| Captain John R. Hughes, Lone Star Ranger |
10/21/2011 |
Chuck Parsons (University of North Texas Press, 2011), 400 pp., hardcover, $29.95
Captain John R. Hughes served twenty-eight years, from 1887 until 1915, as a Texas Ranger. Enlisting as a private in Ranger Company D, Hughes soon won promotion to sergeant and then to captain. Hughes was courageous and hard working, a relentless man hunter whose career was packed with action. By the time he retired at the age of fifty-nine, he was regarded as one of the greatest captains in Ranger history.
Despite his long career and legendary exploits, Hughes until now has not received proper biographical treatment. In 1942 Jack Martin released Border Boss: Captain John R. Hughes - Texas Ranger through The Naylor Company of San Antonio. Although Martin interviewed Hughes extensively, Border Boss is unsatisfactory, providing few dates and exhibiting other disappointing inadequacies.
Now WWHA member Chuck Parsons, author of several Texas Ranger biographies, has filled this major gap in Ranger history. Parsons utilized his close familiarity with Ranger archives to compile a detailed, reliable account of the life and career of Hughes. The book is published by the University of North Texas Press which, under the direction of Ron Chrisman, is specializing in frontier Texana. A valuable feature of this excellent book is a rich collection of photographs, including a number of images from his long retirement.
John Reynolds Hughes was born in 1855 in Illinois, and during boyhood moved with his family to Kansas. As a teenager Hughes gravitated into Indian Territory, where he suffered an injury - perhaps during gunplay - that permanently damaged his right arm. Forced to switch gun hands, he became so skilled as a southpaw marksman that few people could guess that he was right-handed. Seeking opportunity in Texas, Hughes started a small horse ranch northwest of Austin. In 1883 rustlers stole sixteen of his horses as well as animals from neighboring ranches. After a solitary pursuit Hughes recovered most of the stolen horses and turned over two of the stock thieves to authorities. Soon afterward he helped Texas Ranger Ira Aten track down a murderer.
In 1887 Hughes joined the Rangers. When the sergeant of Company D was killed, Hughes was promoted, and he was elevated to company commander in 1893 after Captain Frank Jones was slain in a border shootout. In the course of making hundreds of arrests there were occasional gunfights, but Hughes was never even wounded (except when he dropped his gun and shot his foot,). He constantly traveled by horseback and train while responding to calls, and he was especially busy after a penurious legislature cut the Rangers to a skeleton force. In the month of December 1896, for example, with Company D reduced to Hughes, a sergeant, and five privates, the little command traveled a total of 3,132 miles. A life-long bachelor, Captain Hughes often suggested Rangers would be wise to remain single considering the danger and constant travel, Hughes lived to the age of ninety-two, and enjoyed his role as a Texas celebrity). The footnote section contains a great deal of secondary information that should not be ignored.
During the Hughes era the Ranger force enjoyed the services of "Four Great Captains": Hughes, J. A. Brooks, Bill McDonald, and J. H. Rogers. In the book's final chapter, "The Great Captains," Parsons thoughtfully evaluates these four men, comparing and contrasting them in a number of categories. This intriguing chapter is a fitting conclusion to an important and informative Ranger biography.
- Bill O'Neal
