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513
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1860
To JOHN H. CoNNER 1 Executive Department, Austin, March 10, 1860. To C;;tptain John H. Conner, Commanding Texas Rangers Sir: The following charges are preferred against your com- mand. The Executi~e Department has been informed by Mr. Sampson~ of Burnet that one Mr. Cameron had to pay $30 for the redemption of his horses; also that one Mr. G. H. Gassaway 1 saw another man pay for his horses, and that you or your men under your command have charged from five to eight dollars per head to the rightful owners of horses reclaimed from the Indians upon their application with evidence to establish their claim. In contradistinction to my orders, you have permitted liquor to be carried into your camp, the same being ordered by Dr. Todd 2 for private use and carried into the camp by Lieutenant Gillette. 2 If you have charged, or permitted your men to charge the citizens whom you were sent to protect, for horses reclaimed from the Indians you have positively disobeyed my orders. The liquor has evidently gone forward and is doubtless now in camp. Immediately upon receipt of these orders you will destroy every bottle of the same, but one for medical purposes. You will report by return Express whether or not such things have been done; whether or not it has been the custom to charge for reclamation of horses and you will see that every dollar thus obtained is immediately refunded or the men dismissed without honorable discharge. Sam Houston. 1 Execittive Reco1·ds, 1859-1861, pp. 93-94, Texas State Library. 2 Names without initials cannot be certainly identified. 8 According to Lewis Publishing Company (publishers), Memorial a,nd Biog1·aphical Hist0?"1J of McLennan, Falls, Bell, and Coryell Counties ( 1893), p. 754, G. H. Gassaway, a son of Scotch parents, was born, November 2, 1834, in Virginia. He came to Texas in 1866 and was occupied in trading mules, horses, and n~groes. In partnership with H. G. Carter, he bought 7,000 acres of land and engaged in the cattle business. Later, he was also interested in the Marlin Lumber Company, of Marlin, Texas. During the Civil War he bought cattle for the Confederate army, and had almost absolute authority to detach as many men from the army as he needed in this service. On January 26, l 864, he married Henrietta E. Shankin, of Bell County.
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