Essays
Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado
Charles Goodnight saved an incompetent commander on the Llano Estacado in 1862
January 16, 2008
Everyone probably knows an individual with “narcissistic anger disorder” who believes he or she is an expert in everything and treats everyone with arrogant contempt. Such individuals create difficulties in the work place and pointless drama in social interaction, because they can not understand how their speaking style and self-centered behavior alienate everyone around them. The narcissist is never, ever wrong, and they like to present "proofs" that they are correct. Charlie Goodnight endured a long scout with a commander that displayed the symptoms in June of 1862.
Charlie Goodnight is one of the greatest men to have ever lived on the Llano Estacado. During the last years of his life he recognized as a leading scientific breeder of cattle, and an international authority on the range industry. He guided Texas Rangers by age 24, blazed cattle trails two thousand miles beyond Texas at age forty, and at age forty five dominated twenty million acres of the Texas Panhandle. As a scout he became one of the most observant recorders of wildlife in the region. He was also known as a fair man who valued and treated with respect honest and hardworking men and women of all races and socio-economic strata. His story should be taught in every high school in the Llano Estacado region. J. Evetts Haley published a superb biography of the man in 1936 that has been reprinted over a dozen times.
Goodnight’s nemesis was Lieutenant-Colonel A.T. Obenchain. Born to a prominent Virginia family, Obenchain came to Texas in 1853 to work as a teacher. He was soon elected to the Legislature, and in 1860 bought The White Man, a racist and secessionist newspaper. After participating in the Secession Convention he was commissioned second in command of the Frontier Regiment that replaced the U.S. He was ordered to take command of Company B. Army as a defense against American Indian raids on Texas settlers. Obenchain did not understand the frontier or its men. He was tyrannical, assuming arrogant military airs, and kept himself aloof from the men except when giving orders.
In June of 1862, with Goodnight as the scout, Obenchain led 50 men west. One evening Goodnight found a water hole near sundown. Obenchain asked why, and Goodnight replied that the next water was at the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos twenty miles away. “The river is another five miles past that hill, and that hill is 15 miles away.” Obenchain cursed and retorted that the hill was not more than eight miles, and ordered the men onward. Not long before midnight Goodnight found a small playa with a few buffalo tracks filled with water. Obenchain dismounted and sucked up the water from the hoofprints and ordered camp. After Obenchain went to sleep in his tent (the only man to have one), Goodnight went on to the river and got water for the men.
A few days later in western Fisher County Obenchain discovered his first Indians. When he asked Goodnight about them, the scout replied that the distant objects were pronghorns. Obenchain observed them through a spyglass and disagreed and ordered a charge. “We put the bunch of antelopes to flight without the loss of a man,” Goodnight told Haley. Five miles later Obenchain again ordered a charge on a group of pronghorn.
Obenchain possessed amap produced in 1819 that was full of inaccuracies and continually discounted Goodnight’s knowledge of the region. As the command moved out on to the Llano Estacado, Obenchain claimed his route led to well-watered country. Goodnight knew differently, so he moved out in the lead out of shouting range and slowly turned the men northward to the Casas Amarillas playa where water could be found. Obenchain complained that Goodnight had not held a good course. Goodnight replied he “had never been more careful in his life.”
The command then returned to the breaks of the Blanco Canyon. Goodnight told him they should ride up Blanco Canyon because the Comanches often visited there in June to harves the plentiful grapes and plums along the creek. Obenchain ordered Goodnight to scout Duck Creek, while Obenchain asked for volunteers to go up Blanco Canyon. Only the recent recruits joined Obenchain, while some went with Goodnight, and twenty five stayed in camp.
Obenchain ran into fifteen Indians who pinned them against the bluffs of the canyon. One man with a fast horse managed to escape back to camp, who came and rescued Obenchain. Obechain ordered a chase of the Indians, chasing them 40 miles to the breaks of the Quitaque where they dispersed into the cedar-choked canyons. Obenchain decided to return to the Brazos, but his skills as a plainsman were so inadequate that he led them back onto the Llano in a direction towards the Pecos River along a path where no water was likely to be found.
When Goodnight returned to camp, where one man still remained. After spending the night, Goodnight went to find Obenchain. He trailed the tracks of the whole previous day’s mad chase and errant “return to the Brazos.” As Goodnight rode along he noticed gulls flying (which indicated water could be found in that direction.) He did not need water, so he continued on. Being mid-summer, the heat was tremendous and mirages numerous. One of the mirages showed Obenchain’s group, and Goodnight knew that the mirage was showing that the men were out of sight far beyond the visible prairie. Goodnight dispatched a man with a fast horse to catch up and hold them. Goodnight then led them to the small playa that had attracted the gulls.
Later that summer Obenchain was murdered by two of his own men when the three of them had headed to testify at the court-martial (on charges brought by Obenchain) of the previous commander of Company B.
The Charles Goodnight Historical Center, is a project of the Armstrong County Museum, Inc., Claude, Texas is currently involved in a $3-5 million project to restore the historic home, grounds, and build a visitor’s center. This one-of-a-kind historic treasure of Texas will become a valuable asset to the cultural life of the Llano Estacado. A “ribbon-cutting” dinner is scheduled for March 18, 2008 at 6:30 at the Amarillo Country Club. Andy Anderson, Senior Historian from Wells Fargo will be the speaker. Veryl Goodnight will also make remarks on her husband’s book about raising a buffalo. Roger Brooks, a retired commercial airline plot, and his wife Veryl Goodnight, a sculptor, adopted and named a buffalo they named Charlie, after Veryl's legendary great-great uncle Charles Goodnight, who helped bring back buffaloes from near extinction.