15-16).

But the stranger, refusing to be cowed, simply looks him

172

in the eye and when Hanky asks, "'Look here, little stranger,

do you know who I am?'" calmly replies, "'Yes, and I don't

care a copper colored damn.'" Completely surprised, the

bully now lets forth the following boasting bluff:

"Listen, gentle stranger, I'll read my pedigree: I'm known on handling tende.rfeet and worser men

than thee; The lions on the mountains, I've drove them to

their lairs; The wild-cats are my playmates, and I've wrestled

grizzly bears;

"Why, the centipedes can't mar my tough old hide. And rattle snakes have bit me and crawled off

and died. I'm as wild as the horse that roams the range; The moss grows on my teeth and wild blood flows

through my veins." (11. 21-28)

Still unimpressed, the stranger picks up a five of spades,

and pinning it to a door "some twenty paces or more" away,

shoots out four of the spades with as many shots with his

pistol. With this expert display of marksmanship, he turns

to the bully with the card. But Hankey declines the offer

to carry the argument further, needless to say, and the

song concludes with his abashed admittance that as far as

the stranger is concerned, "I'm a meek little child and

as harmless as a lamb."

The last song, "The Gol-Darned Wheel" (No. 61) con­

cerns the efforts of a cowhand to transfer his bronc bust­

ing skills to the quarter deck of the newfangled contrap­

tion called the bicycle—only to have to admit his failure

in the venture. As the narrator says.

173

I can take the wildest bronco in the tough old woolly West.

I can ride him, I can break him, let him do his level best;

I can handle any cattle ever wore a coat of hair. And I've had a lively tussle with a tarnel

grizzly bear. I can rope and throw the longhorn of the wildest

Texas brand. And in Indian disagreements I can play a leading

hand. But at last I got my master and he surely made

me squeal When the boys got me a'straddle of that gol-

darned wheel.

(11. 1-8)

The bicycle in question has been brought to Eagle Ranch on

the Brazos River by a "tenderfoot" in the process of

"wheeling all the way / From the sun-rise end of freedom

out to San Francisco Bay" (11. 11-12), and who has stopped

by for a free meal. Challenged by his friends to try his

hand at riding the machine, the narrator gets off to a

good start by a strong, hefty push by his companions and

is soon splitting "the Texas air" and "building reputation

on that gol-darned wheel." Unfortunately, he heads down a

nearby hill and soon finds himself out of control, whirling

rapidly downward while his companions cheer him on: "Oh,

how them punchers bawled, 'Stay with her. Uncle Bill! /

Stick your spurs in her, you sucker! turn her muzzle up

the hill" (11. 33-34)!'" Attempting to stop, he "pulled

upon the handles, but . . . couldn't check it up, / And

. . . yanked and sawed and hollowed but the darned thing

wouldn't stop" (11. 41-42). Yet stop he does, and suddenly—

174

accompanied by stars and a spinning world in his head.

When he finally wakes up at the ranch house, his friends

are gathered around him and the doctor is sewing up his

cuts. At the song's conclusion, he whispers to one of

his pals, Arizona, that that bronco wheel has "busted"

him "from sombrero down to heel," to which Arizona smil­

ingly replies, "'You ought to see that gol-darned wheel.'"

Cowboys and Women

Dances—Songs in Lomax's collection concerning the rela­

tions between the cowboy and the fair sex compose a size­

able group and reflect in general both personal and social

relationships, the latter represented chiefly by the ranch

house dance. The single song devoted completely to the

dance is "The Cowboy's Christmas Ball" (No. 30),^ which

records an instance of an actual dance still held annually

m Anson, in Jones County, near the Clear Fork of the Brazos

River and Double Mountains, an area near Abilene, Texas.

The narrator begins his description of the dance by declar­

ing that he is attending their gala affair in the Morning

Star Hotel with "the lovely Widder Wall." The music, he

The song was originally a poem, written by Larry Chittenden and published in Ranch Verses, which Lomax secured from the oral tradition. Lomax states in an ac­companying footnote that none of his informants knew that the song was in print or that it was originally a poem instead of a song. Cowboy Song. and Other Frontier Bal-lads (1916, rpt. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928), p. 335.

175

continues, is provided by "a fiddle and a lively tambourine,

/ And a viol . . . imported by the stage from Abilene" (11.

29-30) . The room is well decorated "with mistle toe and

shawls" and candle-light. The women are well dressed, but

the men, apparently embarrassed, "looked kinder treed." 0

Finally the caller arrives, a cowboy named Windy Bill, in

a "rig" that was "kinder keerless,—big spurs and high

heeled boots" and with a voice "like the bugle upon the

mountain height." His job is to call the square dance,

and he does so with a picturesque language appropriate to

his trade: "Now fellers, shake your pen!

Lock horns ter all them heifers and rustle then like men;

Saloot yer lovely critters; neow swing and let 'em go;

Climb the grapevine round 'em; neow all hands do-ce-do!

You maverick, jine the round-up,—jes skip the waterfall."

(11. 43-47)

Once the ice is broken, all present join in the dancing

for all they are worth: The boys was tolerable skittish, the ladies

powerful neat. That old bass viol's music just got there with

both feet! That wailin', frisky fiddle, I never shall forget; And Windy kept a'singin'—I think I hear him yet— "Oh, X's, chase yer squirrels, and cut 'em to

our side; Spur Treadwell to the center, with Cross P

Charley's bride, . ^ Doc Hollis down the center, and twine the ladies

chain, , Van Andrews, pen the fillies in big T Diamond s

train.

176

All pull your freight together, neow swallow fork and change;

Big Boston, lead the trail herd through little Pi tch fork's range.

Purr round yer gentle pussies, neow rope and balance all!"

Huh! Hit were gettin' active—the Cowboy's Christmas Ball.

(11. 49-60)

So fast does the dancing finally get that "The dust riz

fast and furious" and one of the men, T Bar Dick, faints.

In the closing lines, so thoroughly elated has the narra­

tor become that he can only conclude: "Oh, Bill, I shan't

forget yer, and I oftentimes recall / That lively gaited

sworray—the Cowboy's Christmas Ball" (11. 71-72).

Though "The Cowboy's Christmas Ball" is the only

one of the songs devoted wholly to the dance, other in­

stances of dances occur in "A Fragment" (No. 56) and

"Bucking Broncho" (No. 13). The song "Old Paint" (No. 108)

according to Lomax's note on this piece, was often sung at

dances. "Old Paint" consists of a partial dialogue between

the cowboy narrator, who is about to leave Cheyenne on a

journey, and Annie, his girl friend. Her only lines are

given in the third couplet in which she asks him to sit

beside her; but apparently afraid that he might lose his

nerve to leave, or because he is shy, the cowboy refuses

and goes on his way. The last lines indicate the tone and

content of the piece: My foot in my stirrup, my reins in my hand; Good-morning, young lady, my horses won't stand.

177

Goodbye, Old Paint, I'm a-leavin' Cheyenne. Goodbye, Old Paint, I'm a-leavin' Cheyenne.

Happy and Unhappy Relations with Women—Some of the songs

dealing with the personal relations between the cowboys

and women depict happy or satisfactory love affairs, others

not. A frequent pattern in the former concerns the fidelity

of the girl to her absent man, out on the cattle drive.

Such an instance is "The Gal I Left Behind Me" (No. 60),

which begins:

I struck the trail in seventy-nine. The herd strung out behind me; As I jogged along my mind ran back For the gal I left behind me.

That sweet little gal, that true little gal. The gal I left behind me!

(11. 1-6)

The speaker intends to remain true and return to her, and

she keeps renewing her promise by letter to wait faithfully

for his return. When the drive is over, the cowboy does

return to her, and they are reunited with a "smack." A

similar situation occurs in "A Fragment" (No. 56) , in

which the cowboy states that, though far from his sweet­

heart and not knowing when he will see her again, he still

loves her: I've been to cowboy dances, I've kissed the Texas girls. But they ain't none what can compare With my own sweetheart's curls.

(11. 13-16)

The other women in his life suggest the casual attachments

probably associated with saloons and dance halls, which

178

the cowboys sought out to relieve their loneliness.

The cowboy in "The Lone Star Trail" (No. 91) has

affairs with two women. The song opens with a statement

on the narrator's abilities as a cowboy and his intention

to remain a cowboy until he is too old to work any longer.

At the beginning of the song, he is at least informally

engaged to his first sweetheart, but when his boss tells

him that he must go up the trail, he tells her that she

must "cheer up courage and choose some other one" because

he cannot give up his life as a cowboy. But he will re­

member her, he thinks sadly, as he goes on up the Lone

Star Trail once again. But he consoles himself that when

he gets to the end of the drive, he will have "a little

spree / To drive away the sorrow for the girl that once

loved me" (11. 23-24). With respect to his second sweet­

heart the narrator remarks:

I went up the Lone Star Trail in eighteen eighty-three;

I fell in love with a pretty miss and she in love with me.

"When you get to Kansas write and let me know; And if you get in trouble, your bail I'll come

and go." When I got up in Kansas, I had a pleasant dream; I dreamed I was down on Trinity, down on that

pleasant stream; I drearapt my true love right beside me, she come

to go my bail; I woke up broken hearted with a yearling by the

tail. Ci yi yip yip yip pe ya.

y :f f :i f 1 i:- ^ ^^^^ 28-36)

179

The details of this passage suggest that the narrator has

for some reason been imprisoned and is soon to be sent to

Texas to be incarcerated in the penitentary in Huntsville

for "ten long years." The girl has promised to go his

bail, but she has only ten dollars, which proves to be 0

too little, too late. The significant element in the song

is that the girl is true to him, and that he would presum­

ably be true to her if his misdeeds had not caused him to

be put into prison.

Certain of the unhappy songs sung by the cowboys

deal with the married cowboy who has found his marital

status unbearable in comparison with his earlier and freer

single life. This problem is explained in "Wild Rovers"

(No. 148) , which begins with a "Come-All-Ye" call to all

"wild rovers" to listen to the narrator's "sad history,"

and contains the dire warning that "love has been the ruin

/ Of many a poor man" (11. 7-8). As the remainder of the

text of this song suggests, the narrator is definitely

uncomplimentary toward women and marriage:

10 When you are single And living at your ease You can roam this world over And do as you please; You can roam this world over And go where you will And slyly kiss a pretty girl 15 And be your own still.

But when you are married And living with your wife. You've lost all the joys And comforts of life. 20

180

Your wife she will scold you. Your children will cry. And that will make papa Look withered and dry.

You can't step aside, boys, 25 To speak to a friend Without your wife at your elbow Saying, "What does this mean?" Your wife, she will scold And there is sad news. 30 Dear boys, take warning: "Tis a life to refuse.

If you chance to be riding Along the highway And meet a fair maiden, 35 A lady so gay. With red, rosy cheeks And sparkling blue eyes,— Oh, heavens! what a tumult In your bosom will rise! 40

One more request, boys. Before we must part: Don't place your affections On a charming sweetheart; She'll dance before you 45 Your favors to gain. Oh, turn your back on them With scorn and disdain!

Come close to the bar, boys. We'll drink all around. 50 We'll drink to the pure. If any be found; We'll drink to the single. For I wish them success; Likewise to the married, 55 For I wish them no less.

(9-56)

The bulk of the text of the preceding song has been quoted

and the lines numbered in order to demonstrate its close

affiliation with portions of another song, "The Range

Riders" (No. 119). "The Range Riders" also begins with

the "Come-All-Ye" formula, but the opening stanza present

181

a quite different picture of love from that in "Wild

Rovers"—one that constitutes in effect a lament for a

certain lost beloved named Lulu:

Come all you range riders and listen to me, I will relate you a story of the saddest degree, I will relate you a story of the deepest distress,— I love my poor Lulu, boys, of all girls the best.

When you are out riding, boys, upon the highway. Meet a fair damsel, a lady so gay. With her red, rosy cheeck and her sparkling dark

eyes. Just think of my Lulu, boys and your bosoms will

rise.

(11. 1-8)

At this point, however, the "Lulu" motif breaks off and

the remainder of the song, as the quotation below confimns,

shows material that is almost certainly a variant form of

the "Wild Rover" text. The numbers in the right hand

margin represent corresponding lines in the quotation above:

While you live single, boys, you are just in your prime;

You have no wife to scold, you have nothing to bother your mind;

You can roam this world over and do just as you will.

Hug and kiss the pretty girls and be your own still.

But when you get married, boys, you are done with this life.

You have sold your sweet comfort for to gain you a wife;

Your wife she will scold you, and the children will cry.

It will make those fair faces look withered and dry.

(9)

(21)

( 1 3 -

( 1 5 -

( 1 7 -

( 1 8 -

( 2 1 -

(24 )

•14)

•16)

•18)

•20)

•22)

182

You can scarcely step aside, boys, to speak to a friend (25-26)

But your wife is at your elbow saying what do you mean. (27-28)

With her nose turned upon you it will look like sad news,— (29-30)

I advise you by experience that life to refuse. (31-32)

Come fill up your bottles, boys, drink Bourbon around;

Here is luck to the single wherever they are found.

Here is luck to the single and I wish them success, (Stanza VI)

Likewise to the married ones, I wish them no less.

I have one more request to make, boys, before we part.

Never place your affection on a charming sweetheart.

She is dancing before you your affections to gain; (Stanza V)

Just turn your back on them with scorn and disdain.

(11. 9-28)

"Mississippi Girls" (No. 98), like the "Wild

Rovers"--"Range Riders" sequence, also offers advice

against the restrictions placed upon the free life by

the institution of marriage, but its wording is more gen­

eral, and launched against a group, the "Texian boys,"

rather than a single marriage partner. The speaker is a

woman who calls the Mississippi girls to "listen to my

noise":

If you happen to go West, don't you marry those Texian boys;

For if you do, your fortune will be Cold jonny-cake and beefsteak, that's all that

you will see,— Cold jonny-cake and beefsteak, that's all that

you will see. (11. 2-5)

183

The courting habits of the Texians, the speaker believes,

is always bad; for they wear:

An old leather coat, and it's all ripped and tore; And an old brown hat with the brim tore down. And a pair of dirty socks, they've worn the winter

round. (11. 7-9)

0

Their mode of living offered is little better. Their

dwelling is "a hut with hewed log wall," and no windows,

with "a clap-board roof and a puncheon floor"; and there

will always be the isolated life of privation on the

"prairie" and the "plains." Their Sunday wear is little

better than their courting suits, consisting of "Just an

old black shirt without any vest, / Just an old straw hat

more brim than crown" (11. 24-25) . Conditions furthermore

will not wait long to get even worse, for the wedding sup­

per will be of "beef and cornbread," and domestic condi­

tions thereafter will include chores and hard work; for

the woman will have to do the milking and have little

means to store the milk.

Two of the songs^ in the present group present the

typical roving cowboy whose girl jilts her absent lover

and writes him the unpleasant news that she has married

another. Thus in "The Rambling Cowboy" (No. 118) , a

^"Lackey Bill (No. 85) may well belong to this category. Since stanza one makes the title character appear to have become an outlaw, the song is discussed in the section dealing with outlaws.

184

young man has fallen in love with the daughter of a "rich

old rancher" in his area. The daughter, he declares, is

"pretty, tall, and handsome, both neat and very fair, /

There's no other girl in the country with her I could com­

pare" (11. 3-4). When he asks her if she minds if he 0

crosses the plains, she promises to be true to him "until

death did prove unkind. " But it is not long after he

reaches Arizona, where "Money and work were plentiful and

the cowboys . . . were kind / But the only thought of my

heart was the girl I left behind" (11. 11-12), that a

letter arrives telling him that she has rejected him for

another suitor. His reaction is one of dismay:

I turned myself all round and about not knowing what to do.

But I read on down some further and it proved the words were true.

Hard work I have laid over, it's gambling I have designed.

I'll ramble this wide world over for the girl I left behind.

(11. 17-20)

The last stanza begins with a "Come-All-Ye" call to other

cowboys who have been listening to his song to beware, for

"when you court a pretty girl, just marry her while you

can. / For if you go across the plains she'll marry another

man" (11. 23-24).

The same motif is found in "The Trail to Mexico"

(No. 138), in which the cowboy says, I made up my mind to change my way And quit my crowd that was so gay.

185

To leave my native home for a while And to travel west for many a mile.

Whoo-a-whoo-a-whoo-a-whoo.

(11. 1-5)

He consequently leaves Texas after promising his sweet­

heart, "'We will get married next time we meet,'" having

been hired by A. J. Stinson, to drive a herd of cattle to

Mexico. After enduring much trouble with his horses and

the hardship of "sleet and snow," he later learns that she

has "married a richer life, " and he must "seek another

wife. " Distraught he leaves to "go back to the Western

land" to search for his old companions and to find a place

where "a false-hearted love" is not known. When his old

love begs him not to go, he curses her gold and silver and

says, "God pity a girl that won't prove true." He then

rides off to the West, "where the bullets fly."

A similar comment, from a female point of view, n

occurs in "Bucking Broncho" (No. 13), in which a cowboy

"7Thorp claims that Belle Starr, a noted female out­law of the West, wrote the song about herself. Pardner of the Wind, p. 35. "The Cowgirl" (No. 36) is almost half the length of this song, but the first three stanzas seem a variant of "Bucking Broncho":

My love is a rider and broncos he breaks, (1) But he's given up riding and all for my sake; (2) For he found him a horse and it suited him so He vowed he'd ne'er ride any other bronco. (12)

But love has a gun, and that gun he can use, (17) But he's quit his gun fighting as well as

his booze; \'^^)

186

rides off and leaves the girl. The situation in this song

is not unlike those of the songs in which the cowboy la­

ments the infidelity of a sweetheart. in this case it is

the cowboy who jilts the girl. The song opens as the girl

declares, "My love is a rider, wild bronchos he breaks, /

Though he's promised to quit it, just for my sake" (11.

1-2). They meet first in the spring when, riding his

spirited horse—"He tipped me a wink as he gaily did go;

/ For he wished me to look at his bucking broncho" (11.

7-8)—and then again in the fall at a dance, where he

And he's sold him his saddle, his spurs, and his rope, (19)

And there's no more cow punching, and that's what I hope. (20)

My love has a gun that has gone to the bad, (21) Which makes poor old Jimmy feel pretty damn

sad; (22) For the gun it shoots high and the gun it

shoots low, (23) And it wobbles about like a bucking bronco. (24)

(11. 1-12)

As the line numbers from the first poem indicate, the rela­tionship with "Bucking Broncho" is quite pronounced. There is no evidence of stanza four of the former song in this one, but the lines used are practically verbatim, especi­ally the seventh line above with the awkward use of him. The last stanza of the latter is not related at all and is at variance with the rest of "The Cowgirl":

The cook is an unfortunate son of a gun; He lias to be up e'er the rise of the sun; His language is awful, his curses are deep,— He is like cascarets, for he works while you sleep.

(11. 13-16) Who this cook is and how he is related to the song is unclear; this stanza is perhaps one attached by the informant to this song.

187

gives her a ring and she in turn gives her heart to him.

Finally the man turns from legitimate riding to crime,

though the details are somewhat uncertain in this respect,

viz. :

My love has a gun, and that gun he can use. But he's quit his gun fighting as well as

his booze: And he's sold him his saddle, his spurs, and

his rope. And there's no more cow punching, and that's

what I hope.

My love has a gun that has gone to the bad. Which makes poor old Jimmy feel pretty damn sad; For the gun it shoots high and the gun it shoots

low. And it wobbles about like a bucking broncho.

(11. 17-24)

The song- closes with a warning to all young maidens like

herself:

Beware of the cowboy who swings the raw-hide; He'11 court you and pet you and leave you and go In the spring up the trail on his bucking broncho.

(11.26-28)

The final piece in this group, "Rambling Boy" 8

(No. 117), is a song which reveals the wandering nature

of a young man named Willie who leaves his sweetheart Julia

at home when he departs because their love affair has been

forbidden by the girl's father. Part of the song is a

dialogue between the two young lovers, in which they vow

^Though this song has a title similar to "The Rambling Boy," it is in no way related to this song of British origin. Texts of the British ballad can be found in Vance Randolph, ed., Ozark Folksongs (4 vols., Colum­bia: The State Historical Society of Missouri, 1946), II, 83-85.

188

their love for each other. Later Willie, a "wild and

rambling lad," far away in the "western land" receives

Julia's letter stating "'Oh, read these lines, sweet Wil­

liam dear. / For this is the last of me you will hear'"

(11. 15-16). Back in the home territory the father dis­

covers his daughter "hanging by her own bed rope." He cuts

her down, and in her bosom finds a note giving directions

to "'Dig my grave both deep and wide / And bury sweet Willie

by my side'" (11. 27-28). The conclusion reminds the reader

of other romantic ballads where the lovers are buried in

adjoining graves:

They dug her grave both deep and wide And buried sweet Willie by her side; And on her grave set a turtle dove To show the world they died for love.

(11. 29-32)

"The Pecos Queen" (No. 112) tells the story of

Patty Morehead, who emerges as a kind of Amazonian figure

who lives ^

Where the Pecos River winds and turns in its journey to the sea.

From its white walls of sand and rock striving ever to be free.

Near the highest railroad bridge that all these modern times have seen.

(11. 1-3)

This song Thorp claims to have written about a real woman

who lived in this area, basing it on a story told him by

the famous Judge Roy Bean, the "Law West of the Pecos."

Patty Morehead, Thorp maintains, was "as pretty and full

189

of fire as they come, even in Texas, " and was widely known

for her ability to shoot, rope, and ride. in the romantic

part of the song—a detail Thorp admits adding to the

original facts—, Patty challenges her lover to follow her

across the Comstock railroad bridge if he really loves her.

He has told her that he will "gladly risk all dangers for

her sake," but when she rides across "the highest bridge

in the West," he refuses, leaving her "still without a

mate." This is one of the few songs which gives a woman

the attributes of courage and bravery.

It should also be added in passing regarding the

present section that many other songs have incidental

references to the cowboy-female relationship. As the nar­

rator in "Texas Rangers" (No. 136) warns, if a person has

"a mother, likewise a sister too, / And maybe you have a

sweetheart to weep and mourn for you" (11. 29-30), he

should not roam. Almost all of the songs dealing with

the dying men mention probably mothers, sisters, and sweet­

hearts left behind when the roaming spirit first seized

upon the dead Ranger, soldier, or cowboy.

Cowboys and Liquor

The habit of drinking, and its pleasant or dire

effects on the drinker, appear in four songs in Lomax's

^Thorp and Clark, Pardner of the Wind, p. 40.

190

volume. In general, the first of these, "Jack o" Diamond"

(No. 76), portrays a Southern soldier who roams because of

an unfortunate love affair, but the chorus offers a pejora­

tive comment on the viciousness of the gambling and drink­

ing habits:

Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds, I know you of old. You've robbed my poor pockets Of silver and gold. Whiskey, you villain You've been my downfall. You've kicked me, you've cuffed me. But I love you for all.

(11. 5-12)

The speaker's love for strong drink evidenced here appears

also in another chorus in the same song:

If the ocean was whiskey, And I was a duck, I'd dive to the bottom To get one sweet sup; But the ocean ain't whiskey And I ain't a duck. So I'll play Jack o' diamonds And then we'll get drunk.

(11. 39-46)

The quality of the preceding lines suggestive of a

drinking song appears also in a song entitled as such,

"Drinking Song" (No. 48), which begins:

Drink that rot gut, drink that rot gut. Drink that red yee, boys; It don't make a damn wherever we land. We hit her up for joy.

(11. 1-4)

The complete song declares that the cowboys have "lived

in the saddle and ridden the trail" and will "go whooping and yelling, we'll all go a-helling; / Drink her to our

191

joy" (11. 5, 7-8).

Other songs contain preachments against the evil

effects of drink. Compare, for example, "The Drunkard's

Hell" (No. 49), which states:

I thought I saw the gulf below Where all the dying drunkards go. I raised my hand and sad to tell It was the place called Drunkard's Hell.

(11. 9-12)

Here the speaker is aware that Hell is filled with "a

mournful sound / Among the groans," where "lightning flashed

and thunder rolled." After this vision he cannot take even

"a social glass" without thinking of what he saw, so he

gives up drinking and begins "to seek redeeming grace" and

to have his "sins . . . washed away. " Ultimately he goes

home to see his "long neglected wife," only to find her

weeping over their dead child. But he consoles her over

the death by saying that the child's soul has "fled away /

To dwell with Christ till endless day" (11. 27-28), and

tells that he has gone "to the Temperance hall / And taken

a pledge among them all" (11. 33-34), and that for seven

years he has lived a sober and happy life.

Another drunkard's view of Hell occurs in "The

Hell-Bound Train" (No 69) , which deals with a Texas cow­

boy who, "Having drunk so much he could drink no more /

. . . fell asleep with a troubled brain," and dreamed "that

he rode on a hell-bound train" (11. 2-4). The livid de­

scription includes the picture of an engine stained by

192

"murderous blood" and "brilliantly lit with a brimstone

lamp." The train is fueled with bones shoveled in by an

imp. Furthermore,

The boiler was filled with lager beer And the devil himself was the engineer; The passengers were a most motley crew,— Church member, atheist. Gentile, and Jew.

(11. 9-12)

The passengers also include all classes an all colors of

mankind: "Yellow and black men, red, brown, and white."

As the train nears Hell, the Devil "capered about and

danced for glee" and then accused the sinners: "'My faith­

ful friends, you have done the work / And the devil never

can a payday shirk'" (11. 31-32). Their sins are cata­

logued: Some have "bullied the weak" and "robbed the poor"

and their "starving brother . . . turned from the door."

They have "laid up gold where the canker rust, / And have

given free vent to . . . beastly lust" (11. 35-36). Fi­

nally the Devil, after continuing to list their misdeeds,

promises to carry out his responsibility—to see them all

"safe in the lake of fire." When the cowboy awakes "with

an anguished cry, /His clothes wet with sweat and his

hair standing high" (11. 47-48), he realizes what fate

awaits him and prays for forgiveness, evidently with suc­

cess, for, as the song concludes, "he never rode the hell-

bound train. "

•. 193

Cowboys and Religion

Certain of the songs in Lomax's collection suggest

that many of the cowboys, though they might seem hardened

materialists, nonetheless retained a feeling for their

childhood homes and the Christian religion, a condition

which suggests that, in many cases, they were the products

of homes in which religion received major emphasis. The

seven songs discussed below deal directly with religion

or subjects quite closely related to it. The two songs

just discussed, of course, "The Drunkard's Hell" and "The

Hell-Bound Train" also fit to a certain degree into this

category.

A song which deals with an ironic conversion experi­

ence is "Silver Jack" (No. 108), which Lomax suggests is a

"lumber jack song adopted by the cowboys." The time of

the poem is given as 1880 with a trail boss named Silver

Jack serving as one of the principal characters. One of

the crew is Robert Waite, who according to the narrator,

is "Kind of cute and smart and tonguey," evidently "a

graduate" and a "skeptic," and who declared on one occasion

that the Bible is "a fable" and Jesus "just a common man."

Aghast at this heresy, his comrades react strongly. Silver

Jack, taking off enough of his "duds" to fight, cries,

"'Twas in that thar religion / That my mother lived and

died" (11. 34-35); and though he admits that he has not

"always / Used the Lord exactly right," he will not "hear

194

a chump abuse him" without putting up a fight. But Bob

will not back down, and a fight ensues, with the loss of

teeth and an ear. At length Silver Jack subdues the

reluctant skeptic:

But at last Jack got him under And he slugged him onct or twict. And straightway Bob admitted The divinity of Christ. But Jack kept reasoning with him Till the poor cuss gave a yell And lowed he'd been mistaken In his views concerning hell.

(11. 48-55)

The men then pass a bottle of liquor around to toast Bob's

newfound "religion."

"The Cowboy at Church" (No. 28) pictures a cowboy

who is in town and unaware until he hears the bell sound

that it is Sunday. Feeling inclined to attend church, he

thinks that he hears the voice of his mother and recalls

that when he was in Tennessee he went to church with her

and his sister. Dressed as he is, "In the trappings of

his trade," he goes in, where the preacher prays for all

the people of the world, even though the members of the

congregation feel that cowboys are "a kind of moral out­

law / with no good claim to grace" (11. 47-48). Using the

imagery of his trade, the cowboy voices his concern over

whether "the mortal grass is springing up / To meet the

judgment sun" (11. 59-60) and whether at the time an

"angel cowboy of the Lord / Will cut the human herd" (11.

63-64), if

195

. . . a heap of stock that's lowing now Around the Master's pen And feeding at his fodder stack Will have the brand picked then? And brands that when the hair was long Looked like the letter C, Will prove to be the devil's. And the brand the letter D;

While many a long-horned coaster,— I mean, just so to speak,— That hasn't had the advantage Of the range and gospel creek Will get to crop the grasses In the pasture of the Lord If the letter C showed up Beneath the devil's checker board.

(11. 65-80)

Another song concerned with the afterworld is "The

Cowboy's Dream" (No. 31), which pictures this idea in terms

of ranch life, part of which is found in the imagery of the

roundup. As this cowboy sleeps on the prairie under the

stars, he wonders "if ever a cowboy / Would drift to that

sweet by and by" (11. 3-4). He recalls this idea in

familiar terms:

They say there will be a great round-up. And cowboys, like dogies, will stand. To be marked by the Riders of Judgment Who are posted and know every brand.

I know there's many a stray cowboy Who'll be lost at the great, final sale. When he might have gone in the green pastures Had he known of the dim, narrow trail.

(11. 13-20)

He finds himself speculating on whether he himself will

"get cut in the bunch with the 'rustles,'" or culled cattle, on the last day, and, "another big owner" or

Satan will get him, and he warns his listener "for safety,

196

you'd better be branded / [and] Have your name in the

Great Tally Book" (11. 39-40), i.e., the Book of Judgment,

Similar imagery may be found in "Rounded Up in

Glory" (No. 125), in which the narrator recounts that he

is dreaming of being "rounded up in glory bye and bye."

He then says that in this final roundup the cowboys will

meet on "the golden shore," where they will "part no more."

In order to be there, he urges.

May we lift our voices high To that sweet bye and bye. And be known by the brand of the Lord; For his property we are. And he will know us from afar When he rounds us up in glory bye and bye.

(11. 18-23)

Perhaps the best of these songs is "The Great

Round-Up" (No. 62), in which the narrator envisions the

way Heaven will be:

I think of the big-hearted fellows Who will divide with you blanket and bread. With a piece of stray beef well roasted. And charge for it never a red. I often look upward and wonder If the green fields will seem half so fair. If any the wrong trail have taken And fail to "be in" over there.

(11. 9-16)

The song continues with the narrator's hope that no cowboy

might miss out on the trip. He believes that in the "last

great round-up," when the herd is "cut," that he and his

fellow cowboys "shall be represented / In the earmark and

brand of the Lord" (11. 43-44). and will as a consequence

"be shipped to the bright, mystic region / Over there in

197

green pastures to lie" (11. 45-46), where there are "crystal

still waters." Since the song is composed from a cowboy's

viewpoint. Heaven is pictured in what the cowboys would

like to have as grassland for their animals, a green pas­

ture with plenty of water.

"The Cowboy's Meditation" (No. 35) is similarly

concerned with religious truths. The speaker, for example,

wonders "If every bright star up yonder / Is a big peopled

world like our own" (11. 7-8) and whether their inhabitants

are cowboys and Indians of the type he knows, and "sweet

little children at play." The penultimate stanza contains

the speaker's speculation upon his own personal future:

Sometimes when a bright star is twinkling Like a diamond set in the sky, I find myself lying and thinking. It may be God's heaven is nigh. I wonder if there I shall meet her. My mother whom God took away; If in the star-heavens I'll greet her At the round-up that's on the last day.

(11. 25-32)

"The Cowman's Prayer" (No. 37) constitutes both a

formal invocation and a chronicle of the problems of the

range, and opens as follows:

Now, 0 Lord, please lend me thine ear. The prayer of a cattleman to hear. No doubt the prayers may seem strange. But I want you to bless our cattle range.

As the song continues the speaker asks a blessing for the

roundups and the cattle and petitions for an abundance of

water for the land, plus an absence of prairie fires.

198

Furthermore, he hopes and trusts that the price of beef

will be "at least five cents a pound." His final request

is that all of his cows have twin calves. in closing he

says, "I may pray different from other men / But I've had

my say, and now. Amen" (11. 19-20) .

Cowboys and Death

Closely allied to the songs on religion are those

concerning death, which for men in a hazardous profession

was never too far away: often from the fall of a horse

while chasing cattle, or in a stampede, or on the trail

or the roundup. Perhaps one of the most famous of the

songs about death in the cowboy's repertoire is "Little

Joe, the Wrangler" (No. 88), of which Thorp claims author­

ship.-'- In the song, a young boy who has left home because

his stepmother beats him, rides up to the cowboys on his

horse. Chaw, where he is hired by the boss to "wrangle" or

round up the camp's horses each day so that the men can

ride out to take care of the cattle. His other chores

include hitching up the team for the chuck wagon and

gathering wood for the fire. But when the group reaches

the Pecos River, a norther stampedes the cattle. Since

the guard has been doubled, Joe has been assigned to ride

with the herd—with dire results to himself:

^^Thorp and Clark, Pardner of the Wind, p. 16

199

'Midst the streaks of lightin' [sic] a horse we could see in the lead,

'Twas Little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead;

He was riding Old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head,

A tryin' to check the cattle in their speed.

At last we got them milling and kinda quieted down.

And the extra guard back to the wagon went;

But there was one a-missin' and we knew it at a glance,

'Twas our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe.

(11. 32-39)

They find the boy "in a washout twenty feet deep, " crushed

under the body of Rocket, for "his spur had rung the knell."

A similar incident is celebrated in "Charlie

Rutlage" (No. 23) , the subject of which is identified as

the third man to die on the XIT Ranch in Texas. The

latter's death occurs from "a cow-horse falling on him

while running after stock." During the spring roundup,

Charlie leaves for the day's work, "gay and full of glee,

and free from earthly ills"; but he does not return:

'Twas as he rode the round-up, an XIT turned back to the herd;

Poor Charlie shoved him in again, his cutting horse he spurred;

Another turned; at that moment his horse the creature spied

And turned and fell with him, and beneath, poor Charlie died.

