Stampede!

The word stampede draws our minds to the scenes from hundreds of western movies and the mad rush of frightened cattle.  Our minds eye can recall the noise of the herd, the desperate ride of the drovers, and the often-deadly effects.  These scenes portrayed one of the few exciting events a cowboy might have been involved in, while on the lonely dusty trails to the north.  Certainly, the word exciting can hardly do justice to the furious dash to stop the flight of several thousand running steers across wild broken country, often in stormy weather, and almost always at night.  All of the brave riders who rode for the lead are long gone. Few folk remain who have seen more than a handful of critters stampede.  Here we will explore these events that have been remembered in numerous stories.

 “When the cattle they stampeded; like a hail storm, long they flew

And all of us were riding for the lead.”

“Little Joe The Wrangler” by N. Howard “Jack” Thorpe

 Open range trail herd stampedes were much more than any old hail storm.  They were more akin to a hurricane with strong winds that carried men, horses, and cattle away.  Imagine the average trail herd of 2500 or so steers, each weighing around one thousand pounds charging along mindlessly.  Ten thousand hooves churning up the earth, sometimes throughout the night.  The horse remuda would also occasionally stampede.  Andy Adams in “The Log of a Cowboy” mentions that the horses sure could give them a long hard run.  He also mentioned that the horse’s excellent memory made them jittery remembering their fright.  Later, they were prone to run each night for a month.  Hobbles saved Adams and his pards from many a night ride.  But hobbles are not a good solution for a herd of several thousand cattle.  Many cattlemen have described the herd springing up from the bed ground in complete unison at some simple sound.  The wild dash would begin with little or no warning.

 Causes were many and often it was impossible to discover what made the brutes go wild.  A sudden unfamiliar sound has been known to start the show.  J. Frank Dobie in his book “The Longhorns” was witness to a stampede of a thousand yearlings.  The cattle had been bedded down near a house, and an iron-gate latch was closed with a click.  The cattle found the little metallic sound unnerving and off they went for the hills. Others have recalled a sneeze or a multitude of other sounds setting the cattle off.  All kinds of critters have been known to scare the cattle into a run.  Two legged varmints have purposely caused stampedes for a variety of reasons.  Wolves, panthers, stray dogs, and even an unfamiliar creature like a little skunk have been blamed.  Samuel Dunn Houston once found the cause of his stampede to be a prairie dog colony that he had bedded the cattle on top of.  Bad weather was probably the biggest culprit.  We know many a person that can be startled by lightening or thunder, imagine how startled a bunch of stupid cows might be when there is a sudden clap of thunder.

 Other factors such as their handling and circumstances could promote this activity.  Shortly before being thrown onto the trail, the herd had to be gathered and prepared to hit the road.  All of these cattle had been choused, roped, and branded.  After these activities the bovine critters found themselves being driven to new and strange lands.  As they marched northward they were forced to swim many a river.  Occasionally, the water was scarce and the grass was poor.  These and so many other aspects of the drive could make even the calmest of animals nervous.

 I’ve seen ‘em stampede o’er the hills till you think they’d never stop,

And I’ve watched them run for miles and miles until their leaders drop;

“I’d Like To Be In Texas For The Roundup In The Spring”, Traditional

Drovers powered by adrenaline and swift horses rode with the maddened tide, their seconds feeling like minutes and the minutes like hours.  As the old song says, the cowboys sometimes thought the stampede would never end.  But, as with all creatures caught up in a fury, eventually they would calm down or just get plain tuckered out.  Of course we must remember that these creatures lost value swiftly as they burned the calories running.  A good trail drive resulted in cattle that gained weight as they grazed to their destination. It was not unusual for herd to stampede and run for hours.  There was even the possibility of losing the herd if they scattered. The cowman could not wait for them to stop he had to take action.  Charlie Goodnight and his cowboys had more than their share of handling spooked cows.  Several accounts of Goodnight riding with his men to turn the lead cattle are contained in J. Evetts Haley’s book, “Goodnight, Cowman and Plainsman”.

