Private David W. H. Bailey

David W. H. Bailey

On May 2, 1874, the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers was created to defend residents against Indian raids. On July 10, Major John B. Jones joined with Captain G. W. Stevens of Company B and moved with them to a camp in Young County. The rangers received word that a band of Comanche had attacked the Loving Ranch and killed cowboys on May 20 and July 10. On July 12, a detachment of about 30 rangers followed an Indian trail for 15 miles into the Lost Valley between Belknap and Jacksboro in Jack County. Unknown to the rangers, they had picked up the trail of a band of 50 Kiowa led by Chief Lone Wolf and his medicine man Maman-ti. Lone Wolf had been fighting off and on with U.S. troops since 1856. His son and nephew were killed by troops from the 4th Cavalry on December 10, 1873 in Edwards County.

The Kiowa were joined by some Comanche and group grew to about 150 warriors. The Indians ambushed the rangers, wounding Privates Lee Corn, George Moore and William A. (Billy) Glass. A sniping battle ensued with Glass lying in the open between the two sides. Glass called out, Don’t let them get me. Won’t some of you fellows help? Several rangers ran out and brought Glass back to the gully they were firing from. Glass died from his wound. The wounded rangers were calling for water, but the nearest stream was a mile away. Private Mel Porter decided to ride to the stream and Private David W. H. Bailey volunteered to go with him. The rangers could see Bailey seated on his horse covering Porter while he got water. About 25 Kiowa moved in on them. Bailey called to Porter to flee. The two rangers took off in different directions. Porter barely escaped.

Bailey, however, was cut off, surrounded, and levered off his horse with a lance. Lone Wolf himself chopped his head to pieces with a brass hatchet-pipe, and then disemboweled him. Satisfied with revenging his son and nephew’s deaths, Lone Wolf ordered his band to depart. At 3 a.m. the next day the rangers and army troopers returned and recovered Bailey’s horribly mutilated body.

After evading federal troops and conducting several more raids, Lone Wolf surrendered to the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on February 26, 1875. He died soon after his release from prison in 1879.

There is very little personal information about these two rangers. Both men enlisted in Company B in Wise County on May 16, 1874. Glass had an earlier enlistment for four months in the Wise County Rangers from November 26, 1873 until March 26, 1874. Both men were buried in Cambren Cemetery in Jack County, but the Glass family had him reinterred in the Glass Cemetery in Wise County.