(11. 13-16)

^^J. Evetts Haley, The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado (2d. ed. ; Norman: Univer­sity of Oklahoma Press, 1953) gives a complete history of this ranch.

200

The last stanza of "Charlie Rutlage" states a hope of

reunion in eternity with his family.

"The Cowboy's Lament" (No. 32) is a good example

of a localized version of an English ballad, as well as

an illustration of the cowboy's view of death. Derived

12 from "The Unfortunate Rake, " one of the best known

pieces in Lomax's collection, "The Cowboy's Lament" re­

counts the last words of a young cowboy dying in the streets

of Laredo, who is wrapped in "white linen" for burial.

The dying man calls the narrator to him and tells him his

story: He has left his family in the "Nation," or Indian

Territory (later to become Oklahoma) , and has not let them

know his whereabouts since he came to Texas to work on a

.ranch. He asks the narrator to write to his "gray-haired

mother" and to his sister, but not to mention the informa­

tion to any of the crowd. He recalls "another more dear

than a sister" who will "bitterly weep when she hears" the

news, but he believes that she will find another to love.

He then asks the narrator.

^2"The Unfortunate Rake," rewritten as "The Bad Girl's Lament" and "The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime" and also known as "One Morning in May" and "St. James Hospital," deals with a soldier dying of syphillis but has the same kind of directions for the funeral as "The Cow­boy's Lament." This ballad is often cited as an example of the localization of ballads to form cowboy songs. See G. Malcolm Laws, Jr., Native American Balladry: A De­scriptive Study and Bibliographical Syllabus (Rev. ed.; Philadelphia: The T^erican Folklore Society, 1964), p. 133.

201

"Go gather round you a crowd of young cowboys.

And tell them the story of this my sad fate;

Tell one and the other before they go further

To stop their wild roving before 'tis too late."

The young man's downfall on the road to ruin has led from

the "dram-house, then to the card-house," but now, "shot

in the breast," he is "dying to-day." At his request the

narrator goes for a drink of water for him, but before he

can return, the young cowboy has gone to his "Giver."

Though rather thoroughly adapted to cowboy situation and

terminology, "The Cowboy's Lament" still retains elements

of earlier versions: e.g., "dram-house" and, perhaps,

"card-house"—words which would have sounded peculiar to

cowboys accustomed to saloons and gambling houses.

"When the Work Is Done This Fall" (No. 145) opens

with the account of a trail drive and the decision of an

older member of the crew to return after long absence to

his "Dixie" home. He declares that he has been "a tough

one" who drank excessively—took "great big jags"; but

that he has now changed his ways and, with God's help,

will be going home "After the round-ups are over and after

the shipping is done." But that very night is a stormy

one, and when the cattle stampede and he tries to turn

them, his horse stumbles and falls on him. As the cowboys

place hi:= "mangled" form on his bedroll, he tells them to

202

send his wages to his mother, and he gives his saddle, bed,

and pistol to his friends. His burial is pictured in the

closing stanza:

Poor Charlie was buried at sunrise, no tombstone at his head.

Nothing but a little board and this is what it said,

"Charlie died at daybreak, he died from a fall.

And he'll not see his mother when the work's all done this fall."

(11. 38-41)

The old cowboy's concern for his family and the

distribution of his effects to his friends are typical

elements in almost all of the cowboy songs on death, as

witness the song entitled "Only a Cowboy" (No. Ill), which

deals with a West Texas cowboy "on the old N A range"

located on the "staked plains" or Llano Estacado. The

familial concern is expressed by those still remaining,

for the cowboy "now is sleeping on the old staked plains."

The manner of his death is not specifically related, but

is probably of an accidental nature. The narrator expres­

ses the general feeling of the dead man's comrades in

stanzas three and four: He leaves a dear wife and little ones, too. To earn them a living, as fathers oft do; For while he was working for the loved ones

so dear He was took without warning or one word of

cheer.

And while he is sleeping where the sun always shines.

The boys they go dashing along on the line;

203

The look on their faces it speaks to us all

Of one who departed to the home of the soul.

(11. 13-20)

Generally, none of the songs discussed in this

group dealing with dying cowboys express any dislike for

the kind of life that has led to sad end, or even of the

land itself. "The Dying Cowboy" (No. 50), however, does

present a strong statement by a young cowboy with regard

to burial in the isolated area represented by the wild and

lonely prairie. Though he is aware that "It matters not

. . . / Where the body lies when the heart grows cold"

(11. 17-18) , he nonetheless pleads that he not be buried

on "the lone prairie" but "In the little churchyard on the

green hillside; / By [his] father's grave" (11. 26-27), so

that his mother, sister, and friends "can come and weep

o'er" him. Like other dying cowboys, he also remembers

his sweetheart, "another whose tears may be shed / For one

who lies on a prairie bed" (11. 37-38). But his comrades

are unable to grant his wish, and he is given a prairie

burial. As the narrator remarks.

We took no heed of his dying prayer; In a narrow grave just six by three We buried him there on the lone prairie. Where the dew-drops glow and the butter­

flies rest. And the flowers bloom o'er the prairie's

crest; Where the wild cayote and winds sport free

On a wet saddle blanket lay a cowboy-ee. (11. 50-56)

204

Thus his fate is no different from those of the others

treated in the songs.

A well-constructed ballad dealing with a cowboy

who lost his life during a roundup is "Utah Carrol" (No.

141). The song begins abruptly, almost as if a few lines

at the beginning are missing:

And as, my friend, you ask me what makes me sad and still.

And why my brow is darkened like the clouds upon the hill;

Run in your pony closer and I'11 tell to you the tale

Of Utah Carroll, my partner, and his last ride on the trail.

(11. 1-4)

In a setting characterized as "Mexico's fair land," the

narrator's partner, Utah Carrol, died trying to save Varro,

the "boss man's little daughter," from death when the

cattle stampeded in her direction. As the narrator records

the tale, in trying to escape the stampede's rush Varro

falls from her horse in the cattle's path. Utah, seeing

her plight knows that his only chance is to "catch her at

full speed," for often "he had been known to catch the

trail rope off his steed" (11. 19-20). He makes for the

girl to swing her up, and just as the men think her safe,

his saddle falls off when "his back cinch snapt asunder"

and he falls to the ground by Varro's side. To save her,

he seizes the blanket she was carrying and swings it over

his head to distract the maddened cattle. Though able to

save the girl, he is unable to save himself and dies

205

beneath the crush of the cattle's hooves. As the narrator

remembers, "when we broke the circle where Utah's body lay,

/ With many a wound and bruise his young life ebbed away"

(11. 35-36) . As his body is wrapped in the blanket used

to save the child and buried, the preacher fittingly 0

remarks, "'And in some future morning . . . / I hope we'll

all meet Utah at the round-up far away'" (11. 37-38).

In certain of the songs already discussed, similar

attitudes of death occur as incidental parts of the main

action. In "The Dying Ranger" (No. 51) , for example, the

young man remembers his dead mother and father and makes

his friends promise to take care of his sister. In "Buena

Vista Battlefield" (No. 14) the dying soldier sees the

form of his mother before him and asks his comrades to

"speak softly" when they tell her the news of his death.

And as he dies, he recalls one "gentle as a fawn." In

tone these comments are well in line with those in the

songs discussed here, in which tenderness and filial con­

cern are dominant.

SONGS OF DANGER AND VIOLENCE: INDIANS,

MOUNTAIN MEN, RANGERS AND OUTLAWS

As part of the general reflections of frontier life

in Lomax's collection, a number of songs portray the life

and activities of the plains Indians, mountain men, Texas

Rangers, soldiers, buffalo hunters, and outlaws—all com­

mon phenomena in the frontier world.

Indians of the West

The four songs in the collection dealing with

Indians concern chiefly the problem raised by white en­

croachment on Indian held territority, and generally from

the white man's viewpoint. The first, "Sioux Indians"

(No. 129), depicts the dangers of the Plains tribes offered

to immigrants traveling west in their covered wagons. The

narrator, apparently a member of such a wagon train,

promises his listeners in the opening stanza:

I'll sing you a song, though it may be a sad one. Of trials and troubles and where they first begun; I left my dear kindred, my friends, and my home. Across the wild deserts and mountains to roam.

(11. 1-4)

The train crosses the Missouri River, perhaps near the

Independence-West Port area of the state of Missouri, at

the beginning of the famed Santa Fe and Oregon Trails,

from whence the trail taken leads to the Platte River,

206

207

and the Oregon route. The evenings of the travelers, ac­

cording to the narrator, are, after the hard day's trek,

spent in hunting the "fleet antelope and wild buffalo,"

no doubt for fresh meat to supplement their rations and

perhaps for sport as well. Daily throughout the journey,

he continues, suspense mounts from the potential danger

of the fierce Sioux tribes which, he has heard, are "A-

killing poor drivers and burning their trains." But it

is not until three weeks after crossing the Missouri,

when the train reaches the Platte River in the territory

controlled by the Sioux, that the train is attacked. As

the travelers camp to allow the horses and mules to graze,

the Indians suddenly appear, and, the narrator says, we

"sprang to our rifles with a flaxh in each eye, / 'Boys,

says our leader, 'we'll fight till we die'" (11. 19-20).

The ensuing fight pits twenty-four white men against "five

hundred or more Sioux, " and many warriors are slain in the

battle. One of those killed is the "bold chief at the

head of his band, " who "died like a warrior with a gun in

his hand." The chief's death, however, breaks up the

attack, for, as the narrator points out, "When they saw

their bold chief lying dead in his gore, / They whooped

and they yelled and we saw them no more" (11. 27-28) .

Three more Indian attacks occur during the rest of the trip,

but with very little loss to the train. Only three "brave

boys fell," remarks the narrator, who describes their

208

burial place as "a green, shady dell." The term dell, an

English topographical term, seems incongruous in this con­

text and suggests the influence of an Englishman not long

removed from the glens, tarns, and heaths of the mother

country.

The Sioux described in this song, though mounted

and armed with guns as well as with bows and arrows, are

obviously no match for the teamsters, who fought from the

cover of the wagons with their firearms. The song none­

theless reveals the consistent savagery and determination

of the Indians, who continued to attack the whites in

eventually futile efforts, resistance which ultimately, of

course, also took its toll of the settlers.

A realistic picture of the settler's habitual

dread of the Indian is observable in a brief song entitled

"A Fragment" (No. 55), which dramatizes the matter by

means of its peculiar verse form in almost comical terms.

I'd rather hear a rattler rattle, I'd rather buck stampeding cattle, I'd rather go to a greaser battle. Than — Than to — Than to fight — Than to f i g h t the bloody I n - j i - a n s .

(11. 1-7)

The speaker continues by saying that he would rather "eat

a pan of dope" (or poorly cooked food), "ride without a

rope," or leave the country at a "lope" on horseback, than

"fight the bloody In-ji-an." Any of the alternatives

209

mentioned in the opening stanza might result in a gruesome

death, but even the former are preferable to death at the

hands of the savages.

One of the best developed, though somewhat lengthy,

ballads (two hundred four lines) in the collection is the 0

charming "California Joe" (No. 19), a love story with

Indian trouble in the background and based on two actual

frontier figures, California Joe Milner and Jim Bridger.

California Joe, the narrator, saying that he is going to

tell a story, "a truthful fact," to his "mates," begins

the tale with an incident in which he and Bridger are

camped on the Powder River in the spring of 1850. While

eating the liver of a recently killed buffalo calf, they

hear shots, and knowing that an old trapper named Pap

Reynolds from the Fort Reno area has moved in to take furs,

they rush to the aid of the old man. But they are "Too

late, [for] the painted heathens / Had set the house on

fire" (11. 31-32) . Deciding to look around, they tie their

horses and wade upstream, where they find a young girl

hidden in the brush. Joe picks her up and tells her, "I'll

save you or I'll die." With Bridger covering his retreat,

Joe escapes with the girl, who turns out to be Maggie,

^See Joseph E. Milner and E. R. Forrest, Califor­nia Joe (Milner) (Caldwell, Id.: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935); and Cecil J. Alter, Jim Bridger (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956).

210

Reynold's thirteen year old daughter, with her father

slain, the girl laments "There is no one left to love me,

/ There is no one left to love" (11. 47-48). But there

is one, California Joe, who falls in love with Maggie,

whom he calls Hazel Eye; but since she is still a child,

he sends her to live with her uncle. Mad Jack Reynolds,

who is given money by Joe to assist in her upkeep.

Some years later while scouting in a beautiful

section of the mountains, Joe sees a girl pointing a rifle

at him from a canoe. After she recognizes him as her old

friend, Maggie kisses him and tells him how much she has

missed him. She regrets that she had almost shot him,

thinking him a Sioux Indian because of his frontier dress.

Following the death of her ailing uncle, the two marry and

earn their livelihood trapping; but they return each spring

to the site of the uncle's grave. The song closes with a

romantic statement by Joe, who says that their "love is

always kindled / While sitting by the stream" (11. 201-

202) at the spot "Where two hearts were united / In love's

sweet happy dream" (11. 202-204). Although the conflict

between Indians and whites, and the role played by the

Mountain Men, are the central thrust of this song, the

realistic frontier background also serves as a plausible

situation out of which the love story may emerge.

Another well-developed ballad dealing with the

211

Indian problem is "Billy Venero" (No. 5),^ which tells

the story of a young man killed in an effort to warn Bess,

his sweetheart, on a "cow-ranch" forty miles away of the

approach of "a band of Apache Indians . . . upon the trail

of death." Although he hears that three men have been

killed at Rocky Run, near Ft. Apache in Arizona, he is

undaunted by the warnings that he is "riding straight to

death" by crossing this same area. Though wounded by a

rifle ball, and rapidly weakening, Billy manages to con­

vey a message written in his own blood to his little

Bessie. Realizing he cannot complete the trip alive, he

tears a leaf from a book he carries and, with "the warm

blood that was spurting from a wound above his heart, "

scribbles the words "'Apache warriors lie in wait. / Good­

bye, Bess, God bless you darling,' and he felt the cold

tears start" (11. 53-54). Then tying the message to his

saddle horn, he tells Chapo, "Take this message, if not

me, / Straight to little Bessie Lee" (11. 58-59); upon

which the faithful horse carries the message through:

Just at dusk a horse of brown Wet with sweat came panting down The little lane at the cow-ranch, stopped

in front of Bessie's door; But the cowboy was asleep.

^Louise Pound, Poetic Origins and the Ballad (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921), pp. 226-227, credits the original poem, "The Ride of Paul Venarez," to Eben E. Rexford.

212

And his slumbers were so deep. Little Bess could never wake him though

she tried for evermore.

(11. 61-66)

When the attack does come, the Apaches are defeated, "panic-

stricken" at hearing Venero's name. After he is buried,

Bess plants a flower on his grave and keeps it alive until

she is buried "by his side."

Texas Rangers and Soldiers

The preceding song gives perhaps the best picture

of the fierceness and savagery which brought the settlers

to feel that the only good Indian was a dead one.^ How

the settlers, especially those in Texas, countered the

Indian threat is suggested in a number of songs dealing

with the Texas Rangers and the U. S. Army.

Six of the songs of this group deal with the Texas

Rangers, a potent force in dealing with disorder on the

frontier. The first of these, the energetic ballad "Mus­

tang Gray" (No. 101), originally appeared, in part,as

Dobie points out, in A. J. Sowell' s Rangers and Pioneers

of Texas, and is thought to have been written by James T.

3 Ramon F. Adams, Western Words: A Dictionary of

the American West (2d. ed. ; Norman: University of Okla­homa Press, 1968), p. 128.

^J. Frank Dobie, "Mustang Gray: Fact, Tradition, and Song," Publications of the Texas Folk-lore Society, X (1932), 122":

213

Lytle. Dobie feels that it is "one of the bravest and

best of the popular ballads of Texas. " The song is based

on the exploits of an actual person, who led a colorful

and explosive life in early Texas and who served for some

time in the Texas Rangers. His exploits are also recounted

in Mustang Gray: A Romance (1858), written by Jeremiah

Clemmens. In his study of the man and the tradition sur­

rounding him, Dobie has found that Maberry (Mayberry,

Mabery, or Mabry) B. Gray, a native of South Carolina,

came to Texas in 1835 at the age of twenty-one. A veteran

of the battle of San Jacinto, he later led a group of men

known as "Cow-Boys, " who raided Mexican ranches in South­

west Texas gathering loose cattle and horses as well as

some that were not so "loose." It was Gray's capture

while lost and on foot in Texas of a wild mustang that

gained him his nickname. Gray was a first lieutenant of

Texas Mounted Volunteers, also known as Rangers, during

the invasion of Mexico with Zachary Taylor, and he later

commanded a company of Rangers stationed at Corpus Christi.

The men in this unit were known as Mustang Grays, an

epithet the men acknowledged readily since it suggested

bravery associated with the actions of the group and its

^J. Frank Dobie, "More Ballads and Songs of the Frontier Folk," Publications of the Texas Folk-lore Society, VII (1928), 161-162.

214

indomitable leader. Gray has also been credited with many

less than honorable deeds, one of which was the murder of

most of the men at the rancho Guadalupe while in search of

plunder, and several other deeds such as killing Mexicans

for their horses and equipment. Bold, dangerous, and even

cruel upon occasion, he was a legendary figure. Dobie

says of him, "Mustang Gray represents a type, reflects a c.

time." Oral tradition says that he died of yellow fever

or cholera in a Mexican town, perhaps Matamoras or Camargo,

and was buried on the Texas side of the Rio Grande River, 7

as he asked to be, perhaps at Rio Grande City.

The song dealing with this figure has a well-

developed ballad structure. The narrator opens by iden­

tifying the man:

There once was a noble ranger. They called him Mustang Gray; He left his home when but a youth. Went ranging far away.

(11. 1-4)

Known for his bravery, he is eager to go "ranging," and

he gets his chance "When Texas was invaded / By a mighty

tyrant foe" (11. 13-14) . This action is the Mexican War,

in which Gray actually participated, and in which he was

evidently taken prisoner. He was, the song recounts.

^Dobie, "Mustang Gray," p. 114

" ibid.

215

taken "in chains" and "wore the yoke of bondage / Through

the streets of Monterey" (11. 19-20). At this point a

note of romance enters the story, when a senorita helped

him to escape, when she "opened the gates and gave to him

/Her father's steed to ride" (11. 23-24). Though, as

Dobie points out, this particular bit of information cannot

be verified, the detail "is current all over Southwest

Texas." The accounts of the compassion of Mexican women

for early Texans captured by Mexicans is quite common in o

the chronicles of the time. The last stanzas state Gray's

request that he be buried in Texas "On the banks of the

Rio Grande" so that "the lonely traveler / . . . Will shed

a farewell tear" on the grave of "the bravest of the brave."

Though the song might seem to praise the man more than his

deeds appear to warrant, he does represent the kind of man

who captured the popular imagination during the time re­

counted; and since there was bitter hatred between Mexicans

and Texans—and with reason as a look at the history of

the relations will indicate—the deeds, or misdeeds, of

Mustang Gray tend more to glamorize than to condemn him.

"Texas Rangers" (No. 136),^ which begins with a

"Come-All-Ye" type of opening, is a ballad relating the

8 Ibid., p. 123, n. 17.

^A variant version of this song appears in a work published in 1884. See A. J. Sowell, Rangers and Pioneers

216

details of a fight between Rangers and Indians, a not

infrequent occurrence, according to the records. The

young man depicted in the song is only sixteen"'- when he

joins "the jolly band" and leaves San Antonio, Texas, with

this group on the way to the Rio Grande. The captain has

promised a fight before they reach their destination, and

when the young lad sees "smoke ascending," he thinks that

his "time to die has come.":

I saw the Indians coming, I heard them give the yell; My feelings at that moment, no tongue can ever tell. I saw the glittering lances, their arrows round me

flew. And all my strength it left me and all my courage too.

(11. 13-16)

But the boy, along with his companions, refuses to quit,

and they fight "full nine hours before the strife" ends.

But the cost is heavy; "Sixteen as brave rangers as ever

roamed the West / Were buried by their comrades with arrows

of Texas with a Concise Account of the Early Settlements, Hardships, Massacres, Battles, and Wars by Which Texas Was Rescued from the Rule of the Savages and Consecrated to the Empire of Civilization (1884; rpt. New York: Argosy-Antiquarian Ltd., 1964), pp. 231-232. Louise. Pound says that this song is modeled on the British ballad "Nancy of Yarmouth." Cambridge History of American Lit­erature, ed. by William Peterfield Trent, et al. (New York: Putnam's, 1923), IV, 505.

•'• Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense (2d ed.; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965), p. 80, relates that many of the Rangers were young. One of the greatest of them, John C. (Jack) Hays, was a captain at age twenty-three, a major by twenty-five, and a colonel at thirty-four.

217

in t he i r b r e a s t " (11 . 23-24); and a l l of the survivors are

wounded. The preceding count a l so included the "noble

captain s l a i n . " The boy now r e c a l l s h i s mother ' s warning

to remain a t home, and h i s own o b s t i n a t e des i r e to go, but

he warns a l l o t h e r s who might have a mother or a s i s t e r or 0

sweetheart "to weep and mourn" them that they "had better

stay at home." The ballad closes with the boy's recogni­

tion that the "life of a ranger . . . is very tough," but

none the less romantic: as he boasts, "And here's to all

the ladies, I am sure I wish you well, / I am bound to go

a-ranging, so ladies, fare you well" (11. 39-40).

The realistic detail revealed in this well-developed

ballad makes it an accurate revelatory statement on Ranger

life. As already suggested, death was frequently the lot

of Rangers engaged in the arduous duties of securing the

countryside. So it is in "The Dying Ranger" (No. 51) , the

opening lines of which set the tone of the song: The sun was sinking in the west And fell with lingering ray Through the branches of a forest Where a wounded ranger lay; Beneath the shade of a palmetto And the sunset silvery sky, Far away from his home in Texas They laid him down to die.

(11. 1-8)

As his comrades gather around him, with tears in their

eyes, one "tried and true companion" works in vain to

save his life. But the young man calls on his friends

to "weep no more" because he is "crossing the deep waters

218

/ To a country that is free" (11. 23-24). As he is dying,

he tells of his sister, Nell, his "only joy" and "pride,"

and his only surviving relative. Because he loves her,

he has tried "from grief and sorrow / Her gentle heart to

spare" (11. 39-40). It is at her insistence that he had

left when their "country was invaded" (probably in the

Mexican War, though the song does not mention a specific

conflict) , and he recalls his loving parents, both now

dead, his mother resting "Beneath the church-yard sod,"

and his father "Beneath the deep blue sea." The dying

Ranger goes with a smile on his face, as his comrades

promise that they "will be to her as brothers / Till the

last one does fall" (11. 71-72) . When the young Ranger

is buried, it is appropriately "With his saddle for a

pillow / And his gun across his breast" (11. 79-80).

The traditional ballad situation of a dying man

surrounded by friends who make promises to him concerning

his family's welfare is well adapted in this ballad, most

of which is a reflection on the sister and his brotherly

love for her. Like "The Dying Cowboy" (No. 50), discussed

above, it pictures the same end result: a grave far away

from home, loved ones, and civilization—in this case,

probably deep in Mexico where the Rangers were participat­

ing in the Mexican War.

One of the songs of this group "Here's to the

Ranger!" (No. 70), suggests the glory found in the Ranger's

219

romantic careers. As may be noted in the title, the song

is in effect a toast to Ranger gallantry. The first

stanza of the song gives the tone and indicates the gen­

eral content of the text:

He leaves unplowed his furrow. He leaves his books unread For a life of tented freedom By lure of danger led. He's first in the hour of peril. He's gayest in the dance. Like the guardsman of old England Or the beau sabreur of France.

(11. 1-8)

But the praise does not end here. The Rangers are called

the "faithful bulwark / Against our savage foe" (11. 9-10)

and the ones who protect the children and defend the home­

steads; furthermore, they are presented as "gay and hardy"

individuals who, because of their readiness to help con­

trol the lawless element, deserve the love of the people.

The last stanza offers a final encomium: He may not win the laurel Nor trumpet tongue of fame; But beauty smiles upon him. And ranchmen bless his name. Then here's to the Texas Ranger, Past, present and to come! Our safety from the savage. The guardian of our home

(11. 41-48)

These men, who worked hard at their trades, evi­

dently received praise from the Texas citizenry very much

as this song indicates. Walter Prescott Webb indicates

that as late as 1924, when he made a trip with Captain

R. W. Aldrich, the quartennaster of the force, in

220

southwest Texas around the Big Bend country, the feeling

had not altered. When a group of Rangers stopped at an

isolated ranch, one of the Rangers "was greeted by men,

women, and children as if he were son and brother. It was

more than frontier cordiality; his greeting was not unlike

that given in the old days to the Rangers who kept the

Indians out of the settlements."

Forces opposing the Rangers in earlier times did

not, of course, share this feeling. One group of Mexicans

gathered in Mexico City when the Rangers entered the city

during the Mexican War to see "'Los Diablos Tejanos, ' the

12 Texas Devils." The Rangers did much both to warrant the

attention and affection of the people they protected, and

the fear and hatred of those whom they were called upon to

control or eliminate.

Two of the songs depict the sad occasions when

circumstances brought about the disbanding of the Rangers.

The speaker in "Muster Out the Ranger" (No. 102) offers a

strong reaction to this event:

Yes, muster them out, the valiant band That guards our western home. What matter to you in your eastern land If the raiders here should come? No danger that you shall awake at night

l^Ibid., p. 559

l^ibid., p. 119

221

To the howls of a savage band; So muster them out, though morning light Find havoc on every hand.

(11. 1-8)

The speaker visualizes the role played by the

Rangers as essential to keeping the horses from being

stolen so that someone can go for the doctor when sickness

strikes or to making sure that outlaws do not have free

rein in the countryside. He accuses the authorities of

discharging these "fearless scouts of this border land"

for monetary reasons, because keeping them "made taxes

high, " and admonishes the legislators to conserve funds

in some other way—than by sacrificing the safety of the

people—for example, by having "fewer men in the capitol

walls" and "fewer tongues in the war of words," as well

as "fewer dinners, less turtle soup." Other measures sug­

gested include not wasting "so much . . . money / Printing

speeches people don't read" (11. 25-26). Finally, they

could cut down the amount of sugar and lemon in their tea,

or drink water instead, for it "is just as good" as well

as "better for the blood." The feeling is that any kind

of reduction in expenses would be better than cutting out

the Rangers, for the "watch" of these fearless fighters

"Gives our loved one naught to fear."

"The Disheartened Ranger" (No. 43), though offering

a more personal view, that of one of the Rangers, is simi­

lar m many ways to the preceding song, in its protest

222

against the disbanding of the Ranger group. The piece is

a "Come-All-Ye" type of non-narrative song asking a "kind-

hearted stranger" to hear the song about the Rangers who

protect the ranches from the Comanche Indians. The speaker

quickly gets to the basic problem involved, the lack of

funding for the force. Declaring his discontent at the

lack of support, the speaker says.

We're weary of scouting, of traveling, and routing The blood-thirsty villains o'er prairie and wood; No rest for the sinner, no breakfast or dinner. But he lies in a supperless bed in the mud.

(11. 5-8)

He continues to lament the poor food and long working hours

with little sleep, and he blames the legislators, whom he

calls "great alligators," whose debates are not producing

any of the necessary funds for supplying the Rangers.

Though he regrets leaving, he warns the listeners that

they will have to fight their own battles, for he is leav-

13 ing "the frontier of Texas" and going home.

The gusto with which the Rangers fought the Mexi­

cans, is also shown by the American soldier, and captured

in four songs dealing with this group. The first of these,

"Way Down in Mexico" (No. 143) , perhaps reflects the feel­

ings of one of the soldiers who followed General Taylor,

l^Ibid.. , p. 567, notes that the group was placed under control of the Texas Department of Public Safety on August 10, 1935, and continue as a viable force.

223

"Old Rough and Ready" as he was sometimes called, into

Mexico. The song begins by calling out

0 Boys, we're goin' far to-night, Yeo-ho, yeo-ho! We'll take the greasers now in hand And drive 'em in the Rio Grande, Way down in Mexico.

(11. 1-5)

It continues by promising to hang Santa Anna, the Mexican

commander-in-chief, along with all of his soldiers, the

latter here referred to by the slang term "greasers. ""'-

The speaker promises that they will scatter the Mexicans

"like flocks of sheep." This relish for slaughter is

evident throughout the twenty-five lines of this enthusi­

astic song. The piece closes with the promise that when

the killing is done, "Then we'll march back by and by, /

. . . And kiss the gals we left to home" (11. 21-23) and

never again go "Way down in Mexico."

History records that before the American soldiers

returned home from the war with Mexico, the Battle of Buena

Vista took place. There General Taylor fought a costly

battle, after which the decimated Mexican forces under

General Santa Anna withdrew from the field. "Buena Vista

Battlefield" (No. 14), perhaps captures in the imagination

•'- Lester V. Berrey and Melvin Van Den Bark, The American Thesaurus of Slang (2d. ed.; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1953), p. 347.

224

the death of one of the American c a s u a l t i e s . The song

begins:

On Buena Vis ta b a t t l e f i e l d A dying s o l d i e r l ay . His thoughts were on h i s mountain home Some thousand mi les away. He ca l l ed h i s comrade to h i s s i d e . For much he had to say. In b r i e f e s t words to those who were Some thousand mi les away.

(11. 1-8)

The dying man laments the grief his death will cause his

father, a "time-worn patriot, " but he is proud that he is

dying with honor. He thinks also of his mother, whose

tears seem as drops of blood from his wound. One final

request is that his comrade tell her that at his death,

he was glad that she had taught him to "take [his] country's

side." But the one who concerns him most is his sweetheart,

one "gentle as a fawn," and he asks his comrades to tell

her that when his death approached, her lover thought of

her.

A unique song picturing the plight of a Southern

soldier in the Civil War is "Jack o' Diamonds" (No. 76),

the chorus of which makes a combined comment on the man's

love of gambling and drinking whiskey. The speaker is a

"rabble" or Rebel soldier who must remain with the South­

ern army but who is heartbroken because of his lost love,

whose parents have disapproved of him; and he leaves home

forever:

225

0 Mollier, O Mollie, it is for your sake alone That I leave my old parents, my house and my

home. That I leave my old parents, you caused me to

roam,— 1 oin a rabble soldier and Dixie is my home.

(11. 1-4)

His loyalties to the Southern cause are strong, but his 0

feeling for Mollie keeps him from remaining at home. So

though he has "rambled and trambled this wide world

around, " he must go on to the "rabble army" because of

his Mollie.

The speaker in "I'm A Good Old Rebel" (No. 74) is

also a Southern soldier, but the setting is the Recon­

struction Period following the war, the policies and 15 practices of which were definitely unpopular. The

speaker in this song begins:

Oh, I'm a good old rebel, that's what I am; And for this land of freedom, I don't care

a damn, I'm glad I fought agin her, I only wish we'd

won. And I don't axe [ask] any pardon for anything

I've done. (11. 1-4)

During the course of the peace the speaker recounts that

he served with General Robert E. Lee, whom he calls "old

Bob Lee," was wounded four times, went hungry, and caught

rheumatism; but at the same time, he notes, "killed a

• See, for example, Richard Hofstadter, William Miller, and Daniel Aaron, The American Republic (2 vols; Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959), II, 3-33.

226

chance [quantity] of Yankees" and wishes he had "killed

some.'" He expresses dislike for the United States and

all that it stands for, and declares, "I won't be re­

constructed! I'm better now than them; And for a carpet-

gagger, I don't give a damn" (11. 13-14). Finally he

announces that he is "off for the frontier" in Mexico. He

evidently intends to go to one of the Confederate colonies

established in Mexico by Southern veterans after the war.

A wry, bitter song, this piece no doubt sums up the feel­

ings of a number of Southerners after the Civil War.

Buffalo Hunters

Three of the songs in Lomax' s collection deal with

a third force which helped end the threat of hostile Indi­

ans on the frontier—namely the buffalo hunters. The first

17 of these, "The Buffalo Skinners" (No. 16) , may have been

based upon an actual event. Lomax, at least, records an

account of its presumed writing given him by an actual

18 buffalo hunter.

•'- See W. C. Nunn, Escape from Reconstruction (Ft. Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1956), for an account of the rise and fall of this new "Confederacy."

^"^This ballad is widely known to be a variant of "Canady I-O."

l^ln his discussion of this ballad, which he cites as George Lyman Kittredge's favorite in the collection, Lomax gives an account of his securing the song from an old buffalo hunter who claims that after undergoing the

227

The song opens with the "Come-All-Ye" formula of

the traditional ballad:

Come all you jolly fellows and listen to my song. There are not many verses, it will not detain

you long; It's concerning some young fellows who did agree

to go And spend one summer pleasantly on the range of

the buffalo. (11. 1-4)

The situation revealed by the plot of the ballad is that a

man named Crego, a leader of a hunting expedition, has

organized a group of men for a buffalo hunt. The party

leaves from Jacksboro, Texas, in the year 1873, a few years

before use of this town as an outfitting place for buffalo

hunting was widespread. The young man upon whom the action

centers is out of work, and since he is promised good wages,

he leaves with an outfit of seven men. The weapons are

"navy six and needle gun," not uncommon ones for such an

expedition at this time before longer range weapons were

needed to kill the more wily survivors of previous slaugh­

ters.

The song accurately presents the hard work, mis­

fortune, and disillusionment of the young narrator:

experiences related in the song, he and the other hunters "shaped" the song and "would sing it together." The Ad­ventures of a Ballad Hunter (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947) , pp. 54-55. Wayne Gard has been unable to discover any record of a real person named Crego. The Great Buffalo Hunt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), p. 291.

228

It's now we've crossed Pease River, our troubles have begun.

The first damned tail I went to rip, Christ! how I cut my thumb!

While skinning the damned old stinkers our lives wasn't a show.

For the Indians watched to pick us off while skinning the buffalo.

