DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and friend, I'm gonna do my best to give it the telling it deserves. December 23, 1863. Two days before Christmas.
And out on the unguarded King Ranch, there was no peace on earth to be had. Captain Jas. Speed — riding under General Napoleon J.
T. Dana's Brownsville-based Federal army force — came calling with raiders and intentions. Two of them, specifically.
First: capture or kill Captain Richard King. Second: destroy the Confederate cotton trade. Simple enough objectives, if you're the kind of man who considers those things simple.
Now, King had been forewarned. So when Speed's raiders arrived, King was gone. Evaded.
The man was not there to be captured or killed, and that was that. But the raiders did not ride all that way to turn around politely. What happened next the marker lays out plain, and none of it is light.
The raiders killed Francisco Alvarado. They captured four Confederate captains — John Brown, Alvin Dix, W. S.
Gregory, and Jas. McClearly — along with Chaplain Hiram Chamberlain. They rifled every building on the ranch.
They dispersed the ranch employees. They declared the slaves free. They confiscated all horses and mules.
And then there was the cotton. They impounded the Confederate government cotton and left behind a threat with teeth: if that cotton were moved or burned, King's life would be the forfeit. A man who wasn't even there was now hostage to a bale of goods.
That is a particular kind of leverage. For good measure, they threatened further raids — these ones to come from Boveda, led by Colonel E. J.
Davis, a former South Texas attorney who had turned Federal officer. The message was clear. This was not a one-time visit.
Mrs. King and the children moved to San Antonio for the duration of the war. And soon after, Colonel J.
S. "Rip" Ford's Confederate cavalry came to protect the cotton road and the ranch. The story kept moving, the way war always does. Now — Camp Boveda.
The place Speed's raiders rode out of, the place Davis was threatening to ride out of again. It sat near a ford on Los Olmos Creek, and it had seven cypress-walled water wells. The marker notes those wells were possibly used by General Zachary Taylor back in 1846.
Possibly. That word is doing some honest work there, and I respect it for that. The campsite itself lies two and a half miles east of the marker, on lot two, block fifteen, Koch Subdivision Number One, on what is now the Poteet Ranch.
Two days before Christmas, 1863. A ranch raided, a man forewarned and gone, and a cotton impoundment that held a man's life as collateral. Out here in Kleberg County, the ground remembers all of it — even when the season says it ought to be quiet.
What the marker says
On December 23, 1863, Capt. Jas. Speed of Gen. Napoleon J. T. Dana's Brownsville-based Federal army force raided unguarded King Ranch. Objectives were to capture or kill Capt. Richard King and destroy the Confederate cotton trade. King, forewarned, evaded the enemy. At King Ranch, the raiders killed Francisco Alvarado; captured C.S.A. Captains John Brown, Alvin Dix, W. S. Gregory and Jas. McClearly and Chaplain Hiram Chamberlain; rifled all buildings; dispersed ranch employees; declared the slaves free; confiscated all horses and mules; impounded Confederate government cotton, promising that if it were moved or burned, King's life would be the forfeit; and threatened further raids from Boveda by Col. E. J. Davis, former South Texas attorney turned Federal officer. Mrs. King and children moved to San Antonio for the war's duration; soon Col. J. S. "RIP" Ford's Confederate cavalry came to protect the cotton road and ranch. At Camp (Rancho) Boveda, near a ford on Los Olmos Creek, were seven cypress-walled water wells, possibly used by Gen. Zachary Taylor in 1846. Campsite is 2-1/2 miles east of this point, on lot 2, block 15, Koch subdivision number one, present Poteet Ranch.