DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Leander H. McNelly, down in Washington County. Now, some men seem to walk into history sideways — almost like fate can't help but keep finding them.
Leander H. McNelly was one of those men. He was born in Virginia, and before Texas ever got a hold of him, he proved himself a valiant Confederate soldier.
That's the marker's word — valiant. Not merely a soldier. Valiant.
You get the sense right away this was not a man who did anything halfway. Then comes 1870. Governor E.
J. Davis is running things in Texas, and he appoints McNelly as one of four — just four — State Police captains in the whole state. Four men to help hold together a place the size of several eastern states combined.
No pressure. But that was only the beginning of where they'd send him. When McNelly moved over to the Texas Rangers, they handed him a special force — and they gave it a name with a certain ring to it: the Washington County Volunteer Militia.
His assignment? Mediate the Sutton-Taylor feud. Now, the marker doesn't linger on what that feud looked like up close, and honestly, the word "mediate" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
You ride in between two families bent on settling things permanently, and you ask yourself what kind of man volunteers for that duty. The kind that then gets sent straight to the Rio Grande border. His company was assigned there to control international cattle thieves — and this particular stretch of trouble went by a name that sounds almost like a legend itself: the Las Cuevas War.
Cross-border, high-stakes, the sort of assignment that doesn't come with a clean ending written in advance. Through all of it — the feuds, the border, the dangers that don't get spelled out in polite historical prose — the men who rode with McNelly never forgot who they were. They called themselves, with no small amount of pride, the Little McNellys.
That right there might be the whole story in two words. When your men name themselves after you, not because they were ordered to, but because they wanted to — well. Leander H.
McNelly must have been something to ride with.
What the marker says
Born in Virginia; was valiant Confederate soldier. In 1870, appointed one of four State Police captains by Gov. E. J. Davis. Then with Texas Rangers, McNelly was assigned a special force, "The Washington County Volunteer MiIitia," to mediate the Sutton-Taylor feud. Company then assigned to Rio Grande border to control international cattle thieves in "Las Cuevas War." His men always proudly called themselves, "Little McNellys."