(11. 21-24)

As the narrator suggests, the "chuck" is poor, just "old

jerked beef, croton coffee, and sour bread" as well as

"buffalo hump and iron wedge bread. " The water they have

to drink from the Pease River is "as salty as hell fire. "

They sleep on buffalo robes where "fleas and gray-backs"

torment them. He concludes that "there's no worse hell on

earth than the range of the buffalo." He is both embit­

tered and hardened by the experience, and when the season

ends and Crego tells them that they have been too "extrava­

gant, " and are "in debt to him" he says that they "coaxed"

and "begged" but "still it was no go," so they "left old

Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo" and

went home to "wives and sweethearts." He warns "others not

to go, / For God's forsaken the buffalo range and the damned

old buffalo" (11. 43-44). A spirited ballad, it presents

a harsh picture of the sometimes romanticized life on the

prairie.

The next song, "The Buffalo Hunters" (No. 15) ,

exhibits a quite different tone from that of "The Buffalo

Skinners," presenting the hunters as gallant and flamboy­

ant, and furthermore, totally lacks its pessimistic view.

229

It seems less realistically accurate than "The Buffalo

Skinners," too, in its view of conditions on the hunting

ranges. Finally, it has a weaker narrative structure than

"The Buffalo Skinners," simply recounting the conditions

under which the hunters lived and hunted. The song opens 0

with a traditional "Come-All-Ye" statement:

Come all you pretty girls, to you these lines I'll write.

We are going to the range in which we take 'delight;

We are going on the range as we poor hunters do.

And the tender-footed fellows can stay at home with you.

(11. 1-4)

Their routine, says the speaker, is to "go tramping round

/ In search of the buffalo that we may shoot him down"

(11. 5-6) and "send them up Salt River to some happy hunt­

ing grounds." The buffalo are praised as "the noblest of

the band," which seldom merely give up to the hunter, but

"seems to say, 'We're coming, boys; so hunter, mind your

eye.'" This view of the creature is perhaps an overstate­

ment of the "nobility" of the bison, since the creature

had poor vision and an ambling gait which made it appear

clumsy. Observers called it a "stupid animal" and an easy

"victim of the hunters. "^^ Though the song mentions In­

dian trouble, the subject is handled humorously, for the

l^Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1959), p. 44.

230

narrator mentions that the "Cheyenes, the Rapahoes, and

Sioux" have "such a peculiar way . . . of raising hunter's

20 hair." Since these are the tribes mentioned, the song

evidently reflects the more northern range, or perhaps the

area of the Arkansas herd in the Kansas-Colorado area.

"The 'Metis' Song of the Buffalo Hunters" (No. 96)

deals with a group of hunters along the Pembiah and Red

Rivers in North Dakota. The song opens with a feeling of

enthusiasm for life and the hunt:

Hurrah for the buffalo hunters! Hurrah for the cart brigade!

That creak along on its winding way. While we dance and sing and play.

Hurrah, hurrah for the cart brigade!

(11. 1-5)

Ihese Metis hunters are, of course, the "Pembinah hunters"

discussed in an earlier section who hunted in groups and

took their possessions along in the carts associated with

them. Their French-Indian heritage is revealed in the lan­

guage and detail of the line "Mon ami, mon ami, hurrah for

20Among other accurate details of life on the fron­tier such as poor food "mingled well with sand" is the ref­erence in line seventeen to fires "made of mesquite roots." The burning of the roots of this plant was necessary in areas where the portion of the mesquite above ground level rarely exceeded waist high. The proportion of root to that above ground was considerably greater and provided more fuel. These roots were dug and burned as fuel until petro­leum provided a suitable substitute. Dried "cow chips" or dung was used in some areas as the only fuel available.

231

our black-haired girls!" These "black-haired girls" are

the Metis half-breed girls renowned for their beauty, and

offsprings of the French and Indian mixture in the area. "

The song closes with a picture of the carefree life these

people led when they had plenty to eat.

The buffalo hunters, both those of the southern

and northern plains, passed out of existence when the main

ingredient of their way of life, the bison, became too

scarce to hunt. But it was these "bloody men" who opened

the way for the expansion of the cattle kingdom by con­

trolling the depredations of the Indians and freeing the

grass for the raising of cattle, a practice which had al­

ready begun before the buffalo had completely disappeared

from the rangeland.

It is fitting to close this discussion of this early

era with a lament for a past which has furnished considerable

material for legend and myth of the Old West. "The Old

Scout's Lament" (No. 109) the text of which Lomax includes

twice without variation, is a dirge for the era just passed.

The song opens with a "Come-All-Ye" statement asking the old

scouts to sing of their past, and with good reason:

Of all the old frontiersmen That used to scour the plain.

2lMari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters; The Story of the Hide Men (New York: Hastings House, 1954), p. 336.

232

There are but very few of them That with us yet remain.

(11. 5-8)

He mentions men who "never wore the blue"—i.e.,

the uniform of the United States Army—but who were still

"brave men, tried and true." Some of them contributed by

"piloting the coming folks / To help them safely through"

(11. 19-20). Since the frontier was becoming settled and

roads were available, the song continues, these men were

no longer needed, any more than were the buffalo hunters

and the trappers after the ample supply of game had dis­

appeared. And with the Indians subdued, there was like­

wise no more need for the patrolling soldiers. But his

lament ends happily: But we found great joy, old comrades. To hear and make it die; We won bright homes for gentle ones. And now, our West, good-bye.

(11. 37-40)

Songs of Outlaws, Jailbirds, and Murderers

The songs dealing with the exploits of men outside

the law vary considerably in quality both as songs and in

their adherence to factual background. Four of the songs

which are discussed in the following section deal with

infamous men whose careers are well known to the general

public even today. Those dealing with Jesse James and Sam

Bass bear in them evidence of careful attention to detail

by their creators, for, though not every detail included

233

is correct, most are; and their general outlines accurately

follow the careers of the two men. The ballad of "Cole

younger," on the other hand, is definitely lacking in the

use of accurate factual detail in its composition, and

"Billy the Kid" consists of only a weak ballad-like piece

which falls far short in quality and vigor of the songs

"Jesse James" and "Sam Bass." The last three songs in

this section, which deal with men named in the titles,

Juan Murray, Lackey Bill, and Jim Farrow, are interesting

depictions of the life of those men living outside the law.

"Jesse James" (No. 78) is, as far as ballad ac­

counts go, remarkably correct in representing the facts

it includes, though this not to say that all of the state­

ments are true. Quite direct in approach, the song opens

with a concise statement of the career of this famous out­

law:

Jesse James was a lad that killed a-many a man; He robbed the Danville train.^^ But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard Has laid poor Jesse in his grave.

(11. 1-4)

The chorus correctly recounts that Jesse was married and

then states that he had three children, even though history

records that only two survived birth. Another popular

trait, the "Robin Hood" character of this famous outlaw.

22NO mention of a train robbery in or near Danville can be found in the several accounts consulted regarding the exploits of these outlaws.

234

is revealed in lines thirteen and fourteen: "Jesse was a

man, a friend to the poor, / He never would see a man

suffer pain" (11. 13-14). with respect to the several

lines above it is presumed by some of his biographers that

it was James who wanted to put the sorely wounded Jim

Younger out of his misery following the Northfield fiasco,

not being able to see him "suffer pain." Mention is made

in the song of two specific crimes that the gang actually

committed: robbing the Glendale train and the Gallatin

bank. In this second robbery, that of the Daviess County

Savings Bank at Gallatin, Missouri, they did kill a Mr.

Sheets, not Captain Sheets' as the song says, though the

title captain may be used as an epithet and not be intended

to be literally correct. The man was shot because Jesse

thought he was Lieutenant S. P. Cox, a Union officer who

had led an ambush during the war on Bloody Bill Anderson,

a member of Quantrill's guerilla force.^^

Errors in fact in the song include the statement

that the gang robbed the Danville train, of which no record

IS available, and the Chicago bank, mentioned in line fif­

teen. Neither Jesse nor his men were responsible for this

'' Harry Sinclair Drago, Outlaws on Horseback: The History of the Organized Bands of Bank and Train Robbers Who Terrorized the Prairie Towns of Missouri, Kansas, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma for Half a Cen ^^^y (New York: Bramhall House, 1964), p. 45.

235

deed, though local legend may have attributed such a rob­

bery to the gang. Generally, however, the ballad, though

somewhat repetitious, especially of the parts dealing with

Robert Ford, is more accurate than many of the other songs,

particularly that one dealing with Jesse's cohort in crime, 0

Cole Younger.

The account of Jesse's death is the chief point of

emphasis in Jesse's song and is generally accurate in its

main details, though rearrangement of details for artistic

unity is evident. The song says that "on Saturday night, o

Jesse was at home / Talking with his far:;ily brave" (11.

29-30) , when "Robert Ford Came along like a thief in the

night / And laid poor Jesse in his grave" (11. 31-32) .

The song seems in error on the day of the week and time of

day. A news release on the killing, quoted by Hendricks,

mentions Sunday, March 23, as the time when the Fords and

Jesse came to St. Joseph, Missouri, and stopped at the

James' home.^^ If this is true, then the date of the death,

April 3, could not have been on Saturday, as the song

states, but would have been on Thursday. The use of the

last day of the week is perhaps more appropriate for the

end of the career of the outlaw as is the use of night as

the time of death. Though Jesse is supposed to have just

^^George Hendricks, The Bad Man of the West (Rev, ed., San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1959), p. 182.

236

come from t h e s t a b l e where he had been c u r r y i n g t h e h o r s e s

for a n i g h t r i d e , he was sho t around n ine o ' c l o c k in the

25

morning. The song correctly states that the people were

shocked at the news of the cowardly way in which Jesse was

killed.

Authorship of the song is claimed in the last stanza

to be Billy Gashade. Whether this statement is true is

unknown, but efforts by scholars to identify the author

have failed. The fact that the song appeared only shortly

after the death seems to contradict the communal author­

ship theory.

The ballad of "Cole Younger" (No. 25) follows only

generally the correct outline of the exploits of this mem­

ber of the James-Younger Gang, though stanza one does give

correct background:

I am one of a band of highwaymen. Cole Younger is my name;

My crimes and depredations have brought my friends to shame;

The robbing of the Northfield Bank, the same I can't deny.

For now I am a prisoner, in the Stillwater jail I lie.

(11. 1-4)

Cole's career in crime began, of course, with Quantrill.

The robbing of the California miner, cited in line six of the song, is not mentioned in Drago and other sources, and encountering a California miner in Missouri sounds far-

^^Drago, Outlaws on Horseback, p. 83.

237

fetched. Croy indicates that Cole's first robbery was the

first of the gang's depredations in Liberty, Missouri in

26 ^ 1866. TTie sequence of events is thus altered from what

is historically accurate. The death of their father came

after the brothers had been riding with Quantrill. The 0

supposed words of Bob Younger do, however, point out cer­

tain events in the life of Cole:

"Now, Cole, we will buy fast horses and on them ride away.

We will ride to avenge our father's death and try to win the prize;

We will fight those anti-guerillas until the day we die."

(11. 10-12)

The Younger brothers were hot prone to buy all horses they

rode, for horses were among the booty of the raids and were

stolen in a number of places. The fight against the anti-

guerillas lasted until not long before Quantrill was shot

down; but the gang began its activities only after Quan­

trill 's death and had long forgotten about activities

against anti-guerillas when the problems in Northfield

broke up the group.

The fourth stanza seems out of place in a ballad,

for it does little to advance the narrative. It does say.

^^Homer Croy, Last of the Great Outlaws: The _Story of Cole Younger (New York: Duell, Sloam and Pearce, 1956), p. 46.

238

27 however, that the men "rode towards Texas, that good

old Lone Star State," but were deterred when they met the

James brothers. How the group met the Jameses on Nebraska's

prairies on their way to Texas when they had grown up in

Missouri is somewhat a mystery and leads one to conclude

that the composer of the song was unfamiliar with the facts

or that the song has undergone extensive decay and altera­

tion since entering the oral tradition. Croy states that

28 Cole first met Jesse in Kearney, Missouri, in 1866.

Line seventeen offers an interesting piece of news:

"A Union Pacific railway train was the next we did sur­

prise." No record of their actually robbing a Union Pacific

train is available, though Breihan notes that the gang was

erroneously thought to have had a part in a number of rob-

29 beries with which they were not associated. That this

line bears some influence of the ballad about Sam Bass is

possible, since Sam and a group of men robbed such a train

on their way to Texas. The James-Younger Gang often rode

to the Indian Territory when they sought to escape the

^^He did go to Texas after the Civil War, osten­sibly at least to secure a home for his ailing mother and to see Belle Starr. See J. W. Buel, The Border Outlaws (St. Louis, Mo.: Historical Publishing Company, 1881), p. 102.

2^Croy, Last of the Great Outlaws, p. 44.

2^Carl W. Breihan, Younger Brothers (San Antonio: The Naylor Company, 1961), pp. 159-160.

239

region in which they were known or had robbed, or to steal

horses as they did earlier before the Kansas raid with

Quantrill. The gang did not frequent "that good old Lone

Star State," though Cole was occasionally there to see

30 Belle Starr.

Lines nineteen and twenty contain only half-truths

about a train robbery executed by the group: "The engineer-

man and the fireman killed, the conductor escaped alive, /

And now their bones lie mouldering beneath Nebraska's

skies" (11. 19-20). In the first train robbery the gang

loosened some rails, thinking that the train would just

stop when the tracks failed to support the locomotive. It

did not of course, and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific

locomotive turned over. The fireman was badly burned and

the engineer was killed by a ruptured steam line, but this

robbery was in Adair, Iowa, not in Nebraska.

The background of the Northfield Bank robbery dis­

cussed in detail in the background material shows that the

account offered in the song is largely incorrect, for Cole

did not enter the bank but remained outside to provide

cover for Jesse and the others inside.

The ballad seems to end abruptly, for it does not

conclude the story, except as the plight of the outlaw is

indicated in line four quoted above. Yet the song is

30 Croy, Last of the Great Outlaws, p. 59.

240

reasonably complete, though less accurate than the Jesse

James narrative discussed above, and one must conclude

that the quality of the piece is inferior to that one re­

lating the death of Cole's leader.

The ballad "Sam Bass (No. 126) •''- is a we 11-developed,

comprehensive account of the career of the Texas bandit and,

of the four songs dealing with famous outlaws, is the best.

Some details are incorrectly noted, a possible result of

rearrangement by singers after the original was composed.

Stanza one serves as a form of general introduction to the

background and character of Sam:

Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home.

And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam.

Sam first came out to Texas a cowboy for to be,— A kinder-hearted fellow you seldom ever see.

(11. 1-4)

His arrival in Texas saw the development of his "passion

for horse-racing" with the almost phenomenonally success­

ful Denton mare, which "he matched . . . in scrub races,

and took her to the Fair." Sam always spent his money

freely and "drank good whiskey wherever he might be," as

the song indicates.

Bass had come to Texas to be a cowboy and finally

did make a trip up the trail with a herd, but he eventually

^^For discussion of the factual background, see the appropriate section in Part One: Background, Section 3, Outlaws.

241

went to Deadwood, not Custer City, as the song relates in

line eleven. It was while he was in Dakota Territory that

he launched his career as a robber. After several unre­

warding efforts at other crimes, he and a gang robbed the

Union Pacific train, an event very successful financially

for them. The fate of his comrades Joel (not Joe) Collins

and Bill Heffridge was death at the hands of a posse, also,

as the song relates. Another erroneous detail is the num­

ber of robberies mentioned in Texas after his return to

Denton. The song credits him with three, but the number

exceeds that. There were two stage coach robberies and at

least four train robberies. The listing of Sam's compan­

ions in the ballad is largely correct: "Richardson, Jack­

son, Joe Collins, and Old Dad" as well as "another compan­

ion, called Arkansas for short." The companionship of

Frank Jackson and Joel Collins was an element of Sam's

career in crime, but "Old Dad" is Sheriff Dad Egan of Den­

ton, who having employed Sam earlier, fired him, with no

hard feelings when the boy started drifting into crime.

Later he tried to bring the outlaw to justice. Richardson,

if he existed at all, does not appear in the historical

narratives. The stanza dealing with Sam's other companion,

Arkansas Johnson, is largely correct, for he was killed by

a Texas Ranger named Floyd. The comment on Floyd's being

"a deadbeat on the sly" perhaps reflects the attitude of

the maker of the song, instead of actual fact, for the

242

career of the outlaw is presented in a largely favorable

light, and this slanting of information supports the tone.

The treatment of the betrayer, Jim Murphy, is much

similar to that given Robert Ford in the ballad "Jesse

James." Murphy "was arrested, and then released on bail;

/ He jumped his bond at Tyler and then took the train for

Terrell. . . . " This much of the narrative is correct, as

is the part about Major, not Mayor, Jones' setting up the

plan to capture Bass with Murphy's help. The attitude of

the song toward Sam is certainly in the Robin Hood vein,

and the song is strongly prejudiced in favor of the outlaw.

The manner of Sam's death as recounted in the song

is overly exaggerated but essentially correct. He was

shot only twice, once in the hand and again in the abdomen,

but the ballad engages in fairly typical hyperbole in the

description.

Quite in contrast to this outstanding ballad is

the poorest of the four songs dealing with famous outlaws,

the ineffectual "Billy the Kid" (No. 4). Only sixteen

lines long, the song is devoid of actual detail and fails

to name any of the principal figures in the career of this

colorful young outlaw. The song opens with a statement

typical of the general tone of the song:

Billy was a bad man And carried a big gun. He was always after Greasers And kept 'em on the run.

(11. 1-4)

243

The song continues by saying that Billy "shot one every

morning, / For to make his morning meal" (11. 5-6). The

violent nature of the man and his robbing and drinking also

draw comment. His end is briefly but somewhat humorously

stated in the last stanza as being at the hands of "a man

/ Who was a whole lot badder" (11. 13-14). This reference

in the last stanza—evidently to Pat Garrett, who killed

Billy—is vague, for the statement seems to suggest that

Billy might have been killed on the day the two first met,

which is totally false. They had known each other for some

time and had fought together during the Lincoln County War.

It was during this conflict and later that Billy tried to

eradicate those who had killed his friend and benefactor,

John H. Tunstall. The song also mentions excessive killing

of Mexicans and robbing of stagecoaches; though neither fact

is true. His other principal crimes were cattle rustling

and horse stealing. On the whole, the song reflects an

attitude somewhat different from the primary thrust of

such ballads in that, rather than applauding Billy or

lamenting his passing, lines fifteen and sixteen point out

that the people "ain't none the sadder" for his death.

The orgin of the hero of the ballad "Juan Murray"

is obscure; it is not known, in fact, whether there was

actually such a man. He could, of course, readily have

been the product of the ballad maker's imagination. At

any rate, he was, as the song states, a Texas cowboy before

244

he got on the wrong side of the law:

My name is Juan Murray, and hard for my fate, I was born and raised in Texas, that good old

lone star state. I have been to many a round-up, boys, have

worked on the trail. Have stood many a long old guard through the

rain, yes, sleet, and hail; I have rode the Texas broncos that pitched

from morning till noon. And have seen many a storm, boys, between

sunrise, yes, and noon.

(11. 1-6)

The narrator, in stanza two, states that he left Midland,

Texas, never to return, to go to the "State of Sonora" in

Mexico because he was a cattle and horse thief. He then

warns, in the last stanza, that one had "better be honest

and let other's stock alone" so that he will not have to

leave his "native country and seek a Mexican home" (11.

27-28) . The result of this way of life is invariably cer­

tain: "For if you start to rustling you will surely come

to see / The State of Sonora,—be an outcast just like me''

(11. 29-30).

The story of another cowboy forced to flee to

Mexico is told in "Lackey Bill" (No. 85), a song which

explores as well the subject of disappointment in love

since the cowboy also must leave his sweetheart. The term

lackey in the title suggests that he has been lowered to a

status equal to a footman because of his experiences, and,

as a consequence of which, he has become an outlaw. The

first two stanzas may not belong to this ballad, for though

245

the first stanza can be placed in the narrative structure

of the plot, the second contradicts information given

later. Moreover, the first stanza gives the song a more

sinister tone, for it makes the man appear to be a con­

firmed outlaw. For this reason the song is placed here

rather than in the songs dealing with cowboys and women.

The opening reflects the outlaw content:

Come all you good old boys and listen to my rhymes.

We are west of Eastern Texas and mostly men of crimes;

Each with a hidden secret well smothered in his breast.

Which brought us out to Mexico, way out here in the West.

(11. 1-4)

But the first line of the second stanza states that he was

an only child, whereas, line twelve indicates that his

brothers did not like him for he "had learned to shirk"

his work. This contradiction may perhaps be reconciled

by surmising that the song is a composite of two songs,

the first two stanzas being from another piece; but only

the last part of line five, or line twelve, whichever the

case may be, causes one to be suspicious.

In line ten the speaker identifies himself as

C. W. King and states that after the war, no doubt the

Civil War, he found himself in poor health and, having no

education, he depended on his parents for a living. Hav­

ing decided to go West, he then heads out to "the Seven

Rivers all out on the Pecos stream" where he finds "a

246

country" that "just suited" him. He decides to marry when

he meets Mollie Walker, "a handsome figure though not so

very tall;/Her hair was red as blazes, I hate it worst of

all" (11. 29-30) . She consents to marry him, and he is

happy for the time; but he soon feels the urge to roam,

though she expresses her displeasure in this thought. But

when he finally determines to make a trip across the plains,

she swears to be true "till death proved her unkind." Un­

fortunately, however, she will not abide by her word, and

the hero soon receives a letter in Vagus, New Mexico,

stating that she has married another man. Distraught, he

swears to quit "cow-driving" and search for her. For

though he has plenty of money and "the girls to me are

kind" but he cannot forget his sweetheart, "the dearest

girl in all the world [who] has gone square back on me"

(11. 57-60) . He may well be an outlaw who because of a

thwarted love affair has gone over to the wrong side of

the law.

A song dealing with rustlers is "Jim Farrow" (No.

79) , a piece lacking in clear narrative development and

somewhat confusing in its statement. Apparent in the song

is the fact that three brothers—Jim, John, and Simon

Farrow—are in the cattle business. The speaker indicates,

however, that they mark and brand "both night and day, " an

indication that some rustling of livestock, both of horses

and cattle, might be involved in the night branding:

247

"Get up, my boys," Jim Farrow will say, "And out to horse hunting before it is day." So we get up and are out on the way But it's damn few horses we find before day. "Now saddle your horses and out on the peaks To see if the heifers are out on the creeks." We'll round 'em to-day and we'll round 'em

to-morrow.

(11. 17-23)

The men are cautioned that if they have to appear before a

grand jury to testify on ear marks, they are to say that

they "were absent when the work was on hand. " One problem

in collecting evidence against the Farrow brothers is that

their cattle have missing ears, cut off in an effort to

cover up the theft; for though brands could be easily

altered in many cases, the'ear was difficult to change

satisfactorily.

8

MORMON, IMMIGRANT, AND OTHER

FRONTIER SONGS

The songs covered in Lomax's title by the phrase 0

"and Other Frontier Ballads" concern chiefly the Morinons

in Utah; the miners in California, Wyoming, and in the

Black Hills of South Dakota; the immigrants to the West;

and the men involved with various modes of transportation,

such as stagecoaches, freight wagons, wagon trains, and

the railroads.

Monnons

Four songs deal specifically with the Moimions and

their affairs. The first of these "Brigham Young I"

(No. 10) is a not overly serious depiction of the life of

the Mormon leader in which little factual detail is in­

volved. The first lines indicate the stanzaic form and

the general tone of the song:

I'll sing you a song that has often been sung About an old Mormon they called Brigham Young. Of wives he had many who were strong in the lungs. Which Brigham found out by the length of their tongues Ri tu ral, lol, lu ral.

(11. 1-5)

The following stanzas comment further upon Young's many

wives. According to one of them, "He said 'twas such fun,

and true, without doubt, / To see the young wives knock

the old ones about" (11. 8-9). The fifth stanza gives

248

249

some indication of the Mormon community's relationship

with the United States government, for Young wonders,

"What must be our fate if found here in a row, /if Uncle

Sam comes with his row-de-dow-dow" (11. 23-24). Finally

there is an allusion to the invasion of Utah by forces

under General Albert Sidney Johnston in 1857, in what is

known as the Mormon War, erupting when the Mormons openly

defied marshalls and officers sent by the United States

government to enforce federal laws. This stanza is prob­

ably the most accurate of the song in detailing factual

material; the remainder are rather vague, the real inten­

tion being to provoke laughter.

"Brigham Young II" (No. 11), primarily a satire

on polygamy, is a cleverly-worded piece again poking fun

at the Mormon leader, since he would symbolize all the

Mormon men having more than one wife. Little of the word­

ing is complimentary of the religious group, as is appar­

ent in stanza one:

Now Brigham Young is a Mormon bold. And a leader of the roaring rams. And shepherd of a lot of fine tub sheep And a lot of pretty little lambs. Oh, he lives with his five and forty wives, In the city of the Great Salt Lake,

-••See William Alexander Linn, The Story of the Mormons: From the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 (New York: Russell and Russell, Inc., 1963), p. 482.

250

Where they breed and swarm like hens on a farm And cackle like ducks to a drake.

(11. 1-8)

The song states that his forty-five wives range from ages

sixty-three to sixteen, and the narrator wonders how the

husband keeps order and maintains happiness in such a 0

group. The rather common question about the physical drain

and other demands placed on a man with several wives is

the subject of the third stanza, which depicts Young as

"a stout man once" but "now . . . thin and old." He is

also bald, because his wives have "torn all the hair off

his head." The next stanza comments on the role of music

in Mormon life, a phenomenon mentioned in nearly all dis­

cussions of the sect. The last stanza offers a warning

that men should have only "one wife at a time, " and ad­

vises further that if anyone thinks that he wants to have

a number of wives, he should try only "two for a month,"

as a consequence of which he will soon decide that the

practice is not a wise one. The often lurid tales and

popular beliefs about relationships in Mormon households

far exceeded what this song speculates, and the satire

seems good-humored and not overly severe.

The next two songs are not even faintly humorous

in their depiction of Mormon life. The first reflects

action resulting from a decision made at" an April, 1857,

conf^r^nce of Mormon leaders to send a "colonizing mission"

251 2

to the valley of the Virgin River, in southwest Utah, an

area which did not prove very profitable for the "cotton

3

missionaries" who answered the summons. This trip evi­

dently serves as the basis for "A Mormon Song" (No. 99) , for

the lines include a number of specific geographic refer­

ences. The trip for this family would have begun, as the

song states, "on Cottonwood, " possibly a creek or "wash"

by that name in San Pete and Emery counties in central

Utah, but more likely Big Cottonwood Lake, about twenty-

five miles south of Salt Lake City and a retreat for the

Mormons. The destination mentioned is Washington, evi­

dently a town on the Virgin River in extreme southwestern

Utah, where a town by that name now stands. Two other

features. Black Ridge in line nine of the song and Sand

Ridge in line seventeen, are geographic features which

served as landmarks for guidance to the struggling cotton

farms on the Virgin River.

Though there is little direct reference to Mormons

in the song, stanza one provides some evidence of Mormon

influence: I used to live on Cottonwood and owned a little farm, I was called upon a mission that gave me much alarm;

^See Milton R. Hunter, Brigham Young the Colonizer (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1940), p. 343, for discussion of these events.

^Ibid., p. 291.

252

The reason that they called me, I'm sure I do not know. But to hoe the cane and cotton, straightway I must go.

(11. 1-4)

The word mission in line two is certainly an indication

of the speaker's being sent rather than simply going, and

the mention of hoeing of cane and cotton also coincides

with the activity of the mission.

The man yokes up his two oxen, Jim and Baldy, and

though sad to leave his home, he begins his journey, no

doubt with some thought in his mind of the Mormon practice

of blood atonement which threatened all disobedient mem­

bers of the sect. He looks back as he drives off, "for

the sand and rocks of Dixie were running through my mind."

This use of Dixie is perhaps derived from the popular name

of the coastal South, and used here because he is headed

for southern Utah where there are ample amounts of sand

and rocks.

On Black Ridge the wagon breaks down, and the man

is forced to improvise a slide out of a cedar pole to hold

the wagon level. The roughness of the ride necessitates

that his wife, Betsy, walk; and she comes in contact with

a "prickly pear," a thorny cactus-like plant, and begins

to cry. At this point the man openly states his regret in

"H orkers of the Writer's Program of the Works Projects Administration for the State of Utah, Utah: A Guide to the State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), p. 302.

253

leaving the Cottonwood farm. When the exhausting journey

finally ends at Washington, on the Virgin River, the man

decides that they will see "if the flowers would make

their virgin smile." The word virgin, even though spelled

in lower case, appears to be meant to refer to the Virgin

River. If so, it would correlate well with the "red hills"

mentioned in the same stanza, since soil coloration in 5

that parched area is a vivid red and there is a fertile

valley which lies amid the barren, mountainous wasteland.

Life for the missionary is arduous and difficult,

with daily routine "so very dreary, there's nothing here

to cheer." Their only pastime is hearing large numbers

of "old pathetic sermons" which the ministers "prove . . .

6 man by the book." Not so dedicated as he should be, the

says that he would "sooner have a roasting-ear and stay

at home and cook." The diet fails to improve, however,

for it is always "turnip-tops and lucerne greens," when

the man would prefer "buckwheat cakes and meat." Though

life remains difficult, with his team dead and his wagon

sold in order to buy "sorghum seed and bread, " the man and

his wife remain "to hoe the cotton tree" as they were

called to do. The song ends with a statement of feeling

^Dale L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (New York: The Bobbs-merrill Company, 1947), p. 85.

Probably The Book of the Mormon.

254

reflecting the Mormon origin of the song: "God pity any

Mormon that attempts to follow me!"

A song including a comprehensive picture of Morm.on

misdeeds is "The Mormon Bishop's Lament" (No. 100), the

most detail-filled of the four Mormon songs. Cast in the

form of a lament by one of the bishops, the song expresses

regret that the days are passed when bloody, violent con­

trol of others by the sect was possible and even common­

place. A secondary regret is that the speaker became in­

volved with the sect at all—a feeling drawing comment in

stanza one:

I am a Mormon bishop and I will tell you what I know. I joined the confraternity some forty years ago. I then had youth upon my brow and eloquence my tongue. But I had the sad misfortune then to meet with Brigham

Young. (11. 1-4)

Young promises him a rich reward for his work in the field

of Mormonism, but the wording indicates a less than sin­

cere attitude toward the non-Mormon, for he is promised

"a ripening harvest" and is told "our hooks shall find

the fool." He is converted and, after he has married six­

teen wives, goes out to preach the doctrine. The next

stanza recounts incidents from Mormon history "in the

glorious days when Brigham was Lord and King," when he

shouted his defiance from the top of the Wasatch Mountains,

which form the northern end of the Great Basin in Utah.

255

Mention in the ballad of Bill Hickman and Porter

Rockwell in lines fifteen and sixteen is also quite cor­

rect, for they were involved in the crimes of murdering

Dr. Robertson and the Aiken brothers mentioned in the

first two lines of the next stanza. Once when he thought

he was dying Hickman confessed to forty-three murders, but 7

he recovered from the illness and continued his ways.

The two men are credited with killing "Dr. Robertson, "

evidently a Dr. Robinson who had been allowed to settle

with the Mojnnons but who had been later killed and his

property confiscated by the group. The "Aiken brothers"

mentioned in line eighteen were part of the Aiken party

killed by members of the sect. The Mountain Meadows

Massacre, already discussed in the historical background,

occurred much as it is presented in the song. It was

"with rifle and with hatchet [they] made man and woman

yield," since the Mormons and their Indian allies jointly

perpetrated the crime. The mention of blood atonements is

also quite accurate, but the mention of "a wedding once

a year" in line twenty-eight, is probably an exaggeration

of the polygamy of the Mormons, at least for some of the

men.

''john Hanson Beadle, Life in Utah: or. The Mys­teries and Crimes of Mormonism (Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1870), p. 214.

256

The song t hen comments on "Old John , " who "goes

sulking on t h e b y - r o a d s of our l a n d , / Or unknown he keeps

in h id ing wi th t h e f a i t h f u l of our band (11 . 31 -32 ) .

This man i s John T a y l o r , who took charge of t he group

after Young's d e a t h , an even t mentioned in the nex t s t a n z a . 0

Taylor was,, of course, forced to remain in seclusion be­

cause of fear of arrest for polygamy. The lament is

sounded even more openly in the final stanza:

Oh, my poor old bones are aching and my head is turning gray;

Oh, the scenes were black and awful that I've witnessed in my day.

Let my spirit seek the mansion where old Brigham's gone to dwell.

For there's no place for the Mormons but the lowest pits of hell.

(11. 40-43)

These four songs give a fairly comprehensive pic­

ture of the Mormons. The first two make more general com­

ments than the second two, but the latter evidence more

actual historical detail.

Gold Miners

The songs dealing with gold rushes and the masses

seeking to become rich in the gold fields comment on

several of the phases of the migration and gold mining

itself though the emphasis is primarily on the California

strike of the forty-niners. Views expressed range from

those concerned with the overall movement to those depict­

ing the journey to the gold fields by sea and by land and

257

on various phases of life in the camps.

The narrative piece "The Fools of Forty-Nine"

(No. 53) gives a remarkably comprehensive and accurate

account of most aspects of the rush for gold in California.

The first stanza sets the stage for the trip:

When gold was found in forty-eight the people thought 'twas gas.

And some were fools enough to think the lumps were only brass.

But soon they all were satisfied and started off to mine;

They brought their ships, came round the Horn, in the days of forty-nine.

(11. 1-4)

The re f ra in sounds a warning t h a t proved a l l too t rue for

many who joined the rush: Then they thought of what they 'd been to ld When they s t a r t e d a f t e r gold,— That they never in the world would make a p i l e .

(11. 5-7)

The second stanza recounts how the "people all

were crazy then" and sold what they had to join the rush;

the next four, of means of going to the area, with an

accurate account of modes of transportation utilized and

the accompanying conditions of privation on the trips.

