Descripción
Two conjoined sheets, together 13 1/4 x 32 1/2 inches. Minor staining and foxing, slight separations at one crossfold and along seam joining the sheets. Overall very good. A substantial frontier Texas Quartermaster's return recording supply levels for about 100 items for a Regiment of Mounted Rifles in 1853. The report was made in an unknown hand, but it is signed by notable Indian fighter and future Confederate Civil War general William Edmonson "Grumble" Jones, who was at that time the commanding officer of Company G of the Regiment of Mounted Rifles stationed at nearby Fort Ewell. Jones and his unit were assigned to frontier Texas to fight Native Americans and Mexican insurgents following the Mexican-American War. They were stationed at Fort Ringgold, located in Rio Grande City, on the Rio Grande, just across the border from Ciudad Camargo in Tamaulipas, Mexico. The present document records numerous supplies related to life in an American frontier military unit in the middle of the 19th century. The listed products are organized in three main categories: "Horses & Horse Equipment" (thirty-three items), "Carpenters, Saddlers, & Blacksmiths Tools" (fifty-four items), and "Miscellaneous" (sixteen items). The horse-related items include everything from the animals themselves (sixty-six on hand) to saddles, holsters, straps, horse blankets, stirrups, "Syringes (Horse)," and much more. The tradesmens' tools include saws, augers, hammers, axes, stoves, spades, awls, knives, and more. The last section of miscellaneous items includes horseshoes, axe handles, lariats, and other supplies. William Edmondson "Grumble" Jones (1824- 1864) was a Confederate cavalry brigadier general who was killed in action at the Battle of Piedmont. The son of a wealthy Virginia planter, Jones graduated from West Point, was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. Mounted Rifles, and assigned to fight Indians in the recently annexed American possessions in the West, especially Texas. The nickname "Grumble" was well-earned by his surly demeanor, which was exacerbated by the death of his wife in a shipwreck when the two were traveling to the Lone Star state in 1852 to serve at Fort Ewell, not long before he signed the present document. Jones was promoted to first lieutenant for his service in the West in 1854, but retired to his Virginia plantation in 1857. Not one to shirk duty to a cause, Jones quickly raised a company of Mounted Rifles following his home state's secession from the Union in 1861. During the Civil War, Jones' disposition frequently riled his colleagues and superiors, but his units fought well. After being saved from a court- martial by none other than Robert E. Lee, Jones was reassigned to the Shenandoah Valley, where he was killed by a bullet to the head on June 5, 1864 while leading a counter-attack against the superior forces of Union General David Hunter at Piedmont, Virginia. A rare document of the Wild West signed by "Grumble" Jones during his early career fighting Indians and Mexican insurgents on the Texas-Mexico border. N° de ref. del artículo WRCAM56387
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