Leander Harvey McNelly

Leander Harvey McNelly (born March 12, 1844 near Follansbee , Brooke County , Virginia , † September 4, 1877 near Burton , Texas , USA ) was an American police officer and captain of the Texas Rangers .

biography

Leander H. McNelly spent the first few years of his life in the family of his older brother Peter McNelly partly in Missouri before the family returned to Virginia. In the later 1850s, Peter McNelly and Leander H. McNelly settled in Washington County , Texas . As early as 1860 Leander McNelly was showing signs of severe tuberculosis , which eventually led to his death. In the years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Leander H. McNelly worked for ranchers, among others. a. Travis J Burton.

Texas Ranger

In September 1861, McNelly joined the Campbell Company , 2nd Regiment of Sibley Brigade, 5th Texas Cavalry, serving . He was active on assignments in New Mexico , Galveston, and Louisiana . Until the end of the war he was a captain of a unit engaged in the hunt for deserters.

After the war, McNelly returned to farming near Brenham , Texas . He also worked for the General Land Office for some time . When the State Police Agency was founded in 1870 during a period of reconstruction, McNelly accepted a position as one of four captains of the police force. He was wounded in Walker County in February 1871 but continued to serve in the state police until it was disbanded in April 1873. In 1874, McNelly was hired to raise a special unit of Texas Rangers called the Washington County Volunteers and became their commander. He was supported by his First Lieutenant Jesse Lee (Leigh) Hall and his Sergeant Bulldog John B. Armstrong . Although separated from the Border Guard Battalion, the Special Force's mission was the same - to protect the border from injury by criminal gangs both inside and outside the state.

McNelly's Rangers have been very active in suppressing lawlessness , the outlaws, in the Nueces Strip , an area of ​​land along the border between the Nueces River ( Corpus Christi ) and the Rio Grande . They were instrumental in the suppression of the Sutton-Taylor uprising and the containment of the activities of John King Fisher and Juan Cortina in the border area with Mexico .

Although the "Special Force" was very effective, many saw their tactics as too aggressive. For example, McNelly and his men crossed the border to Mexico and were involved in gun fights with bandits (including John King Fisher's gang) while trying to retrieve stolen cattle. In the opinion of politicians in both countries, this was not allowed and, in the opinion of various politicians, constituted a violation of the laws of both countries.

In early 1877, McNelly was unable to work due to the progressive tuberculosis from which he had suffered for years. He was forced to resign and spent the last few weeks of retirement on his farm. His unit took over after a restructuring in January 1877 First Lieutenant Jesse Lee (Leigh) Hall as commanding officer with Second Lieutenant John B. Armstrong .

Leander H. McNelly died on September 4, 1877. He left behind his wife Carey Cheek McNelly and two children. He was buried near Burton, Texas. He was posthumously inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. A Liberty ship was named after him during the Second World War .

Media processing

In the film Texas Rangers , which tells the creation and work of the Washington County volunteers , Leander H. McNelly is portrayed by Dylan McDermott .

literature

• George Durham , Clyde Wantland : Taming the Nueces Strip. The Story of McNelly's Rangers . Foreword by Walter Prescott Webb . University of Texas Press, Austin 1962, 178 pp. ISBN 978-0292780484 , English (no German translation available)

Web links

• Texas Rangers Hall of Fame - Leander Harvey McNelly

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Texas State Historical Association Handbook Online , accessed July 10, 2013
2. ↑ Texas Rangers - Hall of Fame - Leander H. McNelly ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 9, 2013