The sea journey was made on "the poor, the old, and the

rotten scows" which the passengers had to "pump and bail"

in order to keep afloat. These unsafe vessels were usually

"crowded more than full," so much so that "some hung on

behind," whereas, "others dived off from the wharf and

swam till they were blind." Those who succeeded in getting

258

passage found the food "stinking beef and rotten, wormy

bread." To avoid this plight at sea, other people took

the overland route, only to find it equally hazardous.

Still others took a ship to Panama, where they then walked

across the Isthmus to catch another ship on the other

side. This method was not certain to be any better, for

often the people had to wait "for months" before a ship

came for them. As the song states, "The people died on

every route, they sickened and died like sheep. " Those

who died at sea "were launched into the deep, " and those

who died on the overland journey fared little better: "a

hole was dug and they thrown in along the miserable Platte"

River. The final stanza sums up the plight of those who,

finally finding themselves in the gold fields, discover

that they are poorly equipped to cope with the situation

found there. Flour that cost "a dollar a pound" and primi­

tive living conditions, such as that of sleeping outside,

cause an expected reaction: "Both tired and mad, without

a cent, they damned the lousy hole."

The journey by ship receives more detailed dis­

cussion in "A Ripping Trip" (No. 121). The title accurately

suggests a trip filled with calamities, and this same idea

is reflected in the last line of each of the three stanzas

of the song. The first stanza recounts the condition of

many of the ships pressed into service for the sudden rush

of passengers:

259

You go aboard a l e a k y b o a t And s a i l for San F r a n c i s c o , You've go t t o pump t o keep h e r a f l o a t . You've go t t h a t , by j i n g o I The engine soon b e g i n s t o squeak. But nary a t h i n g t o o i l h e r ; Impossible t o s t o p t h e l e a k , — Rip, goes t h e b o i l e r .

( 1 1 . 1-8) 0

The next stanza comments on the poor food and the sea-sick

passengers, and the last details that the cook is lost

"with fifty pounds of sassengers." Other calamities also

occur, such as the one when the engineer gets into a fight

and the engine suffers a breakdown, apparently from his

inattention to it. The song lacks any ballad structure

and serves only as a rousing comment on the subject, sung

to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel."

The hazards of the overland trip are depicted in

"California Trail" (No. 21) , the opening stanza of which

contains details which at first suggest that the trip on

the trail from Missouri to California involves a cattle

drive for the "California boys" begin that journey "with

a herd of mules and steers." They are warned to "bear in

mind" that the trip will be hard and that the food will

be "jerked beef, not ham, / And antelope steak"—and of

v ich they will soon become tired.

By stanza three, however, one realizes that the

song concerns the journey of an immigrant wagon train;

for there are women also:

260

The women have the hardest time Who emigrate by land; For when they cook out in the wind They're sure to burn their hand. Then they scold their husbands round. Get mad and spill the tea,— I'd have thanked my stars if they'd not come out Upon this bleak prairie.

(11. 17-24)

Guards are required "to keep the Indians off, " and many of

the travelers feign illness "to keep from standing guard."

The last stanza of the song is not complimentary of the

trip by land and suggests that the trip by sea is easier

because "old raw-hide shoes are hell on corns / While

tramping through the sands" (11. 41-42). The speaker

concludes that rather than take the overland trip, he

"would as leaf be on a raft at sea / And there at once be

lost" (11. 45-46) .

The preceding two songs suggest that there was no

comfortable way to reach the California coast, though thou­

sands of immigrants undertook the journey, for there was

an air of expectancy of great things among those going.

Horace Greely is credited with the famous "Go West, young

man" and many took his advice. The same idea is reflected

in "Westward Ho" (No. 144) , which, though it does not

specify a destination in the West, probably has in mind

California since it is the one place the speaker does not

wish to avoid. In stanza one, the speaker begins his series

of rejections of various areas of the West:

261

I love n o t Colorado Where t h e f a r o t a b l e grows, And down t h e despe rado The r i p p l i n g Bourbon f lows:

( 1 1 . 1-4)

Also rejected by the speaker are "fair Montana, and fair

Wyoming" as well as "Sweet poker-haunted Kansas"; "The

Nevada rough"; "Arizona . . . / Where the meek Apache

bides, " and "New Mexico where natives grow / With arrow-

proof insides." After rejecting these, he says that he

wants to go "where the grizzlies wander / And the lonely

diggers roam" (11. 17-18), and to establish his home where

"the grim Chinese from the squatter flees." For his new

home he will "seek the gulch deserted / And dream of the

wild Red man" (11. 25-26), and will "build a cot on a

corner lot / And get rich as soon as I can" (11. 27-28).

The mention of the Chinese in line nineteen and "the lonely

diggers" in line eighteen, as well as the idea of getting

rich in the last line, all suggest the intention of the

song is to celebrate California. The song is favorable

at least in its comment on the intended area.

Like the covfeoys, the miners also had their

troubles with women. "Joe Bowers" (No. 80) is the story

of a miner who loses his sweetheart in an effort to make

himself rich enough to please her. The speaker identifies

himself as Joe Bowers, and his reason for going to Cali­

fornia is his desire to marry ^^lUe Black:

262

I used to love a gal there. Her name was Sallie Black, I asked her for to marry me. She said it was a whack.^ She says to me, "Joe Bowers, Before you hitch for life. You ought to have a little home To keep your little wife."

(11. 9-16) *

After he promises to go to California "to try to raise a

stake," they kiss and part amid tears of distress. Arriv­

ing in California penniless, he nonetheless begins his

mining venture, working "both late and early / In rain

and sun and snow" (11. 41-42). Finally he makes a strike,

only to get a letter from a brother named Ike, who had

stayed behind, containing the bad news that Sallie "had

married a butcher, / Whose hair was awful red (11. 67-68),

and also that "Sallie had a baby / And the baby had red

hair" (11. 71-72) . Thus the unfortunate Joe winds up rich,

but lonely.

In contrast to most of the songs of the gold fields,

"The Happy Miner" (No. 65) paints a pleasant picture of an

easy-going life. The miner has evidently made a good ad­

justment to the life on the claim:

I'm a happy miner, I love to sing and dance. I wonder what my love would say If she could see my pants With canvas patches on my knees And one upon the stern?

^"A dilemma." Eric Partridge, Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (7th ed.; New York: The Mac­millan Company, 1970), p. 946.

263

I'll wear them when I'm digging here And home when I return.

(11. 1-8)

He corresponds by mail with his lady friend, but her let­

ters tell "about her poodle dog" and do not ask him to

return home. His unique approach is to "write her half 0

a l e t t e r , / [and] Then give the ink a t i p " (11. 17-18). 9

He says t ha t " i f t h a t d o n ' t b r i ng her to her milk / I ' l l

coolly l e t her rip''-^ (11. 19-20) .

Since the people back home are curious about h i s

eating h a b i t s and h i s a b i l i t y t o cook, he responds tha t he

is "hard to bea t " a t cooking, for he has "made ten thou­

sand loaves of bread / The dev i l cou ldn ' t eat" (11. 27-28),

His adjustment i s t o an easy pace of l i f e , for he says

that he l i k e s "a lazy p a r t n e r " so tha t he does not have to

work hard and can "lay down and t a l k of golden home."

Thus, though he does not have much "to eat or dr ink ," he

is "away from care and gr ief" and i s " fa t and sassy,

ragged, too , / and tough as Spanish beef" (11. 35-36).

He plans to cont inue t h i s kind of l i f e , desp i te the harsh

condit ions, though he does not expect t o ge t r i ch doing i t

Not a l l of the views of the miner ' s l i f e are so

pos i t ive as t h i s one; "The Miner 's Song" (No. 97), for

Apparent ly as with a cow, to cause her to give down her milk or b r i n g her to i t . Therefore, according to i b i d . , p . 520, t o make her "pay" or feel sorry t h a t he i s gone.

^^"Let her ^ ! " I b i d . , p . 700.

264

instance, is far less affirmative:

In a rusty, worn-out cabin sat a broken-hearted leaser.

His single jack was resting on his knee. His old "buggy" in the corner told the same old

plaintive tale. His ore had left in all his poverty. He lifted his old singlejack, gazed on its battered

face. And said: "Old boy, I know we're not to blame; Our gold has us forsaken, some other path it's taken. But I still believe we'll strike it just the same.

(11. 1-8)

The next stanza recounts further his intention to push

ahead with the search for gold. His experience in the

gold seeking business through the years has not been

meager, for he relates that "for forty years [he has] ham­

mered steel and tried to make a strike," only to fail.

In his efforts he has "burned twice the powder Custer ever

saw," but has gained "just coin enough to keep poorer than

a snake" and used all of his "jack" or money to buy "books

on mining law" (11. 13-16). As a result of his meager

financial returns, he wears "worn gunny-sacks for overalls,

and 'California socks,' and has burned candles that would

reach from here to Maine." Altogether he has survived

"on powder, smoke, and bacon, " but still believes that he will

still make a big strike, even dreaming of such an eventuality

•'••'•This tool is "a heavy, short-handled hammer used in hand drilling." Ramon F. Adams, Western Words: A Dic­tionary of the American West (2d. ed.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), p. 281.

265

(11. 17-20). Though not particularly a happy song, the

piece does picture a man committed to the search for the

precious metal and undaunted by the encounter with the

environment.

One song, "The Dreary Black Hills" (No. 46) , re­

counts the experiences of a miner in the Black Hills of

Wyoming, where gold was discovered in 1874. The prospec­

tor left a steady job to go on his unfortunate trip:

Kind friends, you must pity my horrible tale, I am an object of pity, I am looking quite stale, I gave up my trade selling Right's Patent Pills To go hunting gold in the dreary Black Hills.

(11. 1-4)

The plight of the miners in this area is not at all good,

because they come to "the round house in Cheyenne" at

night where there are "loafers and bummers of most every

plight." These men have "no clothes," and no money, but,

"each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills."

Then the speaker recounts his own unsuccessful experience

in his search for the elusive metal after arriving at

Cheyenne. At this time he begins to show regret for leav­

ing his job to come to the gold fields. The chorus and

the last two stanzas serve as a warning to others who might

be thinking about the same trip to "stay at home if you

can," because of the trouble in finding gold and the prob­

lems of savage Indians. Although the gold rush era brought wealth to many

people, very often it was not the miners who emerged as

266

the rich ones, but the speculators, merchants, and the

railroads; and in retrospect the adventure inevitably

seems more exciting and colorful than it actually was.

One song, "The Days of Forty-Nine" (No. 40), exhibits such

a backward glance offered by "old Tom Moore," who calls

himself "a relic of bygone days," and who is looking back

on his days "when we dug out the gold / In the days of

Forty-Nine" (11. 7-8). He was, he declares, always popu­

lar with his friends, a "jolly, saucy crew," and although

some were "hard cases," they were generally brave and true."

The first one of these old friends he recalls is Aunt Jess,

evidently a man from the description despite the female

epithet attached to the name:

There's old "Aunt Jess," that hard old cuss. Who never would repent; He never missed a single meal. Nor never paid a cent. But old "Aunt Jess," like all the rest. At death he did resign. And in his bloom went up the flume In the days of Forty-Nine.

(11. 17-24)

In succeeding stanzas he recalls "Ragshag Jim, the

roaring man"; "Wylie Bill, the funny man"; "New York Jake,

the butcher boy"; and "Monte Pete." He laments that they

are all dead, and he is sad to be left without them "like

some poor wandering ghost" who is known, now that the

"days of Forty-Nine" are gone, "from town to town" as "the

rambling sign."

267

Immigrants

Many of the people who came seeking gold were un­

successful in their pursuit and either remained at the

gold diggings or moved to new areas, to gain livelihoods

in other ways. They were joined by others who came simply 0

to colonize the Western plains and eke out an existence

by farming, which the gold seekers and earlier immigrants

had sought only to cross. Six songs in Lomax's collection

detail the t r ia ls , hardships, and adventures of these

people on the frontier. As in their portrayal of other

areas of frontier l ife, the songs give a well-rounded and

quite accurate view of this aspect of American life in

the West. 12

"Greer County" (No. 63) is the story of Tom Hight

—or so the speaker calls himself—on a claim in Greer

County, a part of the present state of Oklahoma. He is

typical of lonely men on the frontier, as the beginning

of the song reveals:

Tom Hight is my name, an old bachelor I am. You'll find me out West in the country of fame. You'll find me out West on an elegant plain. And starving to death on my government claim.

Hurrah for Greer CountyI The land of the free.

Lomax states that this name is that applied to the traditional early Oklahoma settler. Cowboy Songs and Other Pr-nntier Ballads (New York: Macmillan Company, 1938) , p. 407.

268

The land of the bed-bug. Grass-hopper and flea; I'll sing of its praises And tell of its fame. While starving to death On my government claim.

(11. 1-12)

In his sod house, with walls "erected according to hod"

(or like bricks), he gets wet if it rains, but—ironically

no doubt—declares "how happy am I on my government claim, /

I've nothing to lose, and nothing to gain" (11. 17-18),

since he has "nothing to eat" and "nothing to wear." He

hopes that all other "claim holders" will remain on their

claims to chew the hard tack until old and toothless, but

he does not intend to. Bidding farewell to both Greer

County and the West, he leaves the hard life and poor food

to search for a better life somewhere other than in Okla­

homa.

As this ballad suggests, living conditions on the

frontier were not good. Building materials were crude

and sometimes scarce, and the elements were not kind to

those seeking to wrest an existence from the land. "Life

in a Half-breed Shack" (No. 87) , which offers another pic­

ture of an existence stripped of glamor, presents a similar

pessimistic view—^but this time of the Canadian frontier.

First the weather as a factor is explored:

'Tis life in a half-breed shack. The rain comes pouring down; "Drip" drops the mud through the roof. And the wind comes through the wall.

269

A tenderfoot cursed his luck And feebly cried out "yah!"

(11. 1-6)

The speaker's efforts to build a fire in the winter are

no more successful, for in the "forty-five below" zero tem­

perature he "aims to chop at a log / And amputates his toe" 0

(11. 12-13). Nor is his attempt to show off his horseman­

ship, for the horse pitches him off. But still not dis­

mayed, the narrator goes into real estate, only to find

that he has bought his lots on the wrong end of Calgary,

and he becomes bankrupt. Finally he ends up in jail for

being a vagrant. The last stanza offers a warning to

other "tenderfeet" who might feel the urge to go to the

area, suggesting they try to get a government job if they

can; if not, he says, "You had better remain where you be."

Life on the plains further south is similarly

rugged. Its harsh setting is presented in the opening

stanza of "The Little Old Sod Shanty" (No. 89):

I am looking rather seedy now while holding down my claim.

And my victuals are not always served the best; And the mice play shyly round me as I nestle down

to rest In my little old sod shanty on my claim.

(11. 1-4)

The description of the house, with walls of sod cut from

the prairie, and the environs is somewhat depressing. The

door has leather hinges "and the windows have no glass."

The snow and wind come in through the roof, and he can

"hear the hungry cayote" as the latter "slinks up through

270

the grass." But he likes the way of life he leads and is

as "happy as a clam" in his little shanty. His philosophy

of the life, however, had been far different earlier when

he first came to the area from his "eastern home, " and

had not known that he would soon be "burning twisted hay"

as fuel in his fire.

The speaker attempts to console himself by a ver­

sion of what life might be like with a wife: "I wish that

some kind-hearted girl would pity on me take / And relieve

me from the mess that I am in" (11. 21-22); and imagines

the idyllic picture of what he believes his life could be

if this "angel" were there to alleviate his loneliness

and to provide them with children.

One ballad more "popular" than informative regard­

ing conditions of Western life is "Sweet Betsy from Pike"

(No. 133), to which Lomax gives a subtitle of "A California

Immigrant Song of the Fifties." The ballad structure is

not well developed, but the plot encompasses the trip

overland from Pike County, Missouri, to California for

Betsy and Ike, her "lover." The romance of Betsy and Ike

is described as follows in stanza two:

One evening quite early they camped on the Platte, 'Twas near by the road on a green shady flat; Where Betsy, quite tired, lay down to repose. While with wonder Ike gazed on his Pike County rose.

(11. 9-12)

Leaving the area along the Platte River, the two immigrants

go on to the desert, where she lies down again, but this

271

time because she "gave out." The next disruption is an

overturned wagon, from which their goods, which include

"a few little baby clothes done up with care," are spilled

out. As the trip progresses further, their supplies run

out, the cattle die, and even their "shanghai rooster"

runs off. Ike is "discouraged" by such problems, but

Betsy only gets "mad." Finally, however, they get to

California where their stay is not altogether unpleasant;

for they attend a dance, and have a good time, though

Betsy says that she is still "chock full of strong alkali"

from the trip.

The two lovers then marry, but the match is not a

happy one, probably because the two, in different environ-

irients, have altered their personal values. The scarcity

of women perhaps makes Betsy more attractive to other men,

and she evidently likes the extra attention, and when

jealous Ike gets a divorce, Betsy, well satisfied, cries

"with a shout, / 'Good-bye, you big lummax, I'm glad you

backed out'" (11. 47-48). Though the adventures of Ike

and Betsy are rendered here in a stirring and humorous

song, there is at the same time an underlying pathos for

the lost dreams and the privation and trials that so often

marked the lot of those traveling west.

Life on the Plains proved hard for those who broke

the sod and tried to farm the fertile but often arid land.

272

The threat of drought was eventually offset in some areas

by the use of water from irrigation wells drilled into

what at the time appeared abundant and limitless water

supplies of underground water. The drillers of these wells

were a tenacious breed, though their story is told in only

one song in the collection—"Bob Stanford" (No. 6) . Bob

is a well-liked, pleasant Texas boy whose "trade is run­

ning a well-drill." He first comes to New Mexico with

the drill seeking his fortune, but is unsuccessful there.

His next effort is in Arizona, which is crowned by even

less success. Yet he does not give up easily:

He says he is determined To make the business stick Or spend that derned old well machine And all he can get on tick.

The teller of his tale wishes him success and says that

he must "admire pluck and ambition / In an honest working

man" (11. 27-28) .

When conditions were good, the plains offered a

rich return from tilling the soil, but following good

years came bad ones of drought; and irrigation was not

possible in all areas. The problems of dry farming are

related in "The Deserted Adobe" (No. 42), which deals with

the remains of a dry-region farm which has been abandoned,

and the song reflects upon lost hopes and dreams such a

farm demonstrates. The word adobe in the title indicates

an arid setting, since the mud bricks are very poor building

273

materials in damp climates where they melt in the rain.

Line fifteen, in fact, suggests a "desert" location. The

narrator speculates that the people who lived in the house

were stalwart people:

Yet on this claim young lives once hope were sowing For all the years might yield; And in strong hands the echoing hoof pursuin' A wooden share turned up the sod. The toiler brave drank deep the fresh air's brewin' And sang content to God.

(11. 3-8)

There must have been a woman "fair and sweet" and a "a

blue-eyed babe, a bit of earthly haven" who had once lived

with the farmer, "But what began so well, alas, has

ended—, / The promise died" (11. 17-18), so that only a

trace remains as evidence of the work exerted in those

"dry and mis-spent years."

Transportation

Six of the songs in Lomax's collection concern the

transportation industry in the west as represented re­

spectively by stagecoaching, freighting, and railroading.

The first of the stagecoach songs, "The California Stage

13 Company" (No. 20), gives a rather dismal picture of a

journey by stagecoach in the West, in which "there's no

13 Probably the California Stage Company, organized

in 1854 when several independent lines merged. See Oscar 0. Winther, Via Western Express and Stagecoach (Stanford, Calif.T Stanford University Press, 1945), p. 11.

274

respect for youth or age" and the passengers "pull and

haul about the seats / As bed-bugs do about the sheets"

(11. 3-4). The stage line discussed, according to the

refrain, is a "thieving line" begun in the year of the big

push to California, 1849, and is evidently not friendly

to opposition. The result is that the people being served,

according to the song, "must root hog or die." The dis­

cussion of conditions on the trip continues with an account

of how the passengers are "crowded in with Chinamen,/As

fattening hogs are in a pen" (11. 9-10), and the air filled

with "musty plug tobacco smoke." Female passengers find

their dresses frequently stained with "tobacco spit," and

the men talk only of "politics and swear."

The passengers are also expected to help push the

coach up the steep hills or help pry it out of the mud

holes in the road. So common is this having to help that

the speaker says that the line promises the passengers that

they will "have to walk but half the way," then adds

"aside, with cunning laugh, / You'll have to push the

other half" (11. 27-28).

A similar uncomplimentary picture is "The Road to

Cook's Peak" (No. 122), which presents the views of a

driver who handles "two little mules" to Cook's Peak, near

Deming, New Mexico, as they are either pulling a stage­

coach or carrying freight—the song does not make it clear.

The song, which has a refrain in the last four lines of

275

each stanza, comments on various phases of the work, but

no statement is particularly glowing in its praise. The

first stanza invites the listener to share the tale:

If you'll listen a while I'll sing you a song. And as it is short it won't take me long. There are some things of which I will speak Concerning the stage on the road to Cook's Peak. On the road to Cook's Peak,' — On the road to Cook's Peak,— Concerning the stage on the road to Cook's Peak.

(11. 1-7)

In stanza two the speaker indicates that his route is to

"where the miners for minerals seek." To keep up his

spirits, he sings to his "little mules" as they go along

"in rain or shine, six days in the week." The routine is

boring in its regularity, and "he looks forward to his

retirement from this work." Because he likes his mules

so much, he hopes that they "will have a good friend on

the road to Cook's Peak" (11. 29-32).

Though oxen were preferred by some for pulling

loads because of their strength and their ability to sub­

sist on forage available along the trail, many who traveled

the rough paths and mountainous trails of the West pre­

ferred the mule because of its surefootedness and endur­

ance. Like the driver in "The Road to Cook's Peak," the

speaker in "The Old Gray Mule" (No. 106) loves and admires

his animal. The speaker, now grown old, laments the

death of his faithful mule. The sixty-year-old man opens

his song by relating that he began as a stable boy at age

276

ten. In his time, he says, he has seen some of the best

of horses, but, he states, "I never saw one in all my life /

Like that old gray mule of mine" (11. 7-8). He then re-

calls the good times they had together when on Sunday morn­

ings he would go for a ride on his mule, which he much

admired for its demeanor:

He never runs away with you. Never cuts up any shine; For the only friend I have on earth Is this old gray mule of mine.

(11. 13-16)

As do all living things eventually, the mule dies; but the

man remembers him with great respect and believes he has

"gone to join the heavenly band."

The one personal portrait in these stagecoach songs

is that contained in "Bill Peters, the Stage Driver" (No.

3). An effective portrait ballad, this song also gives

some insight into the demands of the work placed on the

driver:

Bill Peters was a hustler From Independence town; He warn't a college scholar Nor man of great renown. But Bill had a way o' doing things And doin' 'em up brown.-'-

(11. 1-6)

Bill d r ives h i s coach "from Independence / Up to the Smoky

•'•'^Evidently based on a metaphor r e l a t ed to cooking, "brown" being synonymous with "well done." Pa r t r idge , Dictionary, p . 96, says t h a t "do i t brown," a s imi la r ex­pression, means " to exceed sens ib le bounds." This meaning seems to suggest a derogatory s l a n t , something the song does not i n c l u d e .

277 15

Hill" (11. 7-8), where he is known as "Independence Bill."

His skill in driving is part of the reason for his renown

in the area, for riding with him is like "a-travelin' / On

a railroad driv by steam" (11. 15-16). Quite efficient

in his work, he is always on time, can patch a broken

wheel, and avoid the Indians who try to give him trouble

on the run. He has kept up this route long enough to build

up quite a reputation. He is finally killed in the line

of duty one day, much to the sorrow of his friends.

In addition to the stagecoach lines which handled

passengers and mail, there were the freighting companies

which also helped supply the demands of the Western set­

tlers. Not only mules but other animals as well were used

to pull the wagons. "The Bull-Whacker" (No. 17) pictures

a man, evidently of none too gentle humor, who drives the

yokes of oxen and lives a rather harsh life:

I'm a lonely bull-whacker On the Red Cloud line,!^ I can lick any son of a gun That will yoke an ox to mine. And if I can catch him. You bet I will or try, I'd lick him with an ox-bow,— Root hog or die.

(11. 1-8)

^^A town in central Kansas.

•'• Apparently a popular name given the road from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to the Red Cloud Indian Agency, named for the Sioux chief Red Cloud. The agency was the "jump­ing off place" for the Black Hills gold seekers. See Agnes WrighL Spring, The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Ex­press Routes (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Com­pany, 1949), pp. 47, 55.

278

When he has no run to make, he also shoes horses, though

he does not content himself with allowing the horse to

stand during the operation. He throws the animal down to

17 do the job. During the course of the song the speaker

comments on the characteristic frontier diet of bread,

"a little dirty meat" and coffee, sometimes with "whiskey

on the sly" and speaks of a certain lady friend in Salt

Lake City, a "China girl named Wi," but she is evidently

just for convenience. Like some of the cowboys, he plans

to give up this life and settle down some day when he will

"meet a pretty girl" and "make her my little wife."

A song dealing more specifically with freighting

is "Freighting from Wilcox to Globe" (No. 58) . Beginning

with the traditional "Come-All-Ye" opening, the speaker

calls upon the "jolly freighters" who have traveled the

route from Wilcox, to Globe, Arizona, to listen to the

song. The chorus, which is a lament similar in tone to

that in "A Home on the Range, " for a home range on the

Gila River in New Mexico and Arizona, describes the place

as "white man's country" with green timber growing along

the river. The narrative structure begins with the second

stanza:

This discrepancy in technique of shoeing is the fault of this version of the song, for other versions re­count that the man is putting protective metal shoes on oxen, not horses. The latter are rarely thrown down for this operation.

279

'Twas in th? spring of seventy-three I started with my team. Led by false illusion And those foolish, golden dreams; The first night out from Wilcox My best wheel horse was stolen, And V it makes me curse a little To come out in the hole.

(11. 17-24)

After losing the horse, he uses only three to reach his

destination, though it takes "fourteen days / To travel

thirteen miles." He replaces the horse in Globe, but it

costs all he has in money to do so. But these problems

are not without consequence. He had been "an honest man"

when he became a driver, but his problem altered his char­

acter so that now he swears at his mules and, like Chau­

cer's Shipman, even steals liquor from the kegs he hauls

and replaces the whiskey with water to avoid being caught.

His clothing is poor, but he steals it or buys it from

the Indians—a fact that is evidently an indication that

he has given up trying to look neut and presentable since

he has become a driver. His harsh experiences on the job

have caused him to desire revenge on his stingy bosses,

who treat him so bad that he wants to get a job in Hell

"hauling coke / To keep up the devil's fires" so that he

can help singe the bosses when they get to Hell.

The next little song, entitled only "Tail Piece"

(No. 134), seems to serve as a fitting closing comment on

the ways of life treated in this chapter, though the life

of the cowboy is also mentioned in the song. The speaker

280

in this song is evidently a freighter who is disillusioned

with his life, which he sees as much inferior to the life

of the cowboy and the stagecoach driver. The entire song

is quoted here:

Oh, the cow-puncher loves the whistle of his rope. As he races over the plains; And the stage-driver loves the popper of his whip. And the rattle of his concord chains; And we'll all pray the Lord that we will be saved. And we'll keep the golden rule; But I'd rather be home with the girl I love Than to monkey with this goddamn'd mule.

(11. 1-8)

The use of stagecoaches and wagons persisted in

the West until the railroads were able to substitute a

more convenient—though barely more comfortable—means of

travel. Though the building of the system of railroads

makes up a colorful segment of the history of America,

only one song in Lomax's collection makes a specific com­

ment on the phenomenon: "Jerry, Go lie That Car" (No. 77) .

The ballad begins with the traditional opening and is

filled with dialect pronunciation: Come all ye railroad section men an' listen to my song. It is of Larry O'Sullivan who now is dead and gone. For twinty years a section boss, he niver hired a tar— Oh, it's "j'int ahead and cinter back. An 'Jerry, go lie that cari"

(11. 1-5)

This man, like many others from Ireland who worked on the

railroad, especially the Union Pacific as it pushed west­

ward, was a hard taskmaster, especially for Jerry who was

constantly reminded to "lie that car-r-r." The section

281

boss demands a good d a y ' s work of t h e men, and on Sunday,

too, for s i n c e h i s wi fe a t t e n d s church, they have t o pump

the hand-pump c a r t o t a k e h e r . One d e t a i l t h a t makes t h i s

Sunday t r i p p a r t i c u l a r l y e x c i t i n g i s t h a t they have t o

beat the t r a i n t o t h e s i d i n g i n o r d e r t o escape be ing run

over. O ' S u l l i v a n ' s end comes i n t h e w i n t e r , when l i f e on

the s ec t i on crews was dangerous and more demanding than

usual; and t r u e t o h i s penchan t over t h e y e a r s , h i s dying

words a re t o t h e u b i q u i t o u s J e r r y - " g o an ' i l e t h a t c a r - r - r ! I I I

GENERAL SONGS OF POPULAR ORIGIN

A n\imber of the songs in Lomax's collection are

best classified under the heading of Popular Songs and

Ballads, for though they do not strictly reflect western

life patterns, they were equally familiar to Western

singers, as witness their presence in Lomax's collection.

The group concerns several basic topics: the Indian

tribes of the Eastern frontier of the United States; mili­

tary activities in settings other than the West; love be­

tween the sexes. Included also are miscellaneous pieces

reflective of various types of life in nineteenth-century

America.

Indians, Vagabonds, Soldiers

Songs about Eastern Indians give a far different

picture of Indian life from those dealing with the Plains

and Mountain tribes of the West. For example, "By Mark-

entura's Flowery Marge" (No. 18) treats of an idyllic way

of Indian life destroyed by the cruel attack of some un­

named white forces. It thus constitutes in essence a

dirge depicting the Indian-white settler conflict from

the Indian's side. The initial stanza gives the setting

of the song and the mood of the times:

282

283

By Markentura's flowery marge the Red Chief's wigwam stood.

Before the white man's rifle rang, loud echoing through the wood;

The tommy-hawk and scalping knife together lay at rest.

And peace was in the forest shade and in the red man's breast.

(11. 1-4)

The stanza, which makes the point that there is no current

conflict with white men, seems to deal with a time prior

to the intrusion of white settlers into the Indians' do­

main. The chorus following this stanza, however, presages

imminent trouble for Red Chief's daughter. Spotted Fawn,

who has been plighted to "gallant young White Cloud." On

the wedding night of the two, trouble menaces in the form

of white men who "steathily" come "in wrath," spreading

"fiery darts . . . and death . . . in their path." By

morning all is quiet, but the blood of the two young lovers

colors the grass red. The poem closes with a now patheti­

cally appropriate refrain: Oh, the Spotted Fawn, oh, the Spotted Fawn, The life and light of the forest shade,— The Red Chief's child is gone!

(11. 20-22)

This funeral lament is characterized by a feeling of pathos

with respect to the Indians, a view which contrasts sharply with the picture drawn by songs devoted to conflicts with

the Plains tribes.

A song concerned with a not infrequent occurrence

during the long period of Indian relationship, the

284

1

kidnapping of whi tes by Ind ians , i s "Her White Bosom

Bare" No. 71, a comparat ively long p iece of one hundred

twelve l i n e s in Lomax's vers ion regarding the re turn of a

white capt ive to he r p a r e n t s by her Indian cap to r s . This

highly romantic b a l l a d recounts t h a t on one evening as

darkness f a l l s , Amanda, a captured white g i r l , perhaps in

her teens , i s bound to a s take "with her white bosom b a r e . "

Understandably d i s t r a u g h t by her predicament, Amanda finds

herself All f r i end l e s s and for lo rn With her face bathed in blood And her garments a l l t o r n .

(11. 18-20)

Indians surround he r in the l i g h t of the campfire, g la r ing

with looks of "vengeance" on t h e i r faces as she an t i c ipa t e s

"the moment / When her suf fer ings might c lose" (11. 47-48) .

But the young chief , Albon, looks upon the praying maiden's

fair face, "dark haze l eyes , " and "dark waving t r e s s e s , "

which flow in r i n g l e t s t o h ide her bosom, and "with an eye

l ike an eagle / And a s t ep l i k e a deer" (11. 59-60), c r i e s

out t o h i s comrades t h a t they must "forbear" t h e i r t o r t u r e

of her because, he d e c l a r e s , " t h i s maiden sha l l l i v e . "

Unchallenged in h i s a c t i o n s , Albon re l eases her and re tu rns

^See, for example, Samuel G. Drake, ed . , Indian Cap­t i v i t i e s or Li fe in the Wigwam. Being True Narra t ives of Captives Who Have Been Carr ied Away by the Indians , from the Front ier Se t t l ements of the U. S . , from the E a r l i e s t Period to the Present Time (Auburn: Derby, Mil ler and Company, 1850) .

285

her the next morning to he r p a r e n t s , who r e jo i ce and em­

brace the young Ind ian , " the chief of the woods." The

final stanza prov ides an appropr i a t e ly romantic ending:

Young Amanda i s home now. As you a l l know. Enjoying the friends Of her own native shore; Nevermore will she roam O'er the hills or the plains; She praises the chief That loosened her chains.

(11. 105-112)

The epithet "chief of the woods" suggests that the tribe

involved in this song is an Eastern tribe; and the use of

the birch bark canoe (1. 84) indicates a setting somewhere

in the water and timber culture, probably in the northern

United States or Canada where the Paper Birch tree used

for such canoes grows. Phillips Barry in a study of this

song and its background has found that in raiding, Indians

usually killed their old captives and took the women into

the tribes. The method of torture indicated for Amanda

was normally reserved for fighting men, and the names of

the characters, Albon and Amanda, suggest that the work 2

is the product of a romantically inclined poet.