 Among Goodnight’s adventures was a stampede that occurred as he tried to drive cattle through a herd of buffalo, which stretched for miles.  The buffalo stampeded and ran through the herd, stampeding it in two directions.  His efforts to turn the buffalo were in vain, so he was described as swinging for the lead of the cattle.  This term, the lead, was very common; it came from the fact that a running group of cattle would be lead by the stronger, faster steers.  In “Little Joe The Wrangler”, we see the line, “We were all riding for the lead.” And in “…Round Up In The Spring” we see the line, ”…until their leaders drop:”.   The riders generally were able to stop the herd if a swift hand could speed to the lead cattle.  Once he had caught up to the front of the mob, the cowboy could usually make the leaders turn by possibly waving a slicker or firing a pistol.  The point was to turn the leaders until they spiraled back into the side or rear of the herd.  If you were lucky and all went well the cattle all turned with the leaders, running in amongst the others, spiraling to a stop. It did take a coordinated effort, and badly positioned drovers could ruin the whole effort. This is excellently described; complete with diagrams in Fay E. Ward’s, “The Working Cowboy’s Manual”.  This action resulted in a milling herd, with no forward momentum.

 Well, the wild ride might have been death defying and exhilarating, but an ounce of prevention made a lot more sense.  Roundups and trail drives faced their greatest problems when the cattle were gathered at night.  Night being the prime stampede time, it was prudent to have riders on guard.  Charlie Goodnight used four men to ride night guard until the herd was trail broke.  Once broke, a herd of around three thousand required a guard of only two nightriders.  Stormy conditions would often require the whole crew to stand guard.  Generally the men would be assigned to ride in opposite directions around the perimeter of the herd.  This is the activity that created the stories of the boys singing while on guard.

 While I’m sure a number of hands sang lowly to themselves, it is unlikely that they were heartily belting out any tunes. Teddy Blue Abbott in “We Pointed Them North”, commented that there were lots of cowboy songs because of their habit of singing to the cattle while on night guard.  He said it soothed them and it helped keep the critters from spooking. Jack Thorpe in, “Pardner Of The Wind” commented that he heard few men sing on guard; typically they might hum or whistle a tune.  Of course Jack was cowboying in the late 1880s and later, after the big trail drive days were over.  It is perfectly reasonable and well documented that men did sing on guard.  This helped to fight off loneliness and let the cattle know where you were, thus lessening the chances of surprising them.  It is likely that this activity also kept wolves, cats, and coyotes away.

 Experienced cattlemen knew when to expect trouble.  As the weather went to hell, the guard would be strengthened.  This experienced eye could sometimes anticipate a stampede by actions of the cattle long before the run.  Some felt they could expect a run if the cattle made a certain snort.  Ab Blocker felt that if the cattle, when bedded down all stretched their necks in the same direction, they were bound to run.  Occasionally a troublemaker was discovered; it might be an old steer that liked to fight, or one that was spooked by his own shadow.  Very likely he would be separated from the herd and shot.

 The first few weeks of the drive were crucial to training them to march along calmly.  If all went well during this period, it was a good chance that the drive would have little trouble.  To better manage the herd Goodnight began using a lead steer, Old Blue that he bought from John Chisum.  Drive after drive for eight years Blue led the cattle north.  Goodnight said he led the cattle through many dangerous conditions.  With his neck bell ringing this steer was a great leader, with a calming effect.  Charles Goodnight would swell with pride when speaking of his old companion.  Others also began using lead steers, but few were as honored as Blue, who was even fed corn at the chuckwagon.

 Despite the best preparations, it was occasionally impossible to stem the tide.  One of the strangest phenomena reported by a number of the old time drovers was the appearance of foxfire or St. Elmo’s fire on the horns of the cattle.  This sometimes went hand in hand with the stampede and may have contributed to causing some of them.  As the storm and lightening drew near, the air became heavy with humidity, sometimes the electricity in the air would become visible as it arced on the horn of the cattle. Robert T. Hill told J. Frank Dobie of a stampede on the Cimarron in 1884, where the strange blue balls of light seemed to float along the cattle’s horns.  Other fellows have said this static electricity even bounced around the ears of their horse.  S. H. Woods in, “The Trail Drivers of Texas” tells of seeing the phosphorescence on his horses ears and smelling sulphur during a lightning storm near