George Wythe Baylor

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George Wythe Baylor (born August 24, 1832 in Fort Gibson , Oklahoma , † March 24, 1916 in San Antonio , Texas ) was an American Texas ranger and politician . He also served as an officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War . He has been described as a man with a lack of discipline and mediocre knowledge of human nature, but had a flair for newspaper writing and a good education. The military governor of the Arizona Territory John Baylor (1822-1894) was his brother.

Career

George Wythe Baylor, son of Sophia Marie Weidner († 1862) and US Army surgeon John Walker Baylor († 1835), was born in Cherokee County several years before the beginning of the economic crisis of 1837 . His father passed away when he was two years old. His family then lived in numerous places. As an adult, he continued this restless lifestyle, never staying in one place long enough. In 1845 he moved to Texas, where he with his brother John near La Grange ( Fayette County lived). In the following years he attended Rutersville College and then Baylor University in Independence ( Washington County ). He then worked for a short time as a clerk in the Commissary Department of the US Army at Fort Alamo in the Texan city of San Antonio. In 1854 he moved to California , where he believed he would get rich in the gold fields. He lived in San Francisco in 1856 and was a member of the Vigilance Committee. He returned to Texas around 1859. In June 1860 he again lived with his brother, this time in Weatherford ( Parker County ). In the following years, Baylor and his brother and others pursued a group of Native American raiders in Parker County. They killed nine of them.

After the outbreak of the civil war, he enlisted in the Confederate Army . Baylor received an officer license as First Lieutenant in H Company in the Texas Second Cavalry in John Robert Baylor's Arizona Brigade. He served there as a regimental adjutant. In the fall of 1861, he resigned from his post to serve as senior aide-de-camp under General Albert S. Johnston (1803-1862). After Johnston fell at the Battle of Shiloh , Tennessee on April 6, 1862 , Baylor returned to Texas. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was given command of the second battalion in the Army of Henry Hastings Sibley (1811-1891). The battalion was then teamed up with the Arizona Brigade's 2nd Cavalry Regiment , of which he became a colonel . Baylor also commanded a cavalry regiment during the Red River Campaign in 1864 . He was commended for his bravery in the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill . On April 6, 1865, he shot General John A. Wharton (1828-1865) on the street in front of the Fannin Hotel in Houston . The Fannin Hotel was the headquarters of Major General John Bankhead Magruder (1807–1871) at the time. Wharton and Baylor had several quarrels prior to this incident. In this case it was about military matters. Wharton called Baylor a liar, whereupon the latter drew his gun and shot the unarmed Wharton and he died on the spot. Baylor regretted this incident for the rest of his life.

After the end of the war Baylor received an officer license to second lieutenant and command of Company C in the border battalion of the Texas Rangers in El Paso ( El Paso County ). In 1879 he and his family made a 42-day detour to Ysleta near El Paso to set up their headquarters. He spent the rest of the year locating roaming Indians in the area who were on raids, particularly in pursuit of Chiricahua - Apache chief Victorio (1825-1880), but his venture was unsuccessful. In September 1880, Baylor was transferred and promoted to captain in A Company. He was promoted to major in 1882 and was given command of several ranger companies. During this time he was involved in the fence cutting conflict in Nolan County . After the company was disbanded, he left the Rangers in 1885 and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives for El Paso . Baylor then worked for several years as a clerk in district and county courts. He got along well with his Mexican neighbors, a trait not shared by all Rangers. He lived in Mexico from 1898 to 1911, but then returned to San Antonio, where he died in 1916. He was then buried in Confederate Cemetery .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Baylor in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved February 8, 2015.
  2. ↑ Texas State Historical Association - Second Texas Cavalry, Arizona Brigade
  3. ^ Bunting, Robert Franklin: Our Trust is in the God of Battles: The Civil War Letters of Robert Franklin Bunting, Chaplain, Terry's Texas Rangers, CSA , University of Tennessee Press, 2006, ISBN 9781572334588 , p. 334
  4. ^ The Confederate general , Volume 6, National Historical Society, 1992, ISBN 0-918678-68-4 , p. 123
  5. ^ San Antonio, Bexar County, Cemeteries of Texas - Confederate Cemetery

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Baylor, George Wythe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Texas ranger and politician and officer in the Confederate Army
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Fort Gibson , Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1916
Place of death San Antonio , Texas