Phillips Barry, "American Ballads," Bulletin of the Folk-song Society of the Northeast, VIII (July, 1934), 20-22, has discovered that the song was originally a poem written by the Reverend Thomas C. Upham, a young poet with a highly romantic flair who later taught religion at Bow-doin College. The poem first appeared in the Columbian Centinel [sic] of Boston on September 19, 1818. Lomax's version is, according to Barry, the first one to be col­lected from oral tradition. This version, which varies

286

The picaresque spirit characterizing many early

Americans, motivating them to life of vagabondage and ad­

venturous travel seeking adventure and excitement, is re­

flected in two songs in the present group: "The Habit"

(No. 64) and "The State of Arkansaw" (No. 132) . In "The

Habit" the speaker epitomizes in his own person the phenom­

enon just described:

I've beat my way wherever any winds have blown, I've bummed along from Portland down to San Antone, From Sandy Hook to Frisco, over gulch and hill; For once you git the habit, why, you can't keep

still. (11. 1-4)

His temporary settlings in a given place are "quite fre­

quent, " he declares, but he just cannot resist the urge to

to move again, for he "gits a feelin' restless" and "can't

keep still." Thus, though he has been in "rich men's

from three others given by Barry, has lost much of the overly-romantic sentiment which permeates the other ver­sions, but still retains some seemingly insignificant de­tail, suggesting that the song was not too long in oral tradition before Lomax recovered it. Barry correctly eval­uates the song as being too "fantastic," with the "worst offense" of the author that of having the Indians prepare to torture Amanda.

Though Barry makes no mention of it, Upham may have based his song on an actual incident which occurred in the same year that the poem appeared and which bears a re­markable resemblance to the Albon-Amanda relationship: in a sacrificial ceremony among the Pawnees, a young chief named Petalascharo rescued an Indian girl from another tribe from the scaffold on which she was about to be sacri­ficed and returned her to her relatives. See Matthew W. Stirling, ed., National Geographic on Indians of the Ameri­cas: A Color-Illustrated Recoi d (Washington, D. C : Nation­al Geographic Society, 1955), p. 96. There is, however, no record of Upham's having known of the event.

287

houses" and in jail, he has never been able to resist the

open road. In the final stanza he is still plagued by his

restless urges, and when he feels the sun "sorta coaxin'"

him to the road where he can hear "the wind singin'

ballads," he just "can't keep still."

"The State of Arkansaw" relates the story of one

Stamford Barnes, a native of Indiana, who, as the song

states, has "traveled this wide world over" and who lands

in Arkansas, with, in his opinion, dire results to himself.

Thus, though he has "met with ups and downs in life, " he

says, "I've never knew what misery were till I came to

Arkansaw." In St. Louis, Barnes reflects, he had seen an

advertisement announcing the need for "ten thousand men"

in Arkansas. Then, having bought a ticket, he leaves

St. Louis early one morning, "half dead and half alive"

and starts for Arkansas; but, he says, "I bought me a quart

of whiskey my misery to thaw, / I got as drunk as a biled

owl when I left for old Arkansaw" (11. 15-16).

Having arrived at Ft. Smith "in the month of May,

the early month of June," he meets Jesse Herring, "a

walking skeleton with a long and lantern jaw" who runs a

hotel. After a meal of "corn dodgers" and "beef [I] could

not chaw," the traveler is at first inclined to leave, but

decides to accept a job draining land for fifty cents a

day along with promised room, board, and laundry. Herring

promises: "You'll find yourself a different man when you

288

leave old Arkansaw." After six weeks, the traveler does

indeed find himself a much different man: His teeth have

been loosened by the poor diet of "corn dodgers," his knees

have begun to "knock, " and he is become "so thin on sassa­

fras tea [that he] could hide behind a straw." Thoroughly

disgruntled, he bids goodbye to "Arkansaw":

Farewell to swamp angels, cane brakes, and chills; Farewell to sage and sassafras and corn dodger pills. If ever I see this land again, I'll give to you my paw; It will be through a telescope from here to Arkansaw.

(11. 37-40)

One song in this group deals with the trials of a

military recruit getting settled into the army during the

Spanish American War. "The U. S. A. Recruit " (No. 139)

opens with an insight regarding the greenhorn soldier re­

cruit as he enters the airoy with his head full of ^nsense

about what he would do in his new role:

He was a rookey, so flukey. He was a jim dandy, you all will agree. He said without fear, "Before I'm a year In the Army, great changes you'll see." He was a stone thrower, a foam blower. He was a Loo Loo you bet. He stood on his head and these words gently said, "I'll be second George Washington yet."

(11. 8-15) The situation begins to alter, however, when the young man

is assigned to his post, for "the old bucks they all

gathered 'round" and begin to sell him useless items, or

items that he will be issued later, such as blankets, of

which he can buy "the whole or a piece"; a "dress coat,"

or "a helmet unmade." Reality in the form of army discipline

289

appears almost immedia t e ly :

Then t h e t o p [ s e r g e a n t ] s a i d , "My son, h e r e i s a gun. J u s t h e e l b a l l t h a t musket up b r i g h t . In a few days o r more y o u ' l l be r o l l i n g in gore , A-chasing w i ld Goo Goos in f l i g h t . T h e r e ' l l be f i g h t i n g , you s e e , and b lood flowing f r e e . We ' l l send you r i g h t on t o t h e f r o n t ; And never you f e a r , i f y o u ' r e wounded, my dea r . Y o u ' l l be pens ioned e i g h t d o l l a r s p e r month."

(11 . 24-31)

This in format ion so u p s e t s t h e r e c r u i t t h a t he spends a l l

of h i s money g e t t i n g drunk and i s a b s e n t - w i t h o u t - l e a v e ;

and when he does come back , he i s f ined t en d o l l a r s . But

s t i l l undaunted by a l l of t h i s expe r i ence , he e l e c t s t o

remain in t h e s e r v i c e , for l a t e r he r e s i d e s "in the old

s o l d i e r ' s home."

The terra Goo Goos in l i n e 27 i s t he key t o the

time of t h e b a l l a d . According t o Berrey and Van Den Bark, 3

"goo-goos" a r e F i l i p i n o s . Fol lowing t he s i nk ing of t h e

B a t t l e s h i p Maine i n Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898,

Commodore Dewey began l a n d i n g t r o o p s in t h e P h i l i p p i n e

I s l ands , u n t i l by l a t e J u l y of t h a t y e a r , around 11,000

American t r o o p s were i n t h e P h i l i p p i n e s and took Manila

on August 13 , 1898. I t i s e v i d e n t l y t o t he Spanish-4

American War t h a t t h e song r e f e r s .

^ L e s t e r V. Berrey and Melvin Van Den Bark, The American Thesaurus of Slang (2d. ed. ; New York: Thomas Y, Crowell Company, 1953) , p . 348.

"^Richard H o f s t a d t e r , Wil l iam M i l l e r , and Danie l Aaron, The American Republ ic (2 v o l s . ; Englewood C l i f f s , N. J . : P r e n t i c e - H a l l , I n c . , 1959) , I I , 335-336.

290

Love Songs

A number of songs in this group dealing with rela­

tionships between men and women are loosely classifiable

as love songs which deal with both happy and tragic situa­

tions. These songs show slightly more polish and skill

than the cowboy love songs, but on the whole evidence many

of the same attributes. 5

In "Love in Disguise" (No. 92) two lovers, William

and Mary, take leave of each other at the seashore with

William promising to marry her upon his return. After

three years of waiting with no news of her beloved, Mary

one day meets a beggar "with a patch on his eye, " who

promises to tell her fortune: "The lad you mourn will

never return / To make little Mary his bride" (11. 15-16).

When she asks if William is alive or dead, the man re­

marks, "He lives and is true and poverty poor, / And ship­

wreck has suffered beside" (11. 21-22). Because of his

plight, "He'll return no more, because he is poor," but

her love is found to stand the test:

"No tongue can tell the joy I do feel Although his misfortune I mourn. And he's welcome to me though poverty poor. His jacket all tattered and torn. I love him so dear, so true and sincere.

^See "Willie and Mary," Ozark Folksongs, ed. by Vance Randolph (4 vols.; Columbia: The State Historical Society of Missouri, 1946), I, 264.

291

I'll have no other beside; Those with riches enrobed and covered with gold Can't make little Mary their bride."

(11. 25-32)

At this the beggar reveals his true identity as William

and says, "Then excuse me, dear maid . . . / it was only

your love I tried" (11. 37-38), and immediately proceeds

"to marry her. "

in "The Shanty Boy" (No. 127), which reflects the

lumberjack tradition in the American song bag, the speaker

identifies himself as a shanty boy:

I am a jolly shanty boy. As you will soon discover. To all the dodges I am fly, A hustling pine woods rover. A peavy hook it is my pride. An ax I well can handle; To fell a tree or punch a bull Get rattling Danny Randall.

Bung yer eye: bung yer eye.

(11. 1-9)

Paraphrased, the preceding passage speaks of the "ingenious

contrivances" or tricks ("dodges")^ which shows that the

speaker, a lumberjack, is "shrewdly aware" ("fly").^ Other

words may be glossed as follows: "rattling" in the last 1 • 8 J-ine means simply "moving"; the "peavy hook" is a well-

6 . Erie Partridge, Dictionary of Slang and Unconven­

tional English (7th ed. ; New York: The Macmillan Company, 197(7), p. 229. ^

^Ibid., p. 291.

^Ibid., p. 689.

292

Xnown work tool among woodsmen; the refrain, "Bung yer

eye: bung yer eye" means to "drink heartily."^

The rather weakly developed plot begins in the

second stanza, in which the young man says that in Saginaw

he has a girl friend who is "tall and fat." One night he

takes her to a dance, where a man named Silver Jack, is

in charge. The dancing lasts all night with frequent out­

breaks of fighting, but Silver Jack "cleaned out the

ranch / And sent the mossbacks prancing" (11. 25-26) . This

exploit of Silver Jack is strongly reminiscient of that of

the Silver Jack who caused the young cowboy to swear his

belief in God in "Silver Jack" (No. 128) . "The Shanty

Boy" constitutes a humorous comment on the kind of life

experienced in the lumbercamps, as well as an account of

a lively episode.

In contrast to the more happy experiences of love

situations just described, "Foreman Monroe" (No. 54) , also

a shanty boy song, is tragic in tone. The song details

the death of a lumberjack incurred in breaking up a log

jam. But a larger portion of the song is concerned with

^Ibid., p. 109.

l^ln a footnote accompanying the text, Lomax labels "Silver Jack" (No. 128) "A lumber jack [sic] song adapted by the cowboys." Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1916; rpt. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928), p. 332.

293

Clara Vernon, t h e r i v e r m a n ' s g i r l f r i e n d . The b a l l a d

opens with a "Come-All-Ye" type of c a l l t o "young shanty

boys" to l i s t e n t o t h e "un t imely f a t e " of Jack Monroe a t

Gerry's Rock. The s t o r y i s w e l l developed wi th the back­

ground s p e c i f i c a l l y g i v e n : 0

'Twas on a Sunday morning as you will quickly hear. Our logs were piled up mountain high, we could

not keep them clear. Our foreman said, "Come on, brave boys, with hearts

devoid of fear. We'll break the jam on Gerry's Rock and for

Agonstown we'll steer."

(11. 5-8)

Though some of the men are not willing to work on Sunday,

six of them accompany their foreman to the river to break

up the log jam. After only a short time, Monroe warns

them that the jam is about to give way. And he is only

too correct in his prediction, for the jam breaks up and

the six are killed, with Monroe himself fatally injured.

Their friends rush to the spot to help take "him from his

watery grave." Clara is soon at his side and her "cries

rose to the skies for her lover who'd gone down." After

Monroe's death, Clara and her mother receive his wages

along with "a generous sum" collected by the other lumber­

jacks.

Monroe is buried by a henlock tree, which is en­

graved with "the age, date and sad fate" of the young man.

Clara, unable to adjust to the loss of her lover, dies

within three months of the day Monroe is buried, and in

294

response to her request, is laid by his side. The conclu­

sion of the song has a typical love tragedy ending, for

the scene reveals "two green graves by the river side where

grows a hemlock tree."

"Fuller and Warren" (No. 59) , also a song about

tragic love, based on an actual murder, relates the story

of a young "fickle-minded maiden" who causes the strife be­

tween her two suitors Fuller, who has become engaged to

her; and Warren, a younger man with whom she falls in love.

Stanza one begins with a variation of the "Come-All-Ye"

opening and sets up the background of the experience by the

use of two Biblical simile, the latter revealing very

clearly where the narrator's sympathies lie:

Ye sons of Columbia, your attention I do crave. While a sorrowful story I do tell. Which happened of late, in the Indiana state. And a hero not many could excel; Like Samson he courted, made a choice of the fair. And intended to make her his wife; But she, like Delilah, his heart did ensnare. Which cost him his honor and his life.

(11. 1-8)

After Fuller has given her an engagement ring, they agree

to marry "with speed," but the "fickle-minded maiden" then

jilts him for the younger Warren—"a fatal blow that caused

^^This action occurred in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on January 10, 1820. See two articles by Phillips Barry: "American Ballads," Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast, IX (July, 1935), 14-17; and "Fuller and Warren," ibid., VIII (July, 1934), 12-13.

295

his overthrow / And added to her shame and disgrace"

(11. 15-16). • Fuller reacts violently to losing the girl

and confronts Warren: "for although I break the laws, /

young Warren, I'll deprive you of your life" (11. 23-24).

But Warren refuses to relinquish his claim on the girl,

especially on what is supposed to be his wedding day.

Fuller subsequently shoots him, declaring with a smile,

"I'm ready now to die." Some spectators of the event

blame the woman for the tragedy, though she may not be en­

tirely to blame since in line twenty-two, Warren has told

her that Fuller had abandoned a wife. The attitude of

the narrator is'without doubt that the woman is to blame,

for he calls her "fickle-minded." In the process of execu­

tion by hanging, a note of romance is injected: "The

gentle god of Love looked with anger from above / And the

rope flew asunder like the sand" (11. 41-42). But two

doctors, who hope to receive the body as a cadaver, finish

the job "by main strength of hand. " The narrator closes

with an indictment against bad women: "Bad women to a

certainty are the downfall of men, / As Adam was beguiled

by Eve (11. 47-48).

"Young Charlottie" (No. 150), which Belden de­

scribes as "Perhaps the most widely known and best loved

of native American folk-songs," reportedly recounts an

• Henry W. Belden, ed.. Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society (Columbia: University of Missouri Studies, Vol XV, January, 1940), p. 308.

296

13

actual death. The plot of the song recounts that young

Charlottie lived in a desolate mountainous section where

"there was no village for miles around except her father's

cot." But because of her, young men gather there. On

New Year's eve she goes to a dance with her young lover

in the village fifteen miles away, a distance to be covered

in a sleigh during a "piercing cold" evening. Her mother

warns her to wrap a blanket around her, but she does not

heed: "Oh no, oh nol" young Charlottie cried, as she

laughed like a gipsy queen, "To ride in blankets muffled up, I never would be

seen. My silken coat is quite enough, you know it is

lined throughout. And there is my silken scarf to wrap my head and

neck about." (11. 13-16)

As they proceed on their journey, Charlottie, unknown to

her companion, freezes to death; and on their arrival at

the dance, she sits in the sleigh "like a monument that

has no power to stir." Charlottie is returned to her home

where she is buried, and soon he himself dies and is buried

in the same "tomb" with her.

Social Comment

A small number of songs in the popular group may

be discussed under the somewhat loose classification.

•"""The song may be the work of Seba Smith, but see ibid., pp. 308-317; and Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, IV, 105

297

"Social Comment." The first of these, "The Arizona Boys 14

and Girls" (No. 2) satirizes in a homorous fashion the

western equivalent of traditional fops and coquettes.

The first group to draw comment is the boys, in the first

stanza of the song:

Come all of you people, I pray you draw near, A comical ditty you all shall hear. The boys in this country they try to advance By courting the ladies and learning to dance,— And they're down, down, and they're down.

(11. 1-5)

The boys try to appear as real men, and when they go to

parties they take their whiskey, which they drink with

great show. Furthermore, they dress presumptiously, some

wear shoes and some boots, and even watches, and "ranger"

hats, wearing their spurs even at the dance, stuffing their

pants legs carelessly into the tops of their boots. The

commentator then passes to the girls, who he declares,

"trim up their dresses and curl up their hair, / And like

an old owl before the glass they'll stare" (11. 28-29).

They also "grin like a cat, / And with giggling and laugh­

ing they don't know what they're at" (11. 31-32). Despite

their belief that they are "pretty," "they couldn't get

married to save their two eyes."

-'• Although this song may be given a Western set­ting, it is really too generalized to reflect a specifi­cally Western locale.

298

The speaker believes that one can tell the char­

acter of a girl by the way she dresses, for the latter

will stand for "No trimming, no lace, no nonsense around."

The general conclusion of the piece is emphasized in the

concluding stanza in which the speaker says that anyone

who is offended or believes the statements incorrect can

"just come around now and give the singer a kiss."

The song "Hard Times" (No. 66) reflects not only

the bad conditions of contemporary life but a strong pessi­

mistic attitude toward those conditions. The song con­

siders several categories of people, mostly those in the

trades or professions, but also filial relations; declar­

ing that any man or woman will cheat whenever possible.

The first stanza gives the subject and sets the tone:

Come listen a while and I'll sing you a song Concerning the times—it will not be long— When everybody is striving to buy. And cheating each other, I cannot tell why,— And it's hard, hard times. (11. 1-5)

Even fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters,

the narrator declares, are not innocent of this practice.

Those in the trades and professions who come in for criti­

cism by the narrator include butchers, merchants, lawyers,

doctors, and, finally, bachelors and "gay" maidens. Of

maidens the narrator says, "there's the young lady I like

to have missed, / And I believe to my soul she'd like to

be kissed" (11. 41-42); but she is also one who will "tell

you she loves you with all pretence / And ask you to call

299

again some time hence" (11. 43-44) . The man is equally

bad, being, in fact, "the worst of the whole" group, be­

cause although "with all of his soul, / He'll tell you

he loves you and for you will die" (11. 47-48), he even­

tually proves "false," because "when he's away he will

swear it's a lie." Surely are they "hard, hard times"

described in the song.

A more pleasant picture—this time of love of

music, dancing, and drinking—occurs in a song called 15

"Rosin the Bow" (No. 124) . Since the expression used

for the title in this edition indicates preparation of

the fiddle or violin bow with rosin to increase the fric­

tion on the strings, the song, whose hero is "Old Rosin

the Bow, " seems to be a comment on the role of music in

life with the hero serving as a symbol of the music. The

opening stanza makes an affirmative statement on the role

played by the song-hero:

I live for the good of my nation And my sons are all growing low. But I hope that my next generation Will resemble Old Rosin the Bow.

(11. 1-4)

Feeling that he is dying, perhaps as the country becomes

more civilized, the old hero knows "that good quarters

are waiting" for him in Heaven. He recalls the good times

Lomax in his 1938 edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads entitles the song "Old Rosin, the Beau."

300

of the past as a gay round of delights, with companions

who were "jovial," who "drink to Old Rosin the Bow."

promising a full "bumper" or glass at parting, the old

man knows that when he is "laid out on the counter" people

will raise up the lid of the coffin" to look at him. Then,

accompanied, by weeping ladies,'he will be borne through

the streets to where a hole has been dug "in the meadow"

by "some fine, jovial fellows." Finally he admonishes his

listeners that he must have "a couple of dornicks" or

stones at head and foot with the following epitaph: "Here

lies Old Rosin the Bow. "

Only two of the few songs in Lomax's collection

have any affiliation with the supernatural, "A Deer Hunt"

(No. 41) and "The Old Man Under the Hill" (No. 107).

"A Deer Hunt" could perhaps better be classified as a

fantasy being filled as it is with numerous improbabilities,

worthy of any frontier braggart or tall tale artist. The

song recounts that on a certain "pleasant summer day, "

when a snow storm occurs, and the narrator decides to go

hunting, he tracks a herd of deer straight up and over a

mountain and into the middle of a lake. With both of

his pistols cocked, he swims down five hundred feet into

the water and kills his prey. The hunt is such fun that

he decides he must kill "the balance of them deer":

So I bent my gun in circles and fired round a hill. And, out of three or four deer, ten thousand I

did kill.

301

a<hen I picked up my venison and on my back I tied And as the sun came passing by I hopped up there

to ride.

The sun she carried me o'er the globe, so merrily I did roam

That in four and twenty hours I landed safe at home. (11. 13-18)

He receives so much money for his meat and skins that his

bam will not hold it all. Finally, in order to convince

any unbelievers, who might still be in doubt, the narra­

tor remarks: "And if you doubt the truth of this I tell

you how to know: / Just take my trail and go my rounds,

as I did, long ago" (11. 21-22).

"The Old Man Under The Hill" deals with the folk

motif of the nagging wife stolen by the Devil. According

to this song in a certain day as "the old man who lived

under the hill" goes to plow, someone comes to his house

and abducts his wife. This person, who turns out to be a

devil, takes her to "hell's old gate," but arrives late,

because the woman is so heavy that he has to sit down to

rest. To further complicate matters, while they are rest­

ing, she hits him. But rather than take her back, the

Devil decides to keep her anyway.

And so he had to keep his wife, Chir-u-ra-wee, had to keep his wife. And keep her he did for the rest of his life. Sing chir-u-ra-wee, for the rest of his life.

(11. 33-36)

One of the two "Metis" songs in Lomax's collection

(the other, "The Metis Song of the Buffalo Hunters" has

302

already been considered), is "The Song of the 'Metis'

Trapper" (No. 131) , which pictures the life of the Indian-

French Metis trappers in the northern woods. The first

stanza launches the song with an enthusiastic statement

regarding life on the trail in the North woods:

Hurrah for the great white way! Hurrah for the dog and sledge! As we snow-shoe along.

We give them a song. With a snap of the whip and an urgent "mushon,"—

Hurrah for the great white way! Hurrah!

(11. 1-6)

Other stanzas comment on other phases of the work: stanza

two on the dogs; three, on the gun and trap and "mystic

lights" of the North; and four, on the fire, cold weather,

and hot tea, as well as on the robes in which the trappers

sleep while the wolves howl outside. The last stanza,

like the buffalo song discussed earlier, comments on the

beautiful girls seen with the Metis hunters, these girls

"who brave the storms of the mountain heights" as well as

"guide [the men] to shelter and warmth each night."

A song closely related to the lumbering industry,

but not specifically with the task of felling the timber

and getting it to the mill such as usually represented in 16

the typical shanty men songs, is "Harry Bale" (No. 67) ,

^She action actually took place in April, 1879, in Arcadia Township, Lapeer County, Michigan; and the song is supposed to have been written by Harry's brother Charles See Laws, Native American Balladry, p. 152.

303

the account of the death of a sawmill worker fatally in­

jured at the mill. The song bears a number of similarities

in technique and detail with the cowboy and Ranger songs

that deal with death: e.g., the statement of the cause

of death, the lament for the dead man, the mention of his

relatives. The song begins with a "Come-All-Ye" opening:

Come all kind friends and kindred dear and Christian young and old,

A story I'll relate to you, 'twill make your blood run cold;

'Tis all about an unfortunate boy who lived not far from here.

In the township of Arcade in the County of Lapeer. It seems his occupation was a sawyer in a mill. He followed it successfully two years, one month,

until. Until this fatal accident that caused many to weep

and wail; 'Twas where this young man lost his life,—his name

was Harry Bale.

The date of the death is given as April of 1879, on which

date the young man "went to work as usual, no fear did he

design." But in feeding a log into the saw, he is thrown

into the blade, which cuts "him through the collar-bone

and half way down the back, / It threw him down upon the

saw, the carriage coming back" (11. 13-14). Though he

tries to escape, he cannot, and finally says, "Oh, boys,

I'm wounded: I fear it is my last." Reference is then

made to the summoning of his brothers and sisters, but

lamentably his father and mother are dead. Brave to the

last, the boy "was just as gallant a young man as ever

you wished to know, / But he withered like a flower, it

304

was his time to go" (11. 21-22). As with some of the songs

on death, no moral lesson is offered, just the simple

truth that he was mourned as he was 't>laced . . . in his

coffin and laid . . . in his grave" where his "body lies

mouldering."

17 "Rattlesnake—A Ranch Haying Song, (No. 120) is

both a work song and a sad account of a young man's death

by snake bite. As may be noted from the stanza below,

the song is marked by special sound effects created by

elongation of the rhyme words. Once this device is mas­

tered, the song offers no difficulties in the understand­

ing of its simple direct plot, during the course of which

a nice young man, who lives on a hill, goes out to mow

the hay. After going only halfway around the field, he

is bitten on the heel by a rattlesnake. He lies down

and sends his father for his girlfriend, Sal, who comes

and asks why he went to mow the hay. He responds by say­

ing that when the grass gets ripe, it has to be mowed.

The last two stanzas begin with a type of "Come-All-Ye"

call and offer a moral:

Come all young gir-wi-wirls And shed a tea-we-wear

This song is based on the death of Timothy My-rick of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, who died of a snakebite on August 7, 1861, in Farmington, Connecticut and is buried in Wilbraham. The title given by ibid., p. 220, is "Springfield Mountain."

305

For this young ma-wa-wan That died right he-we-were.

To my rattle, to my roo-rah-ree!

Come all young me-we-wen And Warning ta-wa-wake. And don't get bi-wi-wit By a rattle sna-wa-wake.

To my rattle, to my roo-rah-ree!

(11. 41-50)

The influence of Western songs and life on the na­

tion appears in. a song ambitiously entitled "New National

Anthem, " a song with a definitely Western flavor, though

an undertone of satire is present. The rhythm follows

closely that of the song "America, " as the opening stanza

shows:

My country, 'tis of thee. Land where things used to be So cheap, we croak. Land of the mavericks. Land of the puncher's tricks, Thy culture-inroad pricks The hide of this peeler-bloke.

Though some indication of Western terminology is present

in the song, as the preceding quotation suggests, its

general application to the country at large is sufficient

to include it in the present section. The remainder of

the song continues in the vein initiated by stanza one,

picturing life in the West as quite demanding and finan­

cially unrewarding. The speaker concludes by saying that

if the situation does not improve, he will "take the pike"

or leave the West.

306

Convict Songs

Six of the popular type songs under consideration

limn the plight of men who have committed crimes and who

must consequently suffer either death or imprisonment.

Crimes described in these songs, though they may have been

perpetrated as the result of a passion, such as jealousy,

are nonetheless subject to the demands of legal justice—

even despite the fact, as in the first song in this group, 18

"Macaffie's Confession" (No. 93), the hero has been

caught in a webb of circumstance from which he cannot free

himself. "Macaffie's Confession" begins with a variant

of the "Come-All-Ye" type of introduction:

Now come young men and list to me, A sad and mournful history; And may you ne'er forgetful be Of what I tell this day to thee.

(11. 1-4)

The na r r a to r , a young man, c i t e s h i s ear ly l i f e in which

he "broke the Sabbath day" and notes t h a t he "took de l igh t

in wickedness." At approximately age f i f teen he i s or ­

phaned and l a t e r runs away to marry. His wife i s "kind

and good . . . / As ever woman ought to be" (11. 17-18),

but unfor tuna te ly he meets a woman named Hatty S tout . The

•^^The song i s based on the murder of h i s wife by John McAfee, hanged in Ohio in 1825. The version in Lomax's c o l l e c t i o n v a r i e s from the one described by Laws in t h a t no mention i s made of the uncle who r ea r s the boy after he i s orphaned. See i b i d . , p . 198.

307

result is fatal for him, for Hatty steals his heart, and

her love has full control of him, causing him to poison

his wife. The song then shifts from first to third per­

son narrative, which recounts the end of one murderer by

hanging, and voices the moral of the song:

His weeping mother cried aloud, "0 God, do save this gazing crowd. That none may ever have to pay For gambling on the Sabbath day."

(11. 57-60)

"Young Companions" (No. 151), a well-developed

ballad, also deals with a man guilty of murdering his wife.

Following a "come-All-Ye" opening, the song begins to re­

late "a story / Of some bad company: (11. 3-4). The young

man cannot be satisfied at home but must yield to the roam­

ing spirit: I did not like my fireside, I did not like my home; I had in view far rambling. So far away did roam.

(11. 9-12)

As is characteristic in a number of songs, especially those

depicting dying cowboys and Texas Rangers, the man recalls

his "feeble mother," who "often would plead" for him to

remain at home, even when he leaves anyway, her "last word"

to him is "to pray to God in need." He also remembers his

"two loving sisters / As fair as fair could be" (11. 17-18),

who plead with him to stay at home with them. Yet despite

this urging from his loved ones, the young man goes to

Chicago, where he turns to alcohol and sins "both night

308

and day." He s t i l l r e c a l l s , however, the hope of h i s

mother t h a t God would "p ro t ec t " him "throughout h i s man­

hood ioy ."

Evident ly in an e f f o r t t o s e t t l e down, he begins

to court "a f a i r young maiden, " whom he refuses to iden t i fy

by neune because of t h e d i sg race which h i s song would then

bring to h e r . But because of h i s v io l en t na ture , the court­

ship ends f a t a l l y "one b e a u t i f u l evening," as "the s t a r s

were shining b r i g h t " when he s t abs h i s love "with a f a t a l

dagger." Apprehended by the law, he r e a l i z e s t h a t h i s

"soul i s docxned forever / Throughout e t e r n i t y " (11. 43-44) .

Another b a l l a d r e l a t i n g the s to ry of a criminal

who meets a f a t a l end, though not in an American s e t t i n g ,

i s "Jack Donah GO, " (No. 75) . The p iece begins with a

t r a d i t i o n a l type of opening:

Come, a l l you bo ld , undaunted men. You outlaws of the day. I t ' s time t o beware of the b a l l and chain And a l s o s l a v e r y . At ten t ion pay t o what I say. And v e r i l y i f you do, I w i l l r e l a t e you the ac tua l fa te Of bold Jack Donahoo.

(11. 1-8)

Within a fairly tight ballad structure the song relates

that Jack Donahoo, evidently a deported criminal from

England, has "scarcely landed" in Australia before he be­

comes "a real highwayman / As he had been before" (11. 11-

12). Evidently feeling that death might "overtake him, "

in any event he rides out to meet the "horse police / From

309

Sidney," where he warns them that he will not "surrender

to such cowardly dogs" but will fight, even if he should

die in the attempt. And fight well he does, for in the

ensuing fight six policemen are killed, before the outlaw

finally falls.

Not all of the songs deal with men who incur a

fatal end because of their misdeeds. The song "Root Hog

or Die" (No. 123) for example, is about a young man who

goes to prison for theft. The title is a metaphorical

rendering of the truth, "Work hard or fail," drawing upon

the fact of a hog's having to dig or "root" for what he

eats. The song opens:

When I was a young man I lived on the square, I never had any pocket change and I hardly thought

it fair; So out on the crosses I went to rob and to steal. And when I met a peddler oh, how happy I did feel.

(11. 1-4)

The next two stanzas continue the story; but in a pattern

of repetition not present in the other verses of this

piece; a factor suggesting that they may come from a dif­

ferent source: One morning, one morning, one morning in May I seen a man a-coming, a little bit far away; I seen a man a-coming, come riding up to me "Come here, come here, young fellow, I'm after

you to-day." (11. 5-8)

In the remaining stanzas, which return to the

original prosodic structure, it is recounted how the nar­

rator is taken to jail, where all abandon him to his fate.

310

The absence of any specific reference to parents, coupled

with the additional absence of any reference to early

religious training or influence, suggests that he is an

orphan, without any relatives. Yet the speaker then re­

ports that he has "an old rich uncle . . . in the West" 0

who comes to his aid. He is also succored by three women-

Minnie, Alice, and Lucy—possibly aunts. Repentant, he

goes to East Texas after his release to seek a wife and

begin a new life. Then, with line twenty-five a new line

of action seems to begin, in a stanza ending in a refrain,

consisting of the words of the title. In this stanza the

narrator is warned to quit his "marshall killing, " a de­

tail not mentioned elsewhere in the song and not realisti­

cally linked with his punishment mentioned later. The

following stanza following then seems to continue the nar­

rative interrupted by the preceding one with its reference

to "marshall killing." The young man draws out all of

his money (from an unspecified source) and goes to see

Susan, his sweetheart. After having spent all of his

money, he goes "on the "bum" and lives a riotous life be­

fore he is sent to the prison. His being sent to the

Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville suggests that on an

otherwise unmentioned occasion he must have committed a

serious crime. The shifts of narrative in the song plus

the variety of stanzaic pattern suggest that probably this

song is a composite of fragments of five other songs.

311

Another song depicting a man in prison for his

deeds is "The Convict" (No. 26) , though it does not deal

with any specific criminal. As the song opens, the con­

vict recalls his early life and the influence of his

mother: 0

When slumbering in my convict cell my childhood days I see.

When I was mother's little child and knelt at mother's knee.

There my life was peace, I know, I knew no sorror or pain.

Mother dear never did think, I know, I would wear a felon's chain.

(11. 1-4)

As the narrator looks back over his past life he recounts

how he travelled "evil paths" as he grew older; and though

he could still remember the religious training which he

abandoned, he began "to scorn my fellow-man and even curse

. . . God." His eventual fate is to be "condemned for a

felon's crime" for which he is wasting his life in prison.

As death approaches he hopes that "the angels" will "waft"

his soul to heaven "to a bright and happy home," where he will find "rest, sweet, sweet rest."

"A Prisoner For Life" (No. 115), is a lament that

the narrator is a "poor prisoner for life." It begins:

Fare you well, green fields. Soft meadows, adieu! Rocks and mountains, I depart from you; Nevermore shall my eyes By your beauties be blest, NeveriTiore shall you soothe My sad bosom to rest.

(11. 1-8)

312

In Stanzas two and three the narrator-convict bids goodbye

to the birds and fish, respectively, with much the same

intention and tone as is found in the stanza quoted above.

But the chief part of the lamentation is given over, in

stanzas four and five, to mourning his inability to "breathe 0

the fresh air" and to "roam through the cities / Through

village and dell." He asks, "What's life without liberty?"

and bewails the fact that he cannot experience the "sun,

moon, and stars" shining down on him. His life is desti­

tute of all that makes existence viable—even to experienc­

ing danger—and he seems loath to be alive.

