At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the surpluscattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There had been numerousexperiments in seeking an outlet, and there is authority for thestatement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. Elevenyears later forty thousand head were sent to the mouth of Red Riverin Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and thence inland byrail. Fever resulted, and the experiment was never repeated. To the westof Texas stretched a forbidding desert, while on the other hand, nearlyevery drive to Louisiana resulted in financial disaster to the drover.The republic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it waslikewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediately beforeand just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up in cattle betweeneastern points on Red River and Baxter Springs, in the southeast cornerof Kansas. The route was perfectly feasible, being short and entirelywithin the reservations of the Choctaws and Cherokees, civilizedIndians. This was the only route to the north; for farther to thewestward was the home of the buffalo and the unconquered, nomadictribes. A writer on that day, Mr. Emerson Hough, an acceptableauthority, says: "The civil war stopped almost all plans to market therange cattle, and the close of that war found the vast grazing landsof Texas fairly covered with millions of cattle which had no actualor determinate value. They were sorted and branded and herded after afashion, but neither they nor their increase could be converted intoanything but more cattle. The demand for a market became imperative."
This was the situation at the close of the '50's and meanwhile therehad been no cessation in trying to find an outlet for the constantlyincreasing herds. Civilization was sweeping westward by leaps andbounds, and during the latter part of the '60's and early '70's, amarket for a very small percentage of the surplus was established atAbilene, Ellsworth, and Wichita, being confined almost exclusively tothe state of Kansas. But this outlet, slight as it was, developed thefact that the transplanted Texas steer, after a winter in the north,took on flesh like a native, and by being double-wintered became amarketable beef. It should be understood in this connection that Texas,owing to climatic conditions, did not mature an animal into marketableform, ready for the butcher's block. Yet it was an exceptional countryfor breeding, the percentage of increase in good years reaching thephenomenal figures of ninety-five calves to the hundred cows. At thistime all eyes were turned to the new Northwest, which was then lookedupon as the country that would at last afford the proper market.Railroads were pushing into the domain of the buffalo and Indian; therush of emigration was westward, and the Texan was clamoring for anoutlet for his cattle. It was written in the stars that the Indian andbuffalo would have to stand aside.
Philanthropists may deplore the destruction of the American bison, yetit was inevitable. Possibly it is not commonly known that the generalgovernment had under consideration the sending of its own troops todestroy the buffalo. Yet it is a fact, for the army in the West fullyrealized the futility of subjugating the Indians while they could drawsubsistence from the bison. The well-mounted aborigines hung on theflanks of the great buffalo herds, migrating with them, spurning alltreaty obligations, and when opportunity offered murdering the advanceguard of civilization with the fiendish atrocity of carnivorous animals.But while the government hesitated, the hide-hunters and the railroadssolved the problem, and the Indian's base of supplies was destroyed.
Then began the great exodus of Texas cattle. The red men were easilyconfined on reservations, and the vacated country in the Northwestbecame cattle ranges. The government was in the market for largequantities of beef with which to feed its army and Indian wards. Themaximum year's drive was reached in 1884, when nearly eight hundredthousand cattle, in something over three hundred herds, bound for thenew Northwest, crossed Red River, the northern boundary of Texas. Someslight idea of this exodus can be gained when one considers that in theabove year about four thousand men and over thirty thousand horses wererequired on the trail, while the value of the drive ran into millions.The history of the world can show no pastoral movement in comparison.The Northwest had furnished the market--the outlet for Texas.