Excerpts From A Cattle Drive Cowboy's Journal

howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas which
is still predominately cattle country. I've been talking about the Old
West cattle drives which took place in the 1860s through the 1880s
and thought it would be interesting to hear from a few of the actual
Cowboys on the trail.

Few men wrote a journal as they worked the cattle drives and I don't
blame them, the last thing I'd be interested in doing when I finally
got off the horse for the day would be to sit down and write. But
thankfully a few of them did.

One of them was a cowboy named George Duffield and he went on
a cattle drive in 1866 from South Texas to Iowa. here is a few of his
entries:
May 1st, “Big stampede. Lost 200 head of cattle”. May 2nd, “Spent
the day hunting and found but twenty-five head. It has been raining
for three days”. May 8th, “Rain pouring down in torrents. Ran my
horse into a ditch and got my knee badly sprained”. May 9th, “Still
dark and gloomy. River up. Everything looks blue to me”.

Here are more entries:
May 31st, “Swimming cattle is the order. We worked all day in the
river and at dusk got the last beef over. I am now out of Texas This
day will long be remembered by me. There was one of our party
drowned today”.

June 27th, ”My back is blistered badly from exposure while in the
river and I with two others are suffering very much. I was attacked
by a beef in the river and had a very narrow escape from being
hurt by diving”.

By the time they reached Iowa their herd of 1,000 head was now
500 head.

Another journal entry said this: "Lightning storms are common and
kill many cowboys. I once saw a lightning strike that killed two men
and 5 horses. I was struck once on my horse...I was knocked off my
horse and woke up looking up at the belly of my horse we rain water
dripping on my face. It's a miracle the horse just stood there, I think
he was in shock."

Here's one more by cowboy George:
June 19th "15 Indians came to herd and tried to take some beeves.
Would not let them. Had a big muss. One drew his knife and I my
revolver. Made them leave but fear they have gone for others”.

Keep in mind that by this time we had treaties with most of the tribes
but they were not happy! With good reason, being forced off their
land and promised a great deal of food and supplies which never
came mysteriously.

The way that most cattle drives worked is they would see some Indians
approach and since the cattle were going through the Indian's territory
they wanted payment to allow that. So the normal fee was a good
sized steer. I think that's fair. And that became part of the standard
operation of the drive.

all photos from realwesthistory.net
that's all for today folks, the next post I'll talk about the most important
aspect of the daily cowboy life, the food! I even have original recipes.

God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

ps- ya know..you might just be a redneck if:

you consider the 5th Grade your senior year!