"The Boston Burglar" (No. 9) , is a ballad which

relates the plight of a man whose specified crime is never

mentioned though he is, as the title indicates, a burglar

from Boston or "Boston City":

I was born in Boston City, a city you all know well. Brought up by honest parents, the truth to you I'll

tell. Brought up by honest parents and raised most tenderly. Till I became a roving man at the age of twenty-

three. (11. 1-4)

Later the speaker, found g u i l t y of a crime, i s "sent to

Charleston town," perhaps a suburb of Boston proper . As

a r e s u l t , h i s p a r e n t s a re h e a r t broken. On h i s behalf ,

his fa ther i s seen "pleading a t the bar , " and h i s mother

" tear ing of h e r h a i r " and crying as she asks , "Son, dear

son, wh;: i- have you done, /That you are sen t to Charleston

town?" Despi te t h e i r p l e a s , he i s nonetheless remanded

313

to prison, and like other men whose troubles are related

in songs, he remembers a sweetheart, "a girl in Boston,"

whom he loves "well" and intends to marry if he ever gains

his freedom. Moreover, if he is ever released, he also

vows to "shun" the "bad company . . . / Night-walking,

gambling, and also drinking rum" (11. 19-20), all of which

have joined in together to cause his trouble. The clos­

ing statement of the song advises against breaking "the

laws of man" so that someone else, like this poor man,

will not be "A-serving out . . . twenty-one years in the

penitentiary. "

British Imports

Though many of the native American ballads, gen­

erally show the influence of British ballads, Lomax in­

cluded at least three which had suffered very little adap­

tation to their new habitat, remaining more or less in an

untampered state.

The first of these, "The Fair Fannie Moore" (No.

52), recounts the tragic tale of a young woman murdered

in an isolated cottage:

Yonder stands a cottage. All deserted and alone. Its paths are neglected. With grass overgrown; Go in and you will see Some dark stains on the floor,— Alas! it is the blood Of fair Fannie Moore.

(11. 1-8)

314

AS is learned from the details of the song, Fannie has

been courted by two men: Randell, who is wealthy but

"bold" and "proud"; and Henry, a shepherd, who is of

"lowest degree" socially, but of whom Fannie is "enrap­

tured. " Following the impulse of her heart, she marries

Henry. One day while Henry is away tending his sheep,

Randell attempts to force Fannie to make love and, on her

refusal, kills her with his knife. Ultimately Randell is

apprehended, tried, and hanged, but this action is of

little consolation to the young shepherd, who, "distracted

and wild," wanders abroad until he dies, at which time he

is "brought to this shore" and in characteristic fashion

is buried beside "the fair Fannie Moore."

The second of the British songs, "The Wars of

Germany" (No. 142), recounts the love story of Jack Munro,

a sailor; and Polly, the daughter of a wealthy London

merchant who, though she has been courted by a lord, is

enthralled with Jack. Since the lonely Polly has "money

at her command, " she decides to go to Germany to find her

love. In action reminiscient of a Shakespearean disguise

scene, Polly dresses in officer's clothing and manages to

get in a troop movement to Germany, where she finds "her

own true love" lying wounded. She takes him "in her arms"

to Tousen, evidently a nearby town, to a doctor "to dress

and heal his wounds." He survivcc, and the two are mar­

ried so that she will be "no longer left alone." Since

315

the song evidently reflects World War I, it must have been

of quite recent creation for Lomax to have included it in

the 1916 edition of the songs.

The English song "Bonnie Black Bess" (No. 7) in­

volves the exploits of Dick Turpin, the famous English

highwayman, who is determined that since the faithful mare

is exhausted from the chase from Yorktown to London and

his capture is perhaps imminent, she will not fall into

the hands of the law to be used against him in a later

chase if he escapes. The song opens with a recounting of

the background of Turpin's entry upon his career as a

robber:

When fortune's blind goddess Had fled my abode. And friends proved unfaithful, I took to the road; To plunder the wealthy And relieve my distress, I bought you to aid me. My Bonnie Black Bess.

(11. 1-8)

Grateful to the horse for her superior service, he is al­

ways kind to her, for she has served him well on "the

famed Houndslow heath," where together they have robbed

"gold and jewels" from the carriages they have stopped.

But "Argus-eyed justice" has pursued him from Yorktown

to London, a trip Bess makes in only twelve hours, and

rather than prevent the capture of the "worn and weary"

Bess, he shoots her. He knows that the story of his ex­

ploits handed down in the oral tradition will tell that he

316

ki l led the horse "through k indness ," and s ince h i s end

has come, he determines t o "die l i k e a man / And soon be

at rest" (11. 6 9 - 7 0 ) , b idding "farewell forever" to h i s

"Bonnie Black B e s s . "

I

PART THREE: EVALUATION

10

FORM, STYLE, AND PROSODY

Form

Lomax's use of the descriptive terms "song" and 0

"ballad" in the title of the collection. Cowboy Songs and

Other Frontier Ballads, serves to identify the two broad

formal modes of presentation of song materials contained

in the volume itself: lyric and narrative. As the de­

scriptions of song types in Appendix A show, the songs

fall into several specific varieties within these broader

categories: ballads proper, more generalized narratives,

portrait ballads, descriptive lyrics, and lyrics. Among

these specific subject areas, as the statistical table on

song types (Table II) in Appendix B reveals, narratives

predominate, there being forty instances of the ballad,

sixteen of the portrait ballad, and forty-nine of gener­

alized narratives. The remaining pieces are somewhat un-

egually distributed between lyrics and descriptive lyrics,

respectively fourteen and thirty-three.

Ballad—MacEdward Leach defines the ballad as follows:

A ballad is story. Of the four elements common to all narrative—action, character, setting, and theme — the ballad emphasizes the first. Setting is casual; theme is often implied; characters are usually types and even when more individual are undeveloped, but action carries the interest. The action is usually highly dramatic, often startling and all the more

317

318

impressive because it is unrelieved. The ballad practices rigid economy in relating the action; inci­dents antecedent to the climax are often omitted, as are explanatory and motivating details. The action is usually of a plot sort and the plot often reduced to the moment of climax; that is, of the unstable situation and the resolution which constitutes plot, the ballad often concentrates on the resolution leaving the listener to supply details and antecedent material.^

The pertinent points made by Leach regarding the ballad

may be summarized as follows:

(1) Action dominates over character, setting, and

theme

(2) This action, generally speaking, is normally unre­

lieved by explanatory and motivating detail

(3) Ballad action usually takes the form of a plotted

structure, with emphasis upon climax or resolu­

tion, leaving the listener to supply antecedent

detail

(4) Finally, characters consist of little more than

types, setting is usually incidental, and theme

is more often implied than stated.

Taken as a whole, the ballads in Lomax's collection fit

rather nicely into the criteria specified in the definition

given by Leach. Few if any of the songs in the ballad

^MacEdward Leach, "Ballad," Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, ed. by Maria Leach and Jerome Fried (2 vols.. New York: Punk and Wagnalls Company, 1949-1950), I, 106.

319

category emphasize character, setting, or theme but in­

stead rely solely for their effect upon the interest gen­

erated by the action of the story revealed in the course

of the song. Thus, for example, "The Buffalo Skinners"

(No. 16) , in a straightforward fashion tells the story of

a group of men who leave Jacksboro, Texas, to go on a

buffalo hunting expedition to the Pease River area and who

eventually kill their leader, Crego, because he refuses

to pay then for their work. None of the several characters

in the song reflect any deliberate effort at characteriza­

tion: one can only surmise character traits from actions

depicted. The same is true of setting. Elements of set­

ting do appear, but nothing of significance to the song

is gained thereby, except to add plausibility to the piece

by placing the scene of the action in a region where buf­

falo hunting was actually conducted. The theme—the fatal

result of unjust treatment of men—must definitely be

searched for in the details of the piece. "The Cowboy at

Church" (No. 28) may also be cited as an example of ballad

technique in Lomax's collection, for the song limits its

concern to the explicit story of a cowboy's going to church

and the unfriendly reception which he receives from the

pseudo-pious church members. Though theme is more obvious

in this song than in the one above, it is still only

implicitly revealed.

320

A good example of the brevity which characterizes

most of the Lomax ballads is "The Cowboy's Lament" (No. 32),

in which the action moves rapidly from the time that the

narrator first sees the dying cowboy in the streets of

Laredo, to his death, all in the scope of nine quatrains,

exclusing the repetitive choruses. Another is "The Crooked

Trail to Holbrook" (No. 38) , which simply recounts the

incidents experienced on a cattle drive.

Almost no attention is given to antecedent action

in any of the songs of the ballad category in Lomax, though

"Macaffie's Confession" (No. 93) does have a more compre­

hensive scope than is found in most of the other ballads

in the collection, and perhaps could be better clarified

as a portrait ballad. The text of "Fuller and Warren" (No.

59) likewise furnishes some antecedent action and details

of motivation, but only enough to provide the necessary

details for what is for the ballads a fairly complicated

plot development, climaxing with Fuller's killing of Warren

for the unfair way in which the latter won the affections

of the young woman in question. "The Dying Ranger" (No.

51) contains some hint of antecedent action in stating that

the dying man's sister encouraged him to go defend the

country when it was invaded.

The characters in the Lomax ballads are without

exceptions stereotypes: Rangers, or cowboys, or miners,

or young men who have made mistakes and are paying for

321

them in jail. Not one of the ballads features a well-

rounded characterization, even though names are often

mentioned by the narrator and some personal traits cited.

Three final pieces may be cited to suggest the

range of narrative modes found in Lomax's collection:

"Little Joe, the Wrangler" (No. 88), "Billy Venero" (No.

5), and "California Joe" (No. 19). The first of these

opens with a preliminary lament that Joe will "wrangle

never more, " following which the plot development is

initiated at line three with a rapid resume^ of antecedent

action. Joe had entered the camp "a year ago last April"

mounted on his pony. Chaw.' His clothing, "brogan shoes

and overalls"—hardly cowboy apparel—and his other gear—

an old "Texas 'kak'" or saddle, one spur, a bed roll in a

cotton sack—^help to suggest a fact that eventually emerges,

namely, that he was a mistreated child fleeing to the

romantic cowboy life to escape an overly harsh stepmother.

The characterization of Joe is not developed past these

brief details. The narrator then continues by relating

that Joe is given a job wrangling the extra horses and

helping the cook, and that one night along the Pecos River,

he tries to stop a stampede while riding guard. The action

subsequently moves swiftly to the climax with details of

this dramatic event given brief but ample attention:

•Midst the streaks of lightin' [sic] a horse we could see in the lead, . , i ^

"Twas Little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead.

322

He was riding Old Blue Rocket with a slicker o'er his head,

A tryin' to check the cattle in their speed. (11. 31-34)

When the men return t o camp a f t e r turning the running

ca t t l e , they d i s c o v e r t h a t Joe i s miss ing . The song ends

as they f ind him the next morning "just at day break" in

a "washout, " crushed beneath the body of the horse which

had carried him on h i s l a s t r i d e . S p e c i f i c s of s e t t i n g

occur only here and there in the p iece representing an

ins ign i f i cant aspec t of the song as a whole. The theme 2

or "emotional core" of the ba l lad—the trag ic death of a

too-young cowboy driven away from home by a cruel s t e p ­

mother—is c l e a r l y incu lca ted by cer ta in d e t a i l s of p l o t

which thus funct ion both to demonstrate theme and carry

forth the narra t ive thrus t of the song in general .

"Bi l ly Venero" provides a rather de ta i l ed account

of a young man who l o s e s h i s l i f e in an e f f o r t to warn h i e

sweetheart of imminent Indian at tack . His e f f o r t i s suc­

cess fu l only because , dramatical ly using h i s own blood

gushing from h i s wound, he wr i t e s a warning note which h i s

fa i th fu l horse c a r r i e s to the beloved Bess a t the ranch.

In general , c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n , s e t t i n g , and theme, are

2see Tristram P. Coff in, "Mary Hamilton and the Anglo-American Bal lad as an Art Form," The C r i t i c s and the Bal lad , ed . by MacEdward Leach and Tristram P. Coffin (Carbondale: Southern I l l i n o i s Univers i ty Press , 1961), pp. 246-247, for a d i s c u s s i o n of t h i s concept .

323

rather meager in this piece. Both Billy, the dashing and

brave young cowboy, and Bess, the faithful sweetheart, are

types. Setting receives only superficial attention, for

Billy's destination is specified as "Cow-Randi," "a little

place that lay / In a deep and shady valley of the mighty

wilderness" (11. 8-9) ; no further description is given of

it, or of Rocky Run, the spot where Billy is shot. The

presence of considerable detail inessential to the plot is

evident in stanza nine, which describes the writing of the

message in blood; but it does have a bonafide reason for

its presence, namely, to support the overall emotional

tone of the piece:

From a limb a pen he broke. And he dipped his pen of oak In the warm blood what was spurting from

a wound above his heart. "Rouse," he wrote before too late; "Apache warriors lie in wait. Good-bye, Bess, God bless you darling,"

and he felt the cold tears start. (11. 49-54)

iThere are also important details supporting the development

of theme—that of a young man sacrificing himself for his

beloved, who later dies and is, as one might expect, buried

beside him.

The narrative core of "Billy Venero" is the dramatic

ride the hero undertakes to warn his sweetheart, the writing

of the message just cited being typical of the tone of the

whole. It is, of course, also the climax of the action.

Other narrative details concerning how the romance of Billy

324

and Bess began are present, but they are only briefly

detailed.

"California Joe" is considerably longer than "Billy

Venero," and exhibits a more complicated plot structure,

the long buildup toward the climax being reached after a

long series of rather intricate situations: Maggie's rescue

by Joe v*ien her father is killed by Indians; her rearing by

her uncle; her near-shooting of Joe for an Indian when they

meet again years later; and the uniting of the two at the

end of the piece.

Narrative—^A substantial number of the song texts in Lomax's

collection—forty-nine— lack the compact plot structure of

the ballad, but present a basic narrative framework often

consisting of a series of events of a rather general nature

and perhaps covering a period of time. Examples of the

type contain too much story material to be classified

strictly as lyrics, though they often do reflect attitudes

of the speaker toward a particular subject. Like the bal­

lad, they underplay setting, theme, and character, and have

little if any antecedent action or explanation of motivation

for action depicted in the song. Indeed, they seem often to

be a mere collection of ideas or incidents without any par­

ticular arrangement for a point of climax.

Good examples of this more generalized mode of

story telling are "The Old Chisholm Trail" (No. 105) and

325

3

"Jim Farrow" (No. 79) . "The Old Chisholm Trail" is com­

posed of a series of loosely related events encountered by

a cowboy on his trip up the famous trail named in the title

of the song. After a "Come-All-Ye" opening asking the

audience to "listen to my tale," the speaker recounts,

among other details, buying a "ten dollar hoss and a forty

dollar saddle"; being thrown into a creek; being rained on

without his slicker; suffering through bad weather; and,

finally, temporarily quitting the trade of cowboying. The

song is thus merely an accumulation of details tied to­

gether only loosely by the journey motif. This structural

looseness lends itself to the process of alteration and

addition by individual singers, and, if it ever has been

at any time a cohesive ballad, it definitely shows no sign

of such a conventional well developed structure as of the

moment Lomax recorded it.

"Jim Farrow" is even less integrated than "The Old

Chisholm Trail," being crowded with puzzling and loosely

joined details, there being little if any sequence or causal

relationship evident at any point in the song. The details

^Other examples of songs in this mode are "Araphoe, or Buckskin Joe" (No. 1), "Bonnie Black Bess" (No. 7), "Brigham Young, I" (No. 10), "Brigham Young, II" (No.11), "Bronc Peeler's Song" (No. 12), "Bucking Broncho" (No. 13), "Buena Vista Battlefield" (No. 14) , "The Cowboy" (No. 27) , "The Cowboy's Christmas Ball" (No. 30), "The Cov^oy's Dream" (No. 31), and "The Days of Forty-Nine" (No. 40). See Appendix B, Table II, for a complete listing.

326

of the song reveal that the Farrow brothers are livestock

rustlers who cover up their deeds by such practices as cut­

ting the ears off the cows so as to destroy the ear markings

used to identify the animals and by telling the ranch hands

to say nothing about the work, should the grand jury call

upon them as witnesses. The song ends abruptly with the

line "And thus ends my song concerning the Farrows," offer­

ing no moral truth such as is sometimes found in some other

songs in the group relating the exploits of men who lived

outside the law.

Portrait Ballad—The portrait ballad, as the name suggests,

is a ballad-like piece the purpose of which is the portrayal

of a central figure through the presentation of salient

typical events of his life and career. In some instances

these events are chronologically arranged and give the ef­

fect, as it were, of a biographical sketch. Typical of

such a revelation of personality through a chronological

sequence of characteristic life adventures in Lomax's col­

lection are several texts depicting the lives of famous

Southwestern outlaws. The first of these, "Sam Bass" (No.

126) , recounts the outstanding events of the life of the

famous criminal. Included are details of his birth and

early life, his career in crime including various robberies

such as those of the Union Pacific train by Bass and his

gang, and his death. The historical details of the outlaw's

career are rather copiously presented, and in general adhere

327

accurately to fact. Another ballad, "Cole Younger" (No.

25), has the same general purpose as "Sam Bass," but is

less fully developed. A third, "Jesse James" (No. 78) , on

the other hand, focuses primarily on the death of this noto­

rious outlaw, though some antecedent details are included.

Finally, "Billy the Kid" (No. 4) , though it falls into the

portrait ballad category, is in general an inadequate por­

trait of the outlaw since it is often inaccurate and ex­

tremely sketchy in the details of the career of William

Bonny.

Portrait ballads in Lomax's collection concerned

with other Western figures are "Bill Peters, the Stage

Driver" (No. 3) , "Bob Stanford" (No. 6), "The Bull-Whacker"

(No. 17), "Charlie Rutlage" (No. 23), "Dan Taylor" (No.

39), "A Man Named Hods" (No. 94), "The Miner's Song" (No.

97), and "Mustang Gray."

Lyric—The lyric type of song in Lomax's collection (i.e.,

the type of song which emphasizes the expression of emo­

tional values—attitudes, special points of view, feel­

ings—as opposed to any form of narrative sequence) occurs

some thirty times. It is difficult, of course, always to

determine in each instance whether a piece's lyric form

derived from an earlier ballad form which during the long

course of oral transmission sloughed off all but a central

lyric "emotional core," or was originally composed as a

lyric. But the subject matter of the greater portion of

328

the selections in question is too contemporary to support

the notion that their particular form has derived to any

degree from the process of erosion through oral transmis­

sion. A typical example of the obviously composed lyric

is "Drinking Song" (No. 48) , which is composed of twelve

lines encouraging the tipplers to drink whiskey "Till the

world goes round and round 1" Another—and. better lyric —

is "The Cowboy's Meditation" (No. 34), which pictures a

cowboy lying down at night on the prairie wondering "If

every bright star up yonder / Is a big peopled world like

our own" (11. 7-8) , and meditating on other such imponder-4

ables.

Descriptive Lyric—Represented fewer times than the lyric

in the Lomax collection is the descriptive lyric: as de­

fined here, a type of song containing a series of loosely

related events which lack a formal plot structure or chro­

nological narrative and which are unified by a special

emotional tone or thread of thought. This category is

best exemplified in "A Cow Camp on the Range" (No. 35),

which consists of a description of the attitudes and emo­

tional responses of a cowboy to the coming of spring on

the range. The song deserves the epithet descriptive

" Other examples of songs in this mode are "The Cowboy's Meditation" (No. 34), "The Cowman's Prayer" (No. 37), "Drinking Song" (No. 48), "A Fragment" (No. 55), and "A Fragment" (No. 56). See Appendix B, Table II, for a complete listing.

329

because the purpose of the song seems to be solely to

describe the range and its life. Formalistic cliches are

absent, and the song consists almost totally of well

structured stanzas in regular rhythm with the final stanza

serving to close the song on the note of showing range

life superior to city life "Where they herd the brainless

brats" and "There ain't room to cuss the cat."

Style

Although the authorship of the songs in the 1916

edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads is for

the most part unknown, and their form and content may have

been subjected to some alteration at the hands of the folk

through whom the pieces were transmitted, they present in

Sother examples of songs in this mode are "The Arizona Boys and Girls" (No. 2), "The Boozer" (No. 8), "The Buffalo Hunters" (No. 15), "California Stage Company^ (No. 20), "California Trail" (No. 21), "The Camp Fire Has Gone Out" (No. 22), and "Chopo" (No. 24). See Appendix B, Table II, for a complete listing.

^There is occasionally, in a few songs, contra­dictory detail, such as that in "The Old Chisholm Trail" (No. 105) , but a good example of this kind of contradic­tion is found in "Lackey Bill" (No. 85), in which a young man says that he is an only child but that his brothers resent his shirking his work. The presence of such mate­rial suggests that the informant had combined details from two different songs to form a composite, but, as Coffin notes regarding the development of such songs, the emotional core is unvaried by the detail. An even more ^ obvious example of a composite song is "Root Hog or Die" (No. 123), evidently a combination of as many as five different songs.

330

general at least a minimal literary quality which raises

them above mere doggerel. In addition, a small number,

in their prosodic effects, developments of thematic inten­

tion, and general cohesiveness of form, reflect a rather

strong tone of sophisticated styling and self-conscious

artistry that raises them considerably higher on the scale.

Support for the preceding observations may be

found in the use throughout the body of the songs of a

number of conventional artistic devices, including "Come-

All-Ye" openings, imagery, and prosody.

"Come-All-Ye" Openings—Of the songs utilizing this con­

ventional beginning commonly associated with ballads, only

one of them, "Jerry, Go lie That Car" (No. 77) , actually

uses the traditional wording: viz., "Come all ye railroad

section men an' list to my song." The usual phrasing in

the Lomax texts substitutes the contemporary you for the

archaic y£. A typical example of this form of opening is

found in "The Arizona Boys and Girls" (No. 2) : "Come all

of you people, I pray you draw near." But also customary

is the request of the narrator or speaker for the audience

to listen to the tale that is being related: such as in

"The Buffalo Hunters" (No. 15), which begins "Come all you

pretty girls, to you these lines I'll write," and "The

Buffalo Skinners" (No. 16), which opens with "Come all you

jolly fellows and listen to my song." "The Crooked Trail

to Holbrook" (No. 38) begins similarly "Come all you jolly

331

cowboys that follow the bronco steer."

One song, "The Kansas Line" (No. 84), exhibits an

interesting variant by asking a question: "Come all you

jolly cowmen, don't you want to go / Way up on the Kansas

line?" (11. 1-2) . Other variations of this opening can be 0

found in "The Dishear tened Ranger" (No. 43), which begins

"Come l i s t e n t o a ranger , you kind-hear ted s t r ange r , " the

wording of which i s only s l i g h t l y d i f f e ren t from the t r a ­

d i t iona l wording; and "The Old Chisholm Tra i l " (No. 105),

which opens "Come along, boys, and l i s t e n to my t a l e . "

Finally may be mentioned one ins t ance , "The Rambling Cow­

boy" (No. 118), in which the l a s t , r a the r than the i n i t i a l ,

stanza opens with the t r a d i t i o n a l phrase .

Although convent ional ly associa ted with the ba l l ad ,

the "Come-All-Ye" opening i s a l so used in other types of

songs in the c o l l e c t i o n . Of the songs mentioned above,

nine are b a l l a d s , seven d e s c r i p t i v e l y r i c s , seven na r r a ­

t i v e s , and two p o r t r a i t b a l l a d s .

Languaqe—The language in Lomax's t e x t s shows considerable

d i v e r s i t y of tone and l eve l of usage, ranging from standard

to crude with r e s p e c t t o d i c t i o n , with, occas iona l ly , s k i l l ­

ful d i a l e c t a l usage . On occasion, a l s o , as Thorp has gen­

e r a l l y remarked of some songs he met on h i s c o l l e c t i n g

tou r s , language u n s u i t a b l e for p r i n t has been appropr ia te ly

"dry c l eaned . " Terms such as greaser for Mexican, Injun

(and even In j i an) for Indian, cayote for coyote, and hoss

332

for horse are quite common in the songs as a whole. Exam­

ples of dialectal pronunciation include such usage as caz

for because, chune for tune, sassenger for sausages, neow

for now, sah for sir, keerless for careless, jine for join,

hit for it, and axe for ask. Less obscure ones are Noo

York State, shore, 'cep, arger, driv, alius, jes, yer, mo' ,

agin, and saloot. One particularly noticeable example of

widespread dialectal usage is "Jerry, Go lie That Car"

(No. 77), which includes such wording as twinty, niver,

i 'int (joint) , cinter (center, wud, yez, ile, ivery, wid,

soger (soldier) , and t'roat, as well as other such examples,

Still further examples of idiomatic speech may also

be cited: e.g., "There ain't none what can compare"; "Lock

horns ter all them heifers"; "I'ye drove"; "I'm known on

handling"; and "The gals we left to^home." Omission of the

final ^ in words ending in -ing is found in numerous cases,

and the absence of the initial th- resulting in words such

as 'em for them also occurs with some degree of regularity.

The use of ain't is, as might be expected, common. Like­

wise of common occurrence in the songs is the addition of

an initial a, before some words: a-cussin', a-squealing,

a-pitchinq, a-closin', and even a-qalliflutin'. The cow­

boy 's specialized vocabulary, again as might be expected,

is generously included in such examples as cavyard, skew-

ball, dogie, dolly welters, peeler, maguey, rim-fire,

leqqins, screws, and waddie. Generally, such terms are

333

not overly distractive or confusing in context; moreover,

they add a strong tone or realism to the language of the

songs. Although one may find exceptions, the language of

the Lomax songs remains generally close to accepted forms

of spelling and punctuation. What diversity there is

reflects principally the broad diversity of social and

educational levels present in the West.

Imagery—Colloquial usage is also reflected in the pic­

torial imagery in the songs in Lomax's collection. Oc­

curring frequently, for example, is the reference to the

"last roundup, " to denote the Judgment Day. As a matter

of fact, this image is so recurrent that it assumes almost

the level of a symbol in the corpus of songs as a whole.

Another recurring image, in the songs dealing with Heaven,

is the tendency to picture the afterworld as a big cattle

pasture in which the cowboys will be herded by God. Simi­

lar pictorial detail abounds in some texts, as may be seen

in the following sampling from "A Cow Camp on the Range"

(No. 35), which captures a sense of the coming of spring:

Oh, the prairie dogs are screaming. And the birds are on the wing. See the heel fly chase the heifer, boys! 'Tis the first class sign of spring. The elm wood is budding. The earth is turning green. See rhe pretty things of nature That make life a pleasant dream!

(11. 1-8)

The same is true of "A Prisoner for Life" (No. 115), which

mentions "green fields," "soft meadows," "little birdies /

334

fhat fly in the sky" as well as "fishes / That glides

through the sea." As a final illustration may be mentioned

the opening lines of "Chopo" (No. 24) : "Through rocky

arroyas so dark and so deep, / Down the sides of the moun­

tains so slippery and steep" (11. 1-2) .

In the technical sense of the image as an imagina­

tive comparison, the more common seems to be the simile:

e.g., "our horses, like possums, felt fine" in "Whose Old

Cow?" (No. 147) ; a cowboy's heart is "as gay as the flowers

of May" in "Old Time Cowboy" (No. 110); "Like good old

bricks they stood in the kicks" and "I am left alone in

my misery / Like some poor wandering ghosts" in "The Days

of Forty-Nine" (No. 40) ; "I . . . came down upon the

boulders / Just like a thousand bricks" in "Joe Bowers"

(No. 80) ; and "For they, like the cows that are locoed /

Stampede at the sight of a hand" in "The Cowboy's Dream"

(No. 31).

Prosody

Stanza Forms and Meter—The task of an accurate representa­

tion in a printed text of stanzaic and metrical forms of

songs collected in the field is obviously a difficult one,

for the collector must make his determination on an aural

basis rather than from the perusal of a printed text. For

example, the traditional ballad stanza may be printed

either as a sevenstress couplet or as a quatrain composed

335

of alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines rhyming abcb.

or two ballad stanzas might be joined and printed as an

eight-line stanza—a practice followed rather extensively

in the Lomax texts.

Meter offers a similar problem. Generally, Lomax's

texts show evidence of metrical irregularity, some of them

to an extreme degree. Moreover, the pieces generally lack

the subtle intricacies of rhythm and other technical quali­

ties found in formal, literary verse. Of metrical irregu­

larity in folk songs in general. Laws says that it "is so

much the rule . . . that one tends to become suspicious of

the origin of any piece which is noticeably free from awk-

wardness." A talented singer, of course, in rendering a

song can easily mask any excessive degree of irregularity

so that no special sense of awkwardness is felt by the

hearer. It is only when the song text is recited as verse

that any such irregularity becomes obvious.

As may be seen from Appendix A, "Descriptive List­

ing of Song Texts," the pieces in Lomax's collection con­

tain a variety of stanza forms, rhyme schemes and metric

patterns. In its one hundred fifty-two songs, the quatrain

7G. Malcolm Laws, Jr., Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographical Syllabus (Rev ed., Philadelphia: The American Folklore Society, 1964), p. 63. Laws notes further that iambic is the most promi­nent metrical pattern in collections of folk songs, a generalization found to be true for the songs m Lomax s collection.

336

dominates, over one half of the total (80) being so printed;

only four of the total texts employ the couplet, and only

two, the three-line stanza. Eight songs employ five-line

stanzas, though all include as the final line a refrain.

Eleven songs employ six-line stanzas (one of these is

actually a quatrain with a two-line refrain) ; three songs,

seven-line stanzas. The second most prevelant form in the

group as a whole is the eight-line stanza, featured in

forty-two pieces. Many of the latter, however, are simply

two ballad stanzas printed without a break between lines

four and five. Only one of the songs in the Lomax collec­

tion uses the ten-line stanza, in reality an octave with

the last two lines repeated as a refrain, and only one the

twelve-line unit.

Typical examples of the various stanza types in­

clude the following:

Two-line Stanzas—

He met a bunch of Indian bucks led by Geronimo a

And v^at them Indians did to him, well shorely

I don't know. ,, ^ (11. 10-11)

— "A Man Named Hods" (No. 94)

As may be seen from this stanza, the song pattern is farily

regular iambic heptameter arranged as couplets, though it

might easily be arranged in the form of the ballad stanza.

Gummere points out that historically the couplet appears

337

to be older than the quatrain as the typical stanza for Q

popular poetry. Two of the stanzas in "A Man Named Hods,"

numbers one and eleven, are irregular, having three lines.

Another text approximates the four-line stanza in

that it is given in couplets with a two-line refrain fol­

lowing, giving a total of four lines: "Come along, boys, and listen to my tale, I'll tell you of my troubles on the old Chisholm

Trail.

Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya. Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya.

(11. 1-4)

— "The Old Chisholm Trail" (No. 105)

Three-line Stanzas-—Representative of the use of the three-

line form is the following:

It was down to Red River I came, a u — H i — ^ — sj —

Prepared to play a damned tough game,— a Whoa! skew, till I saddle you, whoa I b

(11. 1-3)

— "The Skew-Ball Black" (No. 130)

The stanza has generally four stresses per line in irregu­

lar iambic and anapestic rhythm. It and "Down South on

the Rio Grande" (No. 45), the only two in this form, are

actually only couplets with an extra line serving as a

refrain.

^Francis B. Gummere, The Popular Ballad (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1907), p. 60, n. 2.

338

Four-line Stanzas—Well over half of the songs in this

collection are printed in the four-line stanza, suggesting

that this form was felt to be an attractive one to the

creators and singers of the songs. One of the best exam­

ples of this pattern is not totally regular in its arrange­

ment, though the song does have some stanzas which fit the

traditional ballad pattern:

Montana is too cold for me * - ' > - ' - ^ _ ^ _

And the winters are too long; b

Before the round-ups do begin c

Our money is all gone. b

(11. 5-8)

— "The Texas Cowboy" (No. 135)

A strict scansion of stanza seven of this song shows a

common variant pattern, though by wrenching the accent,

the singer could make the lines fit the above pattern: I've worked down in Nebraska a - ^ — v/ — w —

Where the grass grows ten feet high, b

And the cattle are such rustlers c V w — ^ _ w -

That they seldom ever die; b

(11. 25-28)

The presence of an extra unstressed syllable at the end of

lines one and three is quite common in this and other stanza

patterns and gives added length to what is only a trimeter

line, thus making the pattern approximate ballad stanza.

There are several variations of this basic quatrain

form. Some of the songs have the abcb rhyme scheme, but

339

lack the alternating tetrameter and trimeter rhythm ex­

pected to accompany this ballad pattern. The following

stanza shows this arrangement:

As I walked out in the streets of Laredo, a

As I walked out in Laredo one day, b

I spied a poor cowboy wrapped up in

white linen, c

Wrapped up in white linen as cold as the clay. b

(11. 1-4)

— "The Cowboy's Lament" (No. 32)

Though some stanzas vary by rhyming abab, the metrical

pattern shows regularly four stresses per line, but lines

one and three also have the additional unaccented syl­

lable, a variant resembling ballad rhythm.

It is not at all uncommon for a song to exhibit

some stanzas in one rhyming pattern and others in a vari­

ant form. The following song mixes stanzas characterized

by the 4-3-4-3 ballad rhythm, with other stanzas composed

of four-stress lines. Generally the rhyme pattern is abcb,

v^ereas that of stanzas eleven and thirteen is abba, an

uncommon arrangement. Following is stanza thirteen:

"So, if none o' you punchers claims dis cow, a

Mr. Stock "Sociation needn't git alarmed; t>

For one more brand more or less won't do no

harm.

So old Nigger Add'l just brand her now." a

(11 . 49-52)

— "Whose Old Cow?" (No. 147)

The fol lowing l y r i c a l p i e c e has an unusual rhyme scheme

of aaab, though the cons truc t ion of the poem makes such

a pattern i n e v i t a b l e : I a i n ' t got no f a t h e r , a - v^ — W/ — ^ I ain't got no father, a — V/ — l> — ^

I a i n ' t got no f a t h e r , a V/ — v/ — v/ -To buy the c l o t h e s I wear. b

(11 . 1-4)

— "Poor Lonesome Cowboy" (No. 114)

An example of a quatrain in regular abab rhyme

pattern but using regular alternating hexameter and penta­

meter rhythm is this one from "The Cowboy at Work" (No.

