Contents ▼▲
Front Matter Dreams of a Sheep Ranch Sheep Raising Herding Sheep Something About Texas Land Grants The "Texas Fever" Why I wanted to Go Hunting in Texas Father Spys the Land Our Plantation Father Comes Home The Bigness of Texas Where We were Going What I Hoped to Do Cattle Driving How We Set Out A Laborious Journey Comanche Indians Father to the Rescue Arrival at Fort Towson Preparing for a Storm A Dry "Norther" Two Kinds of Northers How Turkeys Kill Snakes Deer and Rattlesnakes A Corral of Wagons On the Trail Again Mesquite A Texas Sheep Ranch Profits from Sheep Father's Land Claim Spanish Measurements The Chaparral Cock Night on the Trinity Standing Guard A Turkey Buzzard Plans for Building a House The Cook Shanty A Storm of Rain A Day of Discomfort Thinking of the Old Home Waiting for the Sun Too Much Water The Stream Rising Trying to Save the Stock The Animals Stampeded Saving Our Own Lives A Raging Torrent A Time of Disaster The Flood Subsiding A Jack Rabbit Reparing Damages Rounding up the Stock FAfter the Flood Waiting for Father Recovering Our Goods Setting to Work Sawing Out Lumber In the Saw Pit Wild Cattle A Disagreeable Intruder Odd Hunting A Supply of Fresh Meat "Jerking" Beef Searching for the Cattle Our New Home Planting and Building Bar-O Ranch An Odd Cart The Visitors Zeba's Curiosity Possible Treachery Suspicious Behavior Gyp's Fight With a Cougar In a Dangerous Position Hunting Wild Hogs Treed by Peccaries Gyp's Obedience My Carelessness Vicious Little Animals Father Comes to the Rescue Increase in my Flock Unrest of the Indians Texas Joins the Union War with Mexico Selling Wool Peace on the Trinity My Dream Fulfilled

Philip of Texas - James Otis




War with Mexico

With the coming of strangers, and the building of new homes near us, we began to hear more of what was being done in the outer world, and when father and Zeba went down to Dallas to sell a few cattle and sheep, they brought back the surprising news that the United States was at war with Mexico.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

We were told that the younger men of Texas were volunteering as soldiers, and that much blood might be shed.

By this time I was fifteen years old, and it seemed to me that it was my duty to leave home, and to abandon my plans of getting rich through sheep raising, in order to do what I could in defense of the state of which I claimed to be a citizen.

Father soon gave me to understand, however, that I was not yet old enough to take up arms. He insisted that duty called me to remain where I was, and that we were doing our duty by the state so long as we remained on the ranch raising live stock, for if war was continued any length of time, cattle and sheep would be required in order to supply the army with food.

[Illustration] from Philip of Texas by James Otis

I therefore gave up all thoughts of enlisting. Perhaps I was the more willing to do this because of the sorrow that I should feel if forced to leave my flock, which now numbered nearly five hundred. But whenever John or Zeba was at liberty to herd my flock, I frequently walked many miles in order to learn what was going on in the war.