29) :

When the storm breaks in its fury and the — <^ — V —

lightning's vivid flash a \-/v^ \^ u —^ \y —

Makes you thank the Lord for shelter and vy - —

for bed, ^

Then it is he mounts his pony and away ^ —. v-/ — you see him dash, ^

yy ^y ^ yy _ v^ — ^'-' ^ No protection but the hat upon his head. b

(11. 9-12)

— "The Cowboy at Work" (No. 29)

Generally, alternating rhyme is not common in the

Lomax songs. The above is the only song in the alternating

341

pattern in the quatrain stanzas. Another noteworthy trait

of this song is the caesura in ghe group of unstressed syl­

lables near the middle of the first and third lines in each

stanza. A pattern similar to this one has a fairly regular

pattern of 7-5-7-5 stress with irregular rhyming patterns:

I am looking rather seedy now while \y — \y —

holding down my claim, a v ^ ^ y — \y \y — \y -^ ^^ —

And my victuals are not always served *-/ —

the best; b

And the mice play shyly round me as I — >^ — u/ — nestle down to rest ^

\y \y — \y — v- —iv^ — ^

In my little old sod shanty on my claim. a

(11. 1-4)

— "The Little Old Sod Shanty" (No. 89)

The rhyme in the following song varies from that above:

exhibiting abcb, abab, abac, and none in stanza four

(fright, room. West, home) , though the consonance in roOTi.-

home serves the purpose of the rhyme. The six-stress line is also common in the quatrain,

A group of jolly covfeoys, discussing

plans at ease. \^ v^ ~- vv —. v^ —

Says one, "I'll tell you something, boys, \^ — ^ — \^ —

if you will listen, please.

I am an old cow-puncher and here I m

cx dressed in rags.

^ ^ — ^ — c — ^ ^ _ 3 2

And I used to be a tough one and take v — <^ — on great big jags." j

(11. 1-4)

— "When the Work Is All Done This Fall"

(No. 145)

Stanzas in which the seven-stress line is commonly found

in stanzas might equally as well be divided into ballad

stanzas, though the stanza count in such cases would, of

course, double. "Young Charlottie" (No. 150) gives an

example of this kind of arrangement:

Young Charlottie lived by a mountain side in a

wild and lonely spot.

There was no village for miles around except

her father's cot;

And yet on many a wintry night young boys

would gather there,— v — v- — ^ — ^-^ ^ '- *— "^

Her father kept a social board, and she was — . \^ •—

very fair.

(11. 1-4)

— "Young Charlottie" (No. 150)

These quatrains could readily become double ballad stanzas,

for the rhyme in the couplets would lend itself to that

arrangement, as would the units of thought in the lines.

Five-line Stanzas—Only one of the songs printed in five-

line stanzas,"Night-Herding Song" (No. 104), utilizes all

five lines to present new material, though even in this

song the last line is a refrain-type which does, however.

343

vary in each stanza, in addition, the song has a chorus

not printed with the stanza; if it were so presented, the

form would be merely an arrangement familiar in Lomax's

sestets. The lyrical nature of this song and the thematic

treatment of the subject make it a lullaby of considerable

charm, as is evident from stanza one:

Oh, slow up, dogies, quit your roving

round.

You have wandered and tramped all over

the ground; a ^ — \y \^ — \ ^ ^ — ^^ ^^

Oh, graze along, dogies, and feed kinda

s l o w , ]rj

And don't forever be on the go,— b ^ v^ — — v^ \y — Oh, move slow, dogies, move slow. b >- — \^ , \^ —

Hi-oo, hi-oo, oo-oo.

(11. 1-6)

— "Night-Herding Song" (No. 104)

The rhythm of t h i s stanza i s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the song as

a whole.

The other songs utilizing the five-line form have

v^at can be best described as a quatrain with a refrain

making up the fifth line. Some rhyme in couplets, but the

refrain does not fit into the rhyme scheme. An example of this pattern is the following stanza:

\y — \^ \^ — \^ v-/ — '- "^^ — Come all of you people, I pray you draw near, a - •— \^ \^ y^y '— ^ ^ ^-^ —

A comical ditty you all shall hear. a

v ^ —. v ^ ^ —- ,^ ^ _ 3 4 4 ^ ^ —

The boys in this country they try to advance b

By courting the ladies and learniJig t* d^ce — h M ^ ^ — U y ^ __^ '

And they're down, down, and they're down. c (11. 1-5)*

~ "The Arizona Boys and Girls" (No. 2)

Four stresses per line are normal in these songs, except

for "The 'Metis' Song of the Buffalo Hunters" (No. 96),

which has irregular rhythm ranging from three to six

stresses per line.

Two of the songs in the five-line group have more

unusual forms:

Boys, we're goin' far to-night, a

Yeo-ho, yeo-ho! b *^-^ — \ ^ • — v_-/ — L-/ • — •

We'll take the greasers now in hand c

And drive 'em in the Rio Grande, c \ ^ v ^ 4 ^ ^

Way down in Mexico. b

(11. 1-5)

— "Way Down in Mexico" (No. 143)

Most stanzas in "Jerry, Go lie That Car" (No. 77) have five

lines, but stanzas three and six have four, and stanza

seven has only three lines. The usual pattern for this

song is aab7c4b3.

Six-line stanza—Generally, variation is characteristic of

the utilization of the six-line stanza form. One is

actually printed only in a four-line pattern with two lines of refrain printed with the stanza to make out the total of

six lines:

SB^B^"

V ^ K^ ^.^ V_^

There was a wealthy merchant ^ ^ \^ ^ ^^ —

In London he did dwell.

He had an only daughter, ^ — yj — ^ —

The truth to you I'll tell. b

Sing I am left alone, D -X — v^ O* •

Sing I am l e f t a lone . D

(11 . 1-6)

— "The Wars of Germany" (No. 142)

On the other hand, some are purely in the s e s t e t , as a quotation from one demonstrates:

\y — v-/ .— v-/» — K^

B i l l Peters was a h u s t l e r a

From Independence town; b

He warn't no c o l l e g e scholar c

345

v-/ <y

Nor man of great renown, b u^ — \^ \_y "— \^ — \y •""

But Bill had a way o' doing things d » ^ — ^ — ^ —

And doin' 'em up brown. ^ (11. 1-6)

— "Bill Peters, the Stage Driver" (No. 3)

Seven-line Stanza—None of the songs in the seven-line

form can be said to make any original use of the form.

Examination of the most original use of the form shows

that even here the last three lines serve merely as a

refrain, that part of the song having narrative structure

actually being a quatrain in four-stress lines with con­

secutive rhyme in the first stanza, couplets in the rest

of the piece. Stanza two is representative of the prosodic

pattern of the song:

a

a

B

B

It was in the morning at eight-forty-five, \y s^ . ^ ^ • \ ^ \ ^ \ ^

I was hooking up all ready to drive

Out v^ere the miners for minerals seek, b \y '— ^ \^ — \y K^ — ^

With two little mules on the road to \j —

Cook's Peak— -^

On the road to Cook's Peak,— \^ <^ • K^ K^

On the road to Cook's Peak,—

With two little mules on the road to o' -—

Cook's Peak. B

(11. 8-14)

— "The Road to Cook's Peak" (No. 122)

"A Fragment" (No. 55) has the same kind of development with

four-stress lines, except for the last line in each stanza

\tfhich has one extra foot. Lines four through six are

merely refrain-type lines and do not add to the comment

made in the song. "A New National Anthem" (No. 103) is a

parody of the National Anthem of the United States of

America, and as such has no development of its own in

either meter or stanzaic form.

The seven-line stanza, then, is one with little

use in the collection and does not reflect use of the form

in any viable way. Two of the songs are in reality quatrains

with refrains, and the last one mentioned above is based on

a well known song and is simply parody.

Eight-line Stanzas—Though the rhyme patterns of this widely

used form vary somewhat from alternating rhyme, couplets.

347

and one in aaabcccb, the most frequent pattern is actually

extended ballad rhyme, abcbdefe, which if divided by a

stanzaic break after line four would easily make quatrains

in the expected ballad rhyme scheme. Actually all of those

using this abcbdefe format could be so arranged. The choice,

apparently by Lomax, to put the stanzas in octaves rather

than in quatrains was perhaps intended to provide varia­

tion in the appearance of the song formats.

There is some variation in what can be called bal­

lad rhyme scheme in the octaves. The following stanza

offers an example of the characteristic form:

Number forty-five is about sixteen, a

Number one is sixty and three; b

And they make such a riot, how he \^ — ^

keeps them quiet c

Is a downright mystery to me. b

For they clatter and they chaw and \_ — —

they jaw, jaw, jaw, ^ y^ — v-^*^ —-v-^v^ »-/ —

And each has a different desire; e

It would aid the renown of the best v/ ^ —

shop in town ^ ^ ^ — ^ ^ — ^ » ^ —

To supply them with half they desire. e (11. 9-16)

— "Brigham Young II" (No. 11)

Complete regularity is certainly not present, but, of course,

it ift, not always desirable and rarely appears in any of the

348

songs.

A slight variation in this form is found in lines

expected to have four stresses but which often have an

additional unstressed syllable at the end of the line,

giving the line a feminine ending but also making the line

longer than the strictly trimeter lines:

The ancient eunuch struggled ^ — v ^ — v ^

And raised his shaking head, • — v-/ — ^.^ • — v ^ — ^—'

Saying,""I care not to linger ^ — \^ — ^ _

When all my friends are dead. ^^ W v^ K_^

These Jerseys and these Holsteins, ^ — ^ — L^ —

They are not friends of mine;

They belong to the nobility c/ — o* — \^ —

Who live across the brine."

(11. 9-16)

— "The Last Longhorn" (No. 86)

Variation in the pattern is seen in "The Lone Star Trail"

(No. 91) , v^ich has lines with six or seven stresses each,

with the rhyme in couplets. Stanzaic rearrangement would

allow this song to be printed in the same pattern as the

one just preceding. "The Gol-Darned Wheel" (No. 61) has

the same form. Other variations of this rhyming pattern

can be found in "The Miner's Song" (No. 97), which has con­

siderable use of alternating six and five stress lines; and

"Little Joe, the Wrangler" (No. 88), which has alternating

seven-five stress patterns, especially in the second stanza

349

of each song.

Twelve-line Stanzas—The only song printed in this stanzaic

pattern is "The Cowboy's Christmas Ball" (No. 30), the fol­

lowing stanza is representative:

Way out in Western Texas, where the Clear v-^ . — • v ^ >

Fork,' s waters flow, a \y v ^ — v^ — \^ — ^ v ^ y^ \y

Where the cattle are a-browzin' and the

Spanish ponies grow; a \y \^ v-/* .— v-^ v--' ^^

Where the Northers come a-whistlin' from v — v^ — «^ — beyond the Neutral Strip; b

\^ K^ V«/ v-^ — . V ^ \^

And the prairie dogs are sneezin', as

though they had the grip; b \^ <^ — \^ v-^ — -

Where the coyotes come a-howlin' round

the ranches after dark, c V ^ V^' — . v-/ — ^-^ — • "^-^ v^ ^-^

And the mockin' birds are singing' to the

lovely medder lark;

Where the 'possum and the badger and the — v- ^y —

rattlesnakes abound.

And the monstrous stars are winkin' o'er

wilderness profound; K^ ^ K^ — - v ^ — v_y — y

Where lonesome, tawny prairies melt into

airy streams.

While the Double Mountains slumber in the — \ ^ \ ^ — y ^ — •

heavenly kinds of dreams;

Where the antelope is grazm' and the

lonely plovers call/—

%y <^ — y^ K^ — v ^ > ^ — v^ 350

It was there I attended the Cowboy's

Christmas Ball. (11. 1-12)

— "The Covfeoy's Christmas Ball" (No. 30)

^lyme—All of the texts in Lomax's collection make use of

rhyming patterns, which consist almost totally of end rhyme,

to enhance poetic form and quality. Internal rhyme is

employed in only four texts: "The Disheartened Ranger"

(No. 43) , "A Home on the Range" (No. 72) , "The U. S. A.

Recruit" (No. 139) , and "Fuller and Warren" (No. 59) . A

representative example of this pattern is the following:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, a Where the deer and the antelope play, b Where seldom is heard a discouraging word c And the skies are not cloudy all day. b

(11. 1-4)

— "A Home on the Range" (No. 72)

Some rhymes are awkward, but most blend in with the verse

in an unobtrusive and effective way.

Occasionally in the texts there occur unintentional

departures from the strict pattern of the basic rhyme

scheme, varying from exact rhyme to a total absence of

rh3^ing words in their expected positions. Inexact rhymes

include such unusual combinations as unstrung / one lung,

identical rhyme such as gun / gun, and approximate rhymes

using assonance and consonance: down / ground; redeem /

sing; bones / own; wild / mile; Brazos / dust; around /

town; stars / ours; tens / in; too / buffalo; and horse /

mm^.

351

lost. More rarely found are such combinations as blow /

around and fear. / disguise, m some of the rhyme choices,

the difference between m and n is cometimes disregarded in

rhyming such words as soon / doom.

Refrains—Forty-seven of the song texts have refrain ele­

ments of some type. Many of these are one-line repetitions

that fit into the content of the verse, such as the last

line in the following stanza:

We are gazing now on old Tom Moore, a A relic of bygone days; b 'Tis a bummer, too, they call me know, c But what cares I for praise? b It's oft, says I, for the days gone by, d It's oft do I repine e For the days of old when we dug out the gold f In those days of Forty-Nine. E

(11. 1-8)

— "The Days of Forty-Nine" (No. 40)

The use of a refrain that is not necessarily contributory to the statement of the song is also found:

Old Jeff swears he'll sew him together - a With powder and shot instead of leather,— a Way down south in Dixie, Oh, boys. Ho. B

(11. 13-15)

— "Down South on the Rio Grande" (No. 45)

Some v^ole line refrains are used, and the following exam­

ples are representative of the form of refrains: It was down to Red River I came, a Prepared to play a damned tough game,— a Whoa! skew, till I saddle you, whoa! B

( 1 1 . 1-4)

~ "The Skew-Bal-1 Black" (No. 130)

352

"I am a vaquero by trade; To handle my rope I'm not afraid. a I lass' an otero by the two horns b Throw down the biggest that ever was born b Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Pinto, whoa! * c

(11. 1-4)

— "Pinto" (No. 113)

Other texts have nonsense or yoddle-type lines such as the

following: 0 boys, we're goin' far to-night, a Yeo-ho, yeo-ho! B We'll take the greasers now in hand c And drive 'em in the Rio Grande, c Way down in Mexico. B

(11. 1-4)

— "Way Down in Mexico" (No. 143)

1 made up my mind to change my way a And quit my crowd that was so gay, a To leave my native home for a while b And to travel west for many a mile b

r Whoo-a-whoo-a-whoo-a-whoo. c

(11. 1-5)

— "The Trail to Mexico" (No. 138)

The same kind of refrain is found in a two line form

as well, though not nearly so frequently: Come along, boys, and listen to my tale, a I'll tell you of my troubles on the old

Chisholm trail. a

Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya, B Coma ti yi youpy ya. B

(11. 1-4)

— "The Old Chisholm Trail" (No. 105)

Some stanzaic choruses are found, such as this one:

"I'm a howler from the prairies of the West, a If you want to die with terror, look at me. b

353

I'm chain-lightning—if i ain't may I be blessed.

I'm the snorter of the boundless prairie. b a

c c

He's a killer and a hater! He's the great annihilator! He's a terror of the boundless

prairie. B

(11. 1-7)

— "The Boozer" (No. 8)

This incremental chorus is varied each time but has similar content.

Other stanzaic choruses exist, the following pro­

viding examples of the more popular patterns:

0 Mollie, O Mollie, it is for your sake alone a That I leave my old parents, my house and my

home, a That I leave my old parents, you caused me to

roam,— a 1 am a rabble soldier and Dixie is my home. a

Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds, B I know you of old, C You've robbed my poor pockets D Of silver and gold. C Whiskey, you villain, E You've been my downfall, F You've kicked me, you've cuffed me, G ^ But I love you for all. F

(11. 1-12)

— "Jack o' Deamonds" (No. 76)

Now Brigham Young is a Mormon bold, a And a leader of the roaring rams, b And shepherd of a lot of fine tub sheep c

. And a lot of pretty little lambs. b Oh, he lives with his five and forty wives, d In the city of the Great Salt Lake, e Where they breed and swam like hens on a

farm And cackle like ducks to a drake. e

354

Chorus:—

Oh Brigham, Brigham Young, G It's a miracle how you survive, H With your roaring rams and your

pretty little lambs I And your five and forty wives. H

(11. 1-12)

— "Brigham Young II" (No. 11)

I struck the trail in seventy-nine, a The herd strung out behind me; b As I jogged along my mind ran back c For the gal I left behind me. b

That sweet little gal, that true little gal, D

The gal I left behind me! B (11. 1-6)

— "The Gal I Left Behind Me" (No. 60)

11

CONCLUSION

The songs in John A. Lomax's 1916 edition of Cow­

boy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads present a diversified

and remarkably complete view of many phases of life in the

United States, particularly that of the Western frontier,

in both its heyday and its decline. The pieces that por­

tray the life of the cowboy are the most numerous, con­

stituting sixty-nine of the total of one hundred fifty-two

texts in the volume. Sixty-four deal with other aspects

of frontier life, and nineteen are best classified as

Popular—i.e., songs without a specially Western locale

and sung generally throughout the country. As Lomax him­

self recognized, the songs are interesting today chiefly

"for the light that they throw on the conditions of fron­

tier life." But as Lomax also reminded his readers, they

also provided a social service to the people who sang them,

2

primarily as a means to alleviate loneliness, or in lieu

of other social diversion, as Thorp indicates, as a mode

of entertainment, and even as work songs.

^John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs," Encyclopedia Britannica. 1943, IX, 448.

2John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs of the Mexican Border." The Sewanee Review, XIX (January, 1911), 6.

355

356

Although for the most part realistic in their

descriptions of factual detail of setting and action, the

Lomax texts reveal a strong romanticizing tendency with

respect to. the cowboy himself. Indeed, the picture that

emerges is of a rowdy, often raucous, man who was upon

occasion subject to a reflective, philosophical turn of

mind, especially on the subject of religion, the nature

of life, and life after death; but a man, generally, who

preferred the active life to a contemplative existence.

His actions could be both violent and dangerous, attributes

as well of the country—which at times seemed almost malevo­

lent in nature—in which he lived, exposed to its rigors

of bitter cold, extreme heat, storm, hail, flood, and

drought. Rough and masculine, the heartiest of such men,

as pictured in the songs, remained single so that they

could continue to roam. Throughout the songs, of course,

are represented the hardships and dangers inherent in the

co\^oy's chosen occupation, in its roundups and trail

drives, its stampedes and Indian attacks, which the cow­

boys, with some exception, bore cheerfully and bravely.

As also recorded by the songs, the cowboy's rela­

tionship with women is equally stereotyped, v^ether in the

conventional situations of dances and similar social af­

fairs, or in more personal relationships. Women, as they

appear in the song texts, fall into two categories: those

for whom the covfeoy feels a physical attraction—the girl

357

friends or sweethearts—and women with whom they have

familial ties—mothers or sisters. The hero of numerous

songs loves only one woman, and though he and this object

of his affection may be separated by miles of trackless

prairie, and he is frequently absent for long periods of

time, he completely fails to understand how she can be

untrue to him.

Typically, in the songs, it is most often through

his mother and sister, whom he cherishes and honors, though

he may never visit or even write to them, that the cowboy

maintains his rather loose ties with the Christian religion,

Thus, through rarely concerned in the songs specifically

with spiritual ideas, except at times of death, he never­

theless vigorously attacks anyone so bold as to belittle

the religion of his family. He believes that God is just,

and that those who believe in God—or as one cowboy says,

wear the brand of Christ on their hides—will go to what

is usually envisioned as the great green pasture in the

sky to be figuratively herded like their own cattle in

peace and contentment by the Great Cowman, on lush pasture

with plenty of cool water.

Finally, according to the songs, the cowboy has a

natural aversion to strangers, especially to those who may

be from the East and unaccustomed to the life and routine

of the West. And though he may love a senorita, he genu­

inely hates all Mexicans, and voices an equal dislike for

358

any farmer (granger) , who might come to plow and fence the

land and thus close the open range, which he loves and

feels—as was actually true—to be necessary for his nomadic

existence.

Other types of life on the frontier are pictured

less copiously but with the same kind of realistic presen­

tation. These include the trek west and the hard life in

arid regions, such as that under which lived immigrant

farmers or the Mormons who came west seeking religious

freedom, and limn the life of people trying to forge a

settled existence where opportunity beckoned but danger

also lurked. The experiences of mountain men, Texas Rang­

ers, soldiers, outlaws, gold miners, and buffalo hunters

are also included. Comment on persons outside the West is

represented by songs of shanty boys or lumbermen, convicts,

and trappers of the North; to which may be added pieces of

British origin which survived more or less intact after

having been brought to the Trans-Mississippi West by the

settlers from the old world and which are reflective of a

foreign life style and attitude. Taken altogether, the

songs add variety of subject matter and character types

to those to be found among the songs sung by the cowboys

about themselves.

In general the Lomax texts, when examined against

the historical background provided in Part One of this

study, may be seen to constitute an index, more or less

359

accurate, of the general historical scene of the early

American West. Although some of the songs seem merely to

be set against the background of history, merely reflecting

a general isense of the times, others actually mirror spe­

cific historical facts, though sometimes facts as they are 0

modified by the subtle erosion brought to play upon them

by oral tradition. Examples of the use of erroneous de­

tail are not overly numerous, though, as in "Cole Younger"

(No. 25) they do occur. For example, the bandit hero is

credited with entering the bank at Northfield, Minnesota,

a fact which history does not support, since Cole was

identified as one of the members of the group which re­

mained outside to support the inside group led by Jesse

James himself. But this error probably arises from popular

legend, which may have cast Cole in the role of one of the

inside men. In another example, "Jesse James" (No. 78) ,

the gang is credited with robbing the Danville train; no

actual record of this event is available. The name Dan­

ville is perhaps an erroneously recalled Glendale, the

name of a station where the gang held up one of the trains.

Probably such songs err historically as a result of an

overly romantic view, faulty recollection of actual events,

or mistaking hearsay or legend for actuality rather than

as a deliberate falsification of detail. Finally may be

cited "Her White Bosom Bare" (No. 71) , which obviously

contains a too romantic picture of the activities of the

360

Indians, and pictures the torturing of a young girl in a

fashion normally used for torturing captured white men and

other warriors. Fortunately, however, such use of obviously

erroneous details is infrequent in the songs, and seldom

detracts from the realistic portrayal of life seen in the

song.

In technique, the songs generally reflect the quali­

ties normally associated with folk songs; i.e., the con-

ventional artistic devices of poetic form: stanzaic

structure, imagery, theme. In this respect, a character­

istic device in some songs is the "Come-All-Ye" opening

which in ballad tradition invited the listener to share a

story or a journey with the singer. The language of the

songs is generally quite appropriate for the tone of the

song, for the use of dialectal speech is represented

through irregular spelling and by unusual word choice.

The use of terminology of the cowboy also occurs with some

degree of frequency. The imagery present is, in the cow­

boy songs, representative of the concepts and details of

the life the men led.

In prosody, the songs exhibit a vide variation of

stanza forms, rhyme schemes, and refrains. The use of end

rhyme to enhance the musical quality of the songs is almost

universal in the texts, with internal rhyme, however, being

quite rare. A variety of stanza forms from two-line to

twelve-line is found in the collection. As one might

361

expect, the ballad stanza form, in either four or eight

lines, is prevalent. Rhyme schemes and types of rhyme

reflect considerable variation, and a wide difference in

refrains occurs from repetition of a single phrase or line

to complete stanzas forming choruses, which may be repeated

virtually unchanged or may differ in content each time the

repetition occurs.

The forms of presentation in the songs fit into

five categories designated as Ballad, Narrative, Portrait

Ballad, Lyric, and Descriptive Lyric. The ballads in the

collection comply with a standard definition of the ballad,

for they, as well as the other types, are for the most part

compact in the presentation of material, with little or no

elaboration or extraneous detail. The action is usually a

plotted structure with little concern for antecedent action

or motivating influence on those whose actions or ideas

are reflected in the song. The human figures who may ap­

pear in the songs are not well developed characterizations,

and setting is of little significance even though specific

locales are often mentioned, especially in the ballads.

The narrative pieces, so called because they lack the

strict central plot found in the ballad form, utilize

story materials dealing with primarily Western life. The

portrait ballads treat with amazing completeness the salient

features of the life of the individual concerned in a few

of the songs, though other pieces seem more carelessly done

362

and a r e l e s s r e v e l a t o r y of t h e p e r s o n ' s l i f e . The l y r i c s

and d e s c r i p t i v e l y r i c s c o n t a i n t h e though t s and a t t i t u d e s

of not on ly t h e cov^oys b u t o t h e r s on t h e f r o n t i e r and

e lsewhere .

John A. Lomax h a s been c a l l e d the "dean of our

ba l l ad h u n t e r s . " C e r t a i n l y t h e range and complexity of

h i s f i n d i n g s a s a " h u n t e r " of songs , r ep r e sen t ed i n the

1916 v e r s i o n of h i s e a r l i e s t p u b l i s h e d e f f o r t s . Cowboy

Songs and Other F r o n t i e r B a l l a d s , suppor t such an e p i t h e t .

I t may be t r u e t h a t o t h e r c o l l e c t o r s would in t ime have

garnered t h e same r i c h h a r v e s t from the descendants of

Lomaix's m u l t i t u d e of i n f o r m a n t s , b u t Lomax's endeavors ,

through t h e p r e s e n t c o l l e c t i o n and h i s l a t e r ex t ens ive

c o l l e c t i n g e f f o r t s , have a s s u r e d t h e i r permanent c a p t u r e ,

and a t a moment much c l o s e r i n t ime bo th t o the contem­

porary s i n g e r s of t h e songs , and t o the a c t u a l mi l i eu

which gave t h o s e songs b e i n g .

\

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APPENDIX A

DESCRIPTIVE LISTING OF SONG TEXTS

Definitions

In the following descriptive listing, songs texts

in the 1916 edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier

Ballads are given in alphabetical order and numbered for

ready identification and reference. Other information

provided includes page numbers in Lomax's volume; number

and structural form of the stanzas—plus other pertinent

prosodic information; and information regarding song type,

general subject classification, and sphere of activity

emphasized: e.g..

No. 2. "Arizona Boys and Girls, The"; p. 211; 10

5-line sts. (except for stanza 8 with 3 lines);

anapests; aabb4C3; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Descriptive Lyric; Popular; Courting.

The preceding item refers to the song text "The Arizona

Boys and Girls," which appears on page 211 in Lomax's

collection, and which consists of ten five-line stanzas

made up of two couplets in anapestic meter with four

stressed syllables per line, followed by a refrain having

three stressed syllables. In addition, the song opens

with a typical "Come-All-Ye" formula, is a descriptive

lyric in form, popular in its lack of reference to sp.

Western or frontier subject emphasis, and concerns the

385

» /^ (' T -^ T /^

386

social phenomena of courting.

special terms used in the designations of form

and subject type are employed in the sense of the defini-

tions given below:

(1) Ballad—a closely knit, usually swiftly-

moving account of a single episode.

(2) Portrait Ballad—a portrayal of a central

figure through presentation of salient typical events of

his life and career.

(3) Narrative—generalized narrative with no

specific plot emphasis, and often covering a period of

time.

(4) Lyric—a song expressive of emotional values—

attitudes, feelings, points of view—as opposed to a nar­

rative sequence.

(5) Descriptive Lyric—a song expressive of a

series of loosely related events which lack a formal struc­

ture or chronological narrative and which are unified by

a special emotional tone or thread of thought.

(6) Cowboy, Indians, Mountain Men, Rangers, etc.—

songs dealing with particular subjects indicated.

(7) Frontier—songs not connected with specific

areas just listed.

(8) Popular—songs of general subject-matter im­

port cung throughout the country.

387

The Listing

NO. 1. "Araphoe, or Buckskin Joe"; p. 390; 11-4 line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter; couplets; Narrative; Fron­

tier; Defeat of a Bully.

NO. 2. "Arizona Boys and Girls, The"; p. 211; 10 5-line

sts. (except for stanza 8 with 3 lines; aabb4C3;

"Come-All-Ye" opening; Descriptive Lyric; Popular;

Courting.

No. 3. "Bill Peters, the Stage Driver"; p. 100; 9 6-line

sts.; iambs; abcbdb 4/3 (irregular, frequently an

extra final unaccented syllable in odd-numbered

lines); Portrait Ballad; Transportation; Stage-

coaching.

No. 4. "Billy the Kid"; p. 344; 5 4-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3 (the first and third lines of each stanza

sometimes have one extra unstressed syllable at

the end of the line instead of the fourth foot) ;

Portrait Ballad; Outlaw; Exploits of an Outlaw.

No. 5. "Billy Venero"; p. 299; 13 6-line sts. (except

for the last stanza which is in aa4b8) ; iambs

(first foot often an anapest); aa4b8cc4b8; Ballad;

Indian; Tragic Love, Experiences with Indians.

No. 6. "Bob Stanford"; p. 265; 8 4-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3; Portrait Ballad; Immigrant (after 1900);

Drilling Water Wells in the West.

388

NO. 7. "Bonnie Black Bess"; p. 194; 9 8-line sts.;

anapests (first foot often iamb); abcbdefe2 (with

some occurrence of an extra unaccented foot at

the end of the odd-numbered lines) ; Narrative;

Imported (British); Death of an Outlaw's Mount.

NO. 8. "Boozer, The"; p. 304; 3 4-line sts.; iambic pen­

tameter (irregular); abab; 3 Choruses of three

lines, anapests (irregular), in aa2b3; Descriptive

Lyric; Frontier; Boast of a Bully.

No. 9. "Boston Burglar, The"; p. 147; 6 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter; couplets; Portrait Ballad; Con­

vict; Life of a Burglar.

No. 10. "Brigham Young, I"; p. 399; 6 5-line sts.; anapes­

tic tetrameter (first foot usually an iamb); aabbC;

nonsense Refrain; Narrative; Mormon; Brigham Young.

No. 11. "Brigham Young, II"; p. 401; 5 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 4/3 (irregular); Chorus of 4 lines, abcb;

Narrative; Mormon; Brigham Young.

No. 12. "Bronc Peeler's Song"; p. 377; 4 8-line sts.;

iambic trimeter (some occurrence of extra unstressed

syllable rather than a fourth foot in unrhymed

lines); abcbdefe; Narrative; Cowboy; Passing of

the Frontier.

No. 13. "Bucking Broncho"; p. 367; 7 4-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter; couplets; Narrative; Cowboy; Tragic

Love.

389

NO. 14. "Buena Vista Battlefield"; p. 34; 7 sts., 6 with

8 lines, st. 6 with 7 lines; iambs; abcb 4/3;

Narrative; Soldier, War with Mexico.

NO. 15. "Buffalo Hunters, (The)"; p. 185; 6 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter; "Come-All-Ye" opening; Descrip-0

tive Lyric; Buffalo Hunters; Experience on the

Buffalo Range.

No. 16. "Buffalo Skinners, The"; p. 158; 11 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter (irregular); couplets; "Come-

All-Ye" opening; Ballad; Buffalo Hunters; Experi­

ence on the Buffalo Range.

No. 17. "Bull-Whacker, The": p. 69; 8 8-line sts.; iambic

(often anapestic) dimeter to trimeter (irregular);

abcbdefe; Portrait Ballad, Transportation; Experi­

ences of an Ox Driver.

No. 18. "By Markentura's Flowery Marge"; p. 224; 4 4-line

sts.; iambic hepta meter; couplets; Chorus of

three lines rhyming ab4a3; Ballad, Popular (In­

dians of Eastern United States); Death of Indians.

No. 19. "California Joe"; p. 139; 26 sts., 25 with 8

lines and a final one with 4; iambic trimeter

(the odd numbered lines have an extra final un­

stressed syllable); abcbdefe; Ballad, Indian,

Mountain Men; Happy Love.

No. 20. "California Stage Company"; p. 411; 6 4-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter; couplets; Chorus in same form;

390

Descriptive Lyric; Transportation; Stagecoaching.

NO. 21. "California Trail"; p. 375; 6 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 4/3; Descriptive Lyric; Gold Miners; Life

during the Gold Rush.

No. 22. "Camp Fire Has Gone Out, The"; p. 322; 3 sts.,

the first 2 with 6 lines, the last with 8; iambic

heptameter (irregular); couplets; Descriptive

Lyric; Cowboy, Passing of the Frontier.

No. 23. "Charlie Rutlage"; p. 267; 5 4-line sts.; iambic V

hexameter-to heptameter (irregular); couplets;

Portrait Ballad; Cowboy; Death of a Cowboy.

No. 24. "Chopo"; p. 371; 4 4-line sts.; anapestic tetra­

meter; couplets; Refrain in same pattern; De­

scriptive Lyric; Cowboy; The Cowboy and His Horse.

No. 25. "Cole Younger"; p. 106; 7 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter (irregular); couplets; Portrait Ballad;

Outlaw; Experiences of an Outlaw.

No. 26. "Convict, The"; p. 290; 3 4-line sts.; iambic

heptameter; couplets; Chorus of four lines rhym­

ing abab5; Portrait Ballad, Convict; A Misspent

Life.

No. 27. "Cowboy, The"; p. 96. 10 sts., the first 9 with

4 lines, the last with 6; anapestic tetrameter

(the initial foot is frequently iambic); couplets;

Narrative; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range.

391

NO. 28. "Cowboy at Church, The"; p. 246; 10 8-line sts.;

iambs; abcbdefe 4/3 (frequent use of an extra

unaccented syllable at the end of unrhymed lines) ;

Ballad; Cowboy; Religion.

NO. 29. "Cowboy at Work, The"; p. 352; 5 4-line sts.;

iambs; abab 7/5; Descriptive Lyric; Cov±>oy;

Cowboy Life on the Range.

No. 30. "Cowboy's Christmas Ball, The"; p. 33 5; 6 12-line

sts.; iambic hexameter; couplets; Narrative; Cow­

boy; Christmas Dance.

No. 31. "Cowboy's Dream, The"; p. 18; 9 4-line sts.; ana­

pestic trimeter; (an extra unstressed syllable

often occurs at the end of the odd-numbered lines) ;

abcb; chorus is a repetitive quatrain; Narrative;

Cowboy, Religion.

No. 32. "Cowboy's Lament, The"; p. 74; 15 4-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter (an extra unstressed syllable

often occurs at the end of the odd-numbered lines,

first foot often iambic; abcb; Ballad; Cowboy

(adapted British); Death of a Cowboy.

No. 33. "Cowboy's Life, The"; p. 20; 8 6-line sts., iambs,

anapests (irregular); aa2b3cc2b3; Descriptive

Lyric; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range.

No. 34. "Cowboy's Meditation, The"; p. 297; 5 8-line sts.;

anapestic trimeter (an extra unstressed syllable

often occurs at the end of the odd-numbered lines);

392

abab; Lyric; Cowboy, Religion.

NO. 35. "Cow Camp on the Range, A"; p. 358; 5 8-line sts.;

iambic trimeter (an extra unstressed syllable

often occurs at the end of the odd-numbered lines) ;

abcbdefe; Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Cowboy Life 0

on the Range.

NO. 36. "Cowgirl, The"; p. 251; 4 4-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter; couplets; Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy;

Relation of the Sexes.

No. 37. "Cowman's Prayer, The"; p. 24; 5 4-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter; couplets; Lyric; Cowboy; Re­

ligion.

No. 38. "Crooked Trail to Holbrook, The"; p. 121; 8 sts.,

all with 4 lines except stanzas 3 with 5 lines

(abbbb) and 8 with 6 (aabbcb) ; iambic heptameter

(irregular; couplets (except as noted above);

"Come-All-Ye" opening; Ballad; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 39. "Dan Taylor"; p. 51; 10 4-line sts.; iambs; abcb

4/3 (irregular; odd numbered lines often have an

extra unstressed syllable at the end of the line);

Portrait Ballad; Cowboy; Domestic Life of the

Cowboy.

No. 40. "Days of Forty-Nine, The"; p. 9; 8 8-line sts.;

ianibs; abcb 4/3; irregular use of internal rhyme;

Narrative; Gold Miners; Life During the Gold Rush.

393

NO. 41. "Deer Hunt, A"; p. 379; 11 2-line sts.; iambic

pentameter (irregular up to hexameter); couplets;

Narrative; Popular (Fantasy); A Deer Hunt.

NO. 42. "Deserted Adobe, The"; p. 350; 3 10-line sts.;

iambs; ababcdcdCD 5/3 (irregular); Refrain is

repetition of preceding twolines; Descriptive

Lyric; Immigrant; Farming Failure.

No. 43. "Disheartened Ranger, The"; p. 261; 9 4-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter (internal rhyme in lines

1 and 4) ; lines 1 and 3 often have an extra final

unstressed syllable); variant of "Come-All-Ye;

opening; Descriptive Lyric; Ranger; Ranger Attitude

No. 44. "Dogie Song"; p. 303; 1 8-line sts.; anapests (ir­

regular) ; abcbdbeb 4/3 (irregular); 8 line Chorus

in iambs; aa4bb6c4d3c4d3; Descriptive Lyric;

Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 45. "Down South on the Rio Grande"; p. 331; 6 3-line

sts.; iambs, with frequent anapests; aa4B5 (an

extra unstressed syllable is frequent in the first

two lines of each stanza); Refrain; Descriptive

Lyric; Cowboy; Trail Drive, Civil War.

No. 46. "Dreary Black Hills, The"; p. 177; 5 4-line sts."

anapestic tetrameter; couplets; Chorus of 4 lines

of the same arrangement; Ballad, Gold Miners; Life

in the Gold Field.

394

NO. 47. "Dreary, Dreary Life, The"; p. 233; 9 4-line sts.;

iartODic-anapestic tetrameter (irregular); abcb

(irregular) ; Chorus of 4 lines in same form;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the

Range.

NO. 48. "Drinking Song"; p. 305; 3 4-line sts.; iambs

(frequent use of trochees); abcb 4/3; Lyric; Cow­

boy; Joys of Drinking.

No. 49. "Drunkard's Hell, The"; p. 395; 10 4-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter; couplets; Ballad; Cowboy; Evils

of Drink.

No. 50. "Dying Cowboy, The"; p. 3; 13 4-line sts.; iambic

tetrameter; couplets; 6 4-line Choruses in aaa4;

Ballad; Covfeoy; Death of a Cowboy.

No. 51. "Dying Ranger, The"; p. 214; 10 8-line sts.;

iambs; abcb 4/3; Ballad; Ranger; Death of a

Ranger. —

No. 52. "Fair Fannie Moore, (The)"; p. 219; 9 8-line sts.;

iambic dimeter (irregularly trimeter); abcbdefe;

Ballad; Imported (British); Tragic Love.

No. 53. "Fools of Forty-Nine, The "; p. 404; 7 4-line

sts.; iambic heptameter; couplets; chorus of

three lines rhyming aab; Narrative; Gold Miners;

Life during the Gold Rush.

No. 54. "Foreman Monroe"; p. 174; 10 4-line sts.; iambic

heptameter (sometimes hexameter); "Come-All-Ye"

395

opening; Ballad; Popular; Accidental Death of

a Lumberman.

NO. 55. "Fragment, A"; p. 306; 2 7-line sts.; iambs;

aaa4blcld2e5; Lyric; Indian; Fear of Indians.

No. 56. "Fragment, A"; p. 309. 4 4-line sts.; iambic 0

trimeter; abcb (except for stanze 1 with abab) ;

Lyric; Covfeoy; Relation of the Sexes.

No. 57. "Freckles, A Fragment"; p. 360; 6 4-line sts.;

anapestic heptameter; couplets; Portrait Ballad;

Cowboy; Cowboy and His Horse.

No. 58. "Freighting from Wilcox to Globe"; p. 207; 10 sts.;

9 with 8 lines and number 6 with 6; iambic trimeter

(some 4/3); abcbdefe; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Chorus is an octave; Narrative; Transportation;

Experiences of an Ox Driver.

No. 59. "Fuller and Warren"; p. 126; 6 8-line sts.; ana­

pests; abcbdefe 4/3; internal rhyme; Ballad; Popu­

lar (Eastern United States); Tragic Love.

No. 60. "Gal I Left Behind Me, The"; p. 342; 5 6-line

sts.; ianibs (odd-numbered lines have a final ex­

tra unstressed syllable); abcbDB 4/3; Chorus;

Ballad; Cowboy; Happy Love.

NO. 61. "Gol-Darned Wheel, The "; p. 190; 7 sts., 5 with

8 lines, numbers 2 and 3 with 6; iambic heptameter

(irregular); couplets; Ballad; Cowboy; Frontier

Humor and Amusement.

396

NO. 62. "Great Round-Up, The "; p. 282; 6 8-line sts.;

anapestic trimeter (often an extra unstressed

syllable at the end of the odd-numbered lines) ;

abcbdefe; Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Religion.

No. 63. "Greer County"; p. 278; 8 4-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter (first foot is usually iambic); coup­

lets; Chorus is 8-line st. in abcbdefe2;

Descriptive Lyric; Immigrant; Life in Oklahoma.

No. 64. "Habit, The"; p. 327; 5 4-line sts.; iambic hexa­

meter; couplets; Lyric; Popular (General Life);

The Roving Spirit in Man.

No. 65. "Happy Miner, The"; p. 409; 6 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3; chorus of 4 lines in abcb; Narrative,

Gold Miners; Life in the Gold Fields.

No. 66. "Hard Times"; p. 103; 10 5-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter (the first foot is usually iambic);

aabb4C3. Refrain; Descriptive Lyric; Popular

(Domestic Life); Cheating in All Areas of Life.

No. 67. "Harry Bale"; p. 172; 4 sts., 2 with 8 lines,

the third with 6, and the last with 4; iambic

heptameter; couplets; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Ballad; Popular; Death of a Sawyer.

No. 68. "Hell in Texas"; p. 222; 6 8-line sts.; iambic

(frequent anapestic) tetrameter; couplets;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowooy; Description of the Land

NO. 69. "Hell-Bound Train, The"; p. 345; 13 4-line sts.

397

iambic tetrameter (frequent use of anapestic);

couplets; Ballad; Cowboy; Evils of Drink.

NO. 70. "Here's to the Ranger!"; p. 354; 6 8-line sts.;

iambic trimeter (the odd-numbered lines have an

extra final unstressed syllable); abcbdefe;

Descriptive Lyric; Ranger; Glorification of the

Texas Rangers.

No. 71. "Her White Bosom Bare"; p. 271; 14 8-line sts.;

anapestic dimeter (often an extra unaccented

syllable is included at the end of the line but

with no pattern); abcbdefe; Ballad; Popular

(Indians of the Eastern United States; White

Captive Freed by Indians.

No. 72. "Home on the Range, A"; p. 39; 7 4-line sts.;

anapests; abcb 4/3 (internal rhyme in the tetra­

meter lines); Chorus is a 4-line st. in ab3c4b3;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Description of the Land

No. 73. "Horse Wrangler, The"; p. 136; 7 8-line sts.;

iambs; aaa4b3ccc4b3; Ballad; Cowboy; Cowboy Life

on the Range.

No. 74. "I'm a Good Old Rebel"; p. 94; 4 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter; couplets; Chorus evidently re­

peats stanza 1; Lyric; Soldier; Disgruntled Rebel

Soldier.

No. 75. "Jack Donahoo"; p. 64; 6 sts.; 5 with 8 and the

final one with only 4; iambs; abcb 4/3; "Come-

398

All-Ye" opening; Ballad; Imported (Australian);

Exploits of an Outlaw.

NO. 76. "Jack o' Diamonds"; p. 292; 7 4-line sts.; ana­

pestic tetrameter; couplets; various Choruses

from 8 to 10 lines in anapests, abcbdefe2;

Narrative; Soldier; Tragic Love, Civil War.

NO. 77. "Jerry, Go lie That Car"; p. 112; 7 sts., with

numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5 with 5 lines, 3 and 6 with

4, and 7 with 3; iambs; aab7c4B3; "Come-All-Ye"

opening; Chorus rhyming aba; Ballad; Transportation;

Life on the Railroad Section Gang.

No. 78. "Jesse James"; p. 27; 10 4-line sts.; iambs (fre­

quent anapests); abcb 4/3 (weak rhyme); Chorus

is a 4-line st. of same form; Ballad; Outlaw;

Exploits of an Outlaw.

No. 79. "Jim Farrow"; p. 237; 2 sts., the first with 16

lines and the last with 8; iambic tetrameter to

heptameter (irregular); couplets; Narrative;

Outlaw; Cattle Thieves.

No. 80. "Joe Bowers'" p. 15; 10 8-line sts.; iambic trimeter

(some use of an extra final unstressed syllable

at end of odd-numbered lines, some tetrameter);

abcbdefe; Ballad; Gold Miners; Tragic Love.

No. 81. "John Garner's Trail Herd"; p. 114; 10 4-line sts;

iambic hexameter (irregular); couplets; "Come-All-

Ye" opening; Ballad; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

399

NO. 82. "Jolly Cowboy, The"; p. 284; 6 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter; couplets; 2 Choruses in same form;

Narrative; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range,

Happy Love.

No. 83. "Juan Murray"; p. 276; 7 sts., 6 with 4 lines and 0

an introductory st. with 6; iambs with frequent

anapests in pentameter to heptameter; couplets;

Narrative; Outlaw; Cattle Thieves.

No. 84. "Kansas Line, The"; p. 22. 4 sts., first with

4, second and third with 6, and the last with 5;

iambs and anapests (irregular) ranging from

trimeter to hexameter; irregular rhyme; "Come-

All-Ye" opening; Refrain of 1 line irregularly

placed; 2 Choruses in 4-line sts.; Descriptive

Lyric; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range.

No. 85. "Lackey Bill"; p. 83; 15 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter; couplets; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Ballad; Outlaw; Tragic Love.

No. 86. "Last Longhorn, The"; p. 197; 8 8-line sts.;

iambic trimeter (some extra final unaccented

syllables in odd-numbered lines and some tetra­

meter in these lines); abcbdefe; Ballad; Cowboy;

Passing of the Frontier.

No. 87. "Life in a Half-Breed Shack"; p. 386; 6 6-line

sts.; iambs; abcbde3; 3-line Refrain rhyming aba;

Descriptive Lyric; Immigrant; Life on the Frontier

400

No. 88. "Little Joe, the Wrangler"; p. 167; 6 sts., 4

with 8 lines, the first with 7, and the last with

4; iambs; abcbdefe 7/5; Ballad; Cowboy; Death of

a Cowboy.

No. 89. "Little Old Sod Shanty, The"; p. 187; 8 4-line

sts.; iambs; abcb (also abba and abac) with

fairly consistent 7/5/6/5; Chorus in same form;

Narrative; Immigrant; Life on the Frontier.

No. 90. "Lone Buffalo Hunter, The"; p. 119; 7 4-line sts.

iambic hexameter (irregular); couplets; Narrative;

Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range, Passing of

the Frontier.

No. 91. "Lone Star Trail, The"; p. 310; 6 8-line sts.;

iambic heptameter (irregular); couplets; nonsense

Refrain of 1 line; Narrative; Cowboy; Happy Life.

No. 92. "Love in Disguise"; p. 77; 5 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 4/3; Ballad; Popular; Happy Love.

No. 93. "Macaffie's Confession"; p. 164; 15 4-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter; couplets; variation of "Come-

All-Ye" opening; Ballad; Popular (Eastern United

States); Tragic Love.

No. 94. "Man Named Hods, A"; p. 307; 12 sts., numbers 1

and 11 with 3 lines, all others with 2; iambic

heptameter; couplets (apparently ballad stanza

in 2 lines); "Come-All-Ye" opening; Portrait

Ballad; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range.

401

NO. 95 . "Melancholy Cowboy, The"; p . 263; 6 s t s . , 5 wi th

4 l i n e s , number 4 wi th 5; iambic hep tameter ;

c o u p l e t s ; "Come-All-Ye" opening; N a r r a t i v e ;

Covsboy; Cowboy L i f e on t he Range.

No. 96 . " ' M e t i s ' Song of t he Buffa lo Hunters , The"; p . 72; 0

5 5-line sts.; iambic trimeter to hexameter (ir­

regular); aBccB (irregular); Refrain; Narrative;

Buffalo Hunters, Experience of the Buffalo Range.

No. 97. "Miner's Song, The"; p. 25; 3 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 6/5; 2 versions of Chorus are given with

last lines varying; Portrait Ballad; Gold Miners,

Life in the Gold Field.

No. 98. "Mississippi Girls"; p. 108; 7 sts., mainly with

4 lines, but 3 show the last line repeated and

the final st. has a total of 7 lines because of

repeated lines; iambic, (irregularly tetrameter

to hexameter; couplets; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Descriptive Lyric; Cov^oy; Tragic Love.

No. 99. "Mormon Song, (A)"; p. 182; 9 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter; couplets; Narrative; Mormon; Mormon

History and Life.

No. 100. "Mormon Bishop's Lament, The"; p. 47; 11 sts.,

10 with 4 lines and number 9 with 6; iambic

hexameter; couplets; Narrative; Mormon; Mormon

History and Life.

402

NO. 101. "Mustang Gray"; p. 79; 8 4-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3 (irregular); Chorus in same pattern;

Portrait Ballad; Ranger; Experiences of a Texas

Ranger.

No. 102. "Muster Out the Ranger"; p. 356; 5 sts., the

first 4 with 8 lines and the last with 4 lines;

iambs; abcb 4/3; Descriptive Lyric; Ranger;

Ranger Attitudes.

No. 103. "New National Anthem"; p. 413; 4 7-line sts.;

iambs; aa3b2ccc3b2 (irregular in line 7); Lyric;

Popular; Parody (of National Anthem of the United

States of America).

No. 104. "Night-Herding Song"; p. 324; 4 5-line sts.,

anapestic tetrameter (irregular); aabbB; additional

nonsense Refrain; Lyric; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 105. "Old Chisholm Trail, The"; p. 58; 30 2-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter; couplets; Chorus of 2

lines; variation of "Come-All-Ye" opening; Nar­

rative; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 106. "Old Gray Mule, The"; p. 403; 5 4-line sts.;

iambs; abcb 4/3; Narrative; Transportation;

Feelings for a Faithful Old Mule.

No. 107. "Old Man Under the Hill, The"; p. 110; 9 4-line

sts. anapestic tetrameter; couplets (rhyme is

usually repetition of the same wording, almost

to the point of forming a Refrain); Narrative;

403

Popular (variant of Child, no. 278) ; Man and

the Devil.

NO. 108. "Old Paint"; p. 329; 9 2-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter; couplets; Refrain of two lines given

first; Narrative; Cowboy; Domestic Life of the

Cowboy.

No. 109. "Old Scout's Lament, The"; p. 117; also in exact

duplicate form, p. 348; 10 4-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3; "Come-All-Ye" opening; Narrative;

Soldier; End of the Army Scouts.

No. 110. "Old Time Cowboy"; p. 365; 6 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter (irregular); couplets; "Come-All-Ye"

opening; Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Covboy Life

on the Range.

No. 111. "Only a Cowboy"; p. 124; 5 4-line sts.; anapestic

tetrameter; couplets; chorus in same form; Nar­

rative; Cowboy; Death of a Cowboy.

No. 112. "Pecos Queen, The"; p. 369; 4 4-line sts.; iambic

heptameter (irregular); Narrative; Cowboy;

Description of a Cowgirl's Life.

No. 113. "Pinto"; p. 340; 5 5-line sts.; iambs; aabb4C5

in stanza 1 and aabc4C5 in others; Refrain; Nar­

rative; cowboy. Life of a Vaquero.

No. 114. "Poor Lonesome Cowboy"; p. 32; 5 4-line sts.;

trochaic trimeter; aaab; Refrain of same form.

Lyric; Cowboy; Life of a Young Orphan.

404

NO. 115. "Prisoner for Life, A"; p. 200; 6 8-line sts.;

anapests (frequently the initial foot is either

a trochee or iamb); abcbdefe2 (sometimes 3); Lyric;

Convict; Farewell to a Free Life in Nature.

NO. 116. "Railroad Corral, The"; p. 318; 4 8-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter; couplets; the last four

lines of each stanza seem intended as a Chorus;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 117. "Rambling Boy"; p. 397. 8 4-line sts.; iambic

tetrameter; couplets; Ballad; Cowboy, Tragic Love.

No. 118. "Rambling Cowboy, The"; p. 244; 6 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter; couplets; "Come-All-Ye" open­

ing in last stanza; Narrative; Cowboy; Tragic

Love.

No. 119. "Range Riders, The"; p. 269; 7 4-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter (irregular); couplets;

"Come-All-Ye" opening; Narrative; Cowboy; Tragic

Love.

No. 120. "Rattlesnake—A Ranch Haying Song"; p. 315; 10

4-line sts.; iambic trimeter; abcb (irregular);

a 1-line Refrain. Narrative; Popular; Death by

Snakebite.

NO. 121. "Ripping Trip, A"; p. 407; 3 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcb 4/3; Gold Miners; Life during the Gold Rush.

NO. 122. "Road to Cook's Peak"; p. 388; 6 7-line sts.-

anapests; aabb4BB2B4; Refrain; Narrative; Trans­

portation; Freight Hauling.

405

No. 123. "Root Hog or Die"; p . 254; 10 4 - l i ne s t s . ; i r ­

r e g u l a r iambs and anapests i r r e g u l a r l y ranging

from t e t r ame te r t o heptameter; couple ts ; Narra­

t i v e ; Convict; Convict.

No. 124. "Rosin the Bow"; p . 280; 9 4 - l i ne s t s . ; anapes t ic 0

trimeter (an extra unstressed syllable occurs at

the end of the odd-numbered lines); abcb; Narra­

tive; Popular (General Life); Death.

No. 125. "Rounded Up in Glory"; p. 393; 3 6-line sts.;

iambic trimeter; aabccd; Chorus rhyming aabbc;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; Religion.

No. 126. "Sam Bass"; p. 149; 11 4-line sts.; iambic hexa­

meter; couplets; Portrait Ballad; Outlaw; Ex­

ploits of an Outlaw.

No. 127. "Shanty Boy, The"; p. 252; 3 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 4/3 (odd-numbered lines end with extra

unstressed syllable); a one line Refrain; Ballad;

Popular; Lumberman, Tragic Love.

No. 128. "Silver Jack"; p. 332; 7 sts., 5 with 8 lines,

number 3 with 11 and number 4 with 12 (these

2 should probably be three 8-line sts. but are

still 1 line short); iambs; abcbdefe3 (odd-

numbered lines often end with extra unstressed

syllable); Ballad; Cowboy (Adapted Lumberjack);

Humorous Account of Religious Conversion.

406

NO. 129. "Sioux Indians"; p. 56; 9 4-line sts.' anapestic

tetrameter (first foot is usually iambic); coup­

lets; Narrative; Indians; Wagon Train Trouble

with Indians.

NO. 130. "Skew-Ball Black, The"; p. 243; 7 3-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter (irregular); aaB; Refrain;

Narrative; Cowboy; Cowboy and His Horse, Fron­

tier Humor and Amusement.

No. 131. "Song of the 'Metis" Trapper, The"; p. 320;

5 6-line sts., anapests; ab3cc2de4; Refrain;

Descriptive Lyric; Popular (North Woods); Life

of a Trapper.

No. 132. "State of Arkansaw, The"; p. 226; 10 4-line sts.;

iambic hexameter; couplets; Portrait Ballad;

Popular; Roaming Spirit in Man.

No. 133. "Sweet Betsy from Pike"; p. 258; 10 4-line sts.;

anapestic tetrameter (first foot often iambic);

Couplets; Choruses of varying content rhyme

abcb; Ballad; Immigrant; Life on the Frontier,

Tragic Love.

No. 134. "Tail Piece"; p. 326. 1 8-line st. ; iambic;

abcbdefe 4/3; Lyric; Transportation; Life on the

Frontier.

No. 135. "Texas Cowboy, The"; p. 229; 19 4-line sts.;

iambs; abcb 4/3; Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy;

Cowboy Life on the Range.

407

NO. 136. "Texas Rangers"; p. 44; 10 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter; couplets; "Come-All-Ye" opening;

Ballad; Ranger; Experiences of the Ranger.

NO. 137. "Top Hand"; p. 373; 7 6-line sts.; iambic te­

trameter to heptameter (irregular); couplets;

Descriptive Lyric; Cowboy; The Braggart Covboy.

NO. 138. "Trail to Mexico, The"; p. 132; 14 4-line sts.;

iambic tetrameter; couplets; 1-line nonsense

Refrain; Narrative; Cowboy; Tragic Love.

No. 139. "U. S. A. Recruit, The"; p. 249; 4 sts., 3 with

8 lines, the first with 7; anapests; abcbdefe

4/3; internal rhyme; Chorus of 8 lines in same

form; Narrative; Soldier (early 1900's); Humorous

Treatment of Military Recruit.

No. 140. "U-S-U Range"; p. 92; 8 sts., all with 4 lines

except number 2 with 6; anapestic tetrameter;

couplets; "Come-All-Ye" opening; Descriptive

Lyric; Cowboy; Cowboy Life on the Range.

No. 141. "Utah Carroll"; p. 66; 10 4-line sts.; iambic

hexameter (irregular); couplets; Ballad; Cowboy;

Death of a Cowboy.

No. 142. "Wars of Germany, The "; p. 204; 13 6-line sts.;

iambs; abcbDD 4/3 (some odd-numbered lines have

only an extra final unaccented syllable instead

of the expected fourth foot); Refrain; Balldu;

Imported (British); War with France.

408

NO. 143. "Way Down in Mexico"; p. 314; 5 5-line sts.;

iambs; a4B2cc4B3; Refrain is composed of lines

2 and 5; Descriptive Lyric; Soldier; War with

Mexico.

NO. 144. "Westward Ho"; p. 37; 7 4-line sts.; iambic

trimeter (sometimes an extra final unstressed

syllable occurs at the end of the odd-numbered

lines); abcb (except for the first stanza with

abab); Lyric; Gold Miners; Feeling for Geographi­

cal Areas.

No. 145. "When the Work Is Done This Fall"; p. 53; 10

4-line sts.; iambic hexameter (irregular); Nar­

rative; Cowboy; Death of a Cowboy.

No. 146. "Whoopee-Ti-Yi-Yo, Git Along Little Dogies";

p. 87; 7 4-line sts.; anapestic tetrameter (ir­

regular) ; abcb; Chorus of four lines in abab;

Narrative; Cowboy; Trail Drive.

No. 147. "Whose Old Cow?"; p. 362; 13 4-line sts.; ana­

pestic tetrameter (irregular); abba,abcb (irregu­

lar) ; Narrative; Cowboy; Cov^oy Life on the Range.

No. 148. "Wild Rovers"; p. 383; 7 8-line sts., irregular

alternation of iambs and anapests in irregular

dimeter and trimeter abcbdefe; "Come-All-Ye"

opening; Narrative; Cowboy; Relation of Sexes.

No. l^q. "windy Bill"; p. 381; 6 8-line sts.; iambs;

abcbdefe 4/3; Ballad; Cowboy; The Braggart Cowboy.

409

NO. 150. "Young Charlottie"; p. 239; 11 4-line sts.;

iambic heptameter; couplets; Ballad; Popular

(Eastern United States); Tragic Love.

No. 151. "Young Companions"; p. 81; 12 4-line sts.; iambic

trimeter (extra unstressed syllable is often at

the end of the odd-numbered lines); "Come-All-

Ye" opening; Portrait Ballad; Convict; Convict.

No. 152. "Zebra Dun, The"; p. 154; 13 sts., 12 with 4

lines and a final 1 with 2; iambic hexameter

(irregular); couplets; Ballad; Cowboy; Cowboy

and His Horse, Frontier Humor and Amusement.

APPENDIX B

STATISTICAL TABLES

The following tables offer a general overall sta­

tistical view of information provided for individual song

texts listed in Appendix A, under the following headings:

prosody, song types, subject classification, and sphere

of activity emphasized.

TABLE I

PROSODY

Total Number of Illustrative Song Texts Song Texts

A. STANZA TYPES

2-line Nos. 41, 94, 105, 108 4 3-line Nos. 45, 130 2 4-line Nos. 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 80

18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 63, 64, 69, 72, 74, 76, 78, 81, 82, 83, 85, 89, 90, 93, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 126, 129, 132, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 150, 151, 152

5-line Nos. 2, 10, 66, 77, 96, 104, 113, 8 143

6-line NOS. 3, 5, 22, 33, 60, 84, 87, 125, 11 131, 136, 142

7-line Nos. 55, 103, 122 3 8-line NOS. 7, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 28 42

34, 35, 40, 44, 51, 52, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 75, 79, 80, 86, 88, 91, 92, 97, 102, 115, 116, 121, 127, 128, 134, 139, 148, 149

410

411

Table I (continued)

Total Number of Illustrative Song Texts Song Texts

10-line NO. 42 1 12-line No. 30 1

B. REFRAIN

1-line NOS. 10, 45, 66, 84, 91, 104, 113, 12 120, 127, 130, 131, 138

2-line Nos. 18, 42, 60, 96, 105, 107, 108, 9 142, 143

3-line Nos. 8, 18, 53, 87 4 4-line Nos. 11, 20, 24, 26, 31, 32, 44, 46, 28 or 47, 50, 58, 63, 65, 72, 74, 76, more 78, 82, 89, 97, 101, 111, 114,

116, 125, 133, 139, 146

C. "COME-ALL-YE" OPENINGS

NOS. 2, 15, 16, 38, (43), 54, 58, 67,26 75, 77, 81, (84), 85, 93, 94, 95, 98, (105), 109, 110, (118), 119, 136, 140, 148, 151

412

TABLE II

SONG TYPES

Total Number cf Illustrative Song Texts Song Texts

A. Ballad

NOS. 5, 16, 18, 19, 28, 32, 38, 46, 49, 50 40 51, 52, 54, 59, 60, 61, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 117, 127, 128, 133, 136, 141, 142, 149, 150, 152

B. Descriptive Lyric

NOS. 2, 8, 15, 20, 21, 22, 24, 29, 33, 35, 33 36, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 62, 63, 66, 68, 70, 72, 84, 87, 98, 102, 110, 116, 125, 131, 135, 137, 140

C. Lyric

NOS. 34, 37, 48, 55, 56, 64, 74, 103, 104, 114, 115, 134, 143, 144

D. Narrative

NOS. 1, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 27 30 31 40, 41. 53, 58, 65, 76, 79, 82, 83, 89, 90, 91 95, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 129, 130, 138, 139, 145, 146, 147, 148

E, Portrait Ballad

NOS. 3, 4, 6, 9, 17, 23, 25, 26, 39, 57, 94, 97, 101, 126, 132, 151

14

49

16

413

TABLE III

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION

Total Number Classification Illustrative Song Texts of Song Texts

Frontier Gold Miners

Immigrants Imported Indians Momnons Mountain Men Outlaw

Nos Nos

Nos Nos Nos Nos No. Nos

2

Buffalo Hunters Nos. 15, 16, 96 3 Convicts Nos. 9, 26,-115, 123, 151 5 Cowboy Nos. 12, 13, 22, 23, 24, 69

27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 68, 69, 72, 73, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 98, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 125, 128, 130, 135, 137, 138, 140, 141, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152

21, 40, 46, 53, 65, 80 9 97, 121, 144 6, 42, 63, 87, 89, 133 6 7, 52, 75, 142 4 5, 19, 55, 129 4 10, 11, 99, 100 4 (19) I 4, 25, 78, 79, 83, 85, 7 126

popular NOS. 2, 18, 41, 54 59 64 66, 67, 71, 92, 93, 103, 107, 120, 124, 127, 131, 132, 150

Ranaer Nos. 43, 51, 70, 101, 102, 136 6 soldier NOS. 14, 74, 76, 109, 139, 143 6 Transportation Nos. 3, 17 20, 58, 77, 106, ^

1 ^ ^ , X"J"

19

414

TABLE IV

SPHERE OF ACTIVITY EMPHASIZED

1

Type of Total Number Activity Illustrative Song Texts of Song Texts

Accidental Death of a Lumberman No. 54 1

Boast of a Bully No. 8 1 Braggart Cowboy Nos. 137, 149 2 Brigham Young Nos. 10, 11 2 Cattle Thieves Nos. 79, 83 2 Cheating in All Areas of Life No. 66 1

Christmas Dance No. 30 1 Civil War Nos. (45), 76 2 Convict Nos. 123, 151 2 Courting No. 2 1 Cowboy and His

Horse Nos. 24, 57, 130, 152 4 Cowboy Life on

the Range Nos. 27, 29, 33, 35, 47, 16 73, 82, 84, 90, 94, 95, 104, 110, 135, 140, 147

Death (general) No. 124 Death by Snake- ^ bite NO. 120 ^

Death of a ^« ro TTT -? cowboy NOS. 23, 32, 50, 88, 111, 7

141, 145 Death of a -^

Ranger No. 51 Death of a -^

Sawyer No. 67 ^ Death of Indians No. 18 Death of an Out- -j.

law's Mount No. 7 ^ Deer Hunt No. 41 Defeat of a 3

Bully NO. 1 Description of

a Cowgirl's 1 Life NO. 112

Description of 2 the Land Nos. 68, /z

Disgruntled Rebel 1 soldier No. 74

415

Tab le IV (cont inued)

Type of Tota l Number A c t i v i t y I l l u s t r a t i v e Song Texts of Song Texts

Domestic L i f e of t h e Cowboy Nos. 39, 108 1

D r i l l i n g Water Wells in the West No. 6 1

End of Army Scouts

Evils of Drink Experience of Ox Driver

Experiences of Texas Rangers

Experiences on the Buffalo Range

Experiences with Indians

Exploits of an Outlaw

Farming Failure Farewell to a

Free Life in Nature

Fear of Indians Feelings for

Geographical Areas

Feelings for a Faithful Old 1 Mule NO. 106 ^

Freight Hauling No. i - Frontier Humor ,,^2) 3

and Amusement Nos. 61, (130), U^^i Glorification of 1

Texas Rangers No 70 ^^_ Happy Love Nos. ; ''• 6

No. Nos.

Nos.

Nos.

Nos.

Nos.

Nos. No.

No. No.

109 49, 69

17, 58

101, 136

15, 16, 96

(5), 19

4, 25, 75, 42

115 55

78, 126

1 2

2

2

3

2

5 1

1 1

No. 144

NO. 128

Humorous Account of Religious Conversion

Humorous Treat­ment of Mill- 1 tary Recruit No. i^^ 2

Joys of Drinking Nos. 48, (/bj Life during the -21 3

Gold Rush NOS. 21, 53, i^l

416

Table iv (continued)

Type of Activity Tnn, 4- - Total Number

Illustrative Song Texts of Song Texts Life in the Gold Fields

Life in Oklahoma Life of a Burglar Life of a Trapper Life of a Vaquero Life of an Orphan Life of a Rail­road Section Gang

Life on the Frontier

Man and the Devil A Misspent Life Mormon Life and History

Parody Passing of the Frontier

Ranger Attitudes Relations of the Sexes

Religion

Roving Spirit in Man

Stagecoaching Tragic Love

Trail Drive

Wagon Train Trouble with Indians

War with France War with Mexico White Captive

Freed by Indians

Nos. No. No. No. No. No.

40, 63 9 131 113 114

46,

0

65, 97

No 77

80, 85, 93, 98, 117, 118, 119, (133), 138, 150

Nos. 38, 44, 45, 81, 105, 116, 146

No. 129 No. 142 Nos. 14, 143

4 1 1 1 1 1

Nos. No. No.

Nos. No.

Nos. Nos.

Nos. Nos.

Nos. Nos. Nos.

87, 107 26

99, 103

12, 43,

36, 28, 125

89,

100

22, 102

56, 31,

133, 134

86, (90)

148 34, 37, 62,

64, 132 3, 20 5, 13, 52, 59, (76),

4 1 1

2 1

4 2

3

6

2 2

15

7

1 1 2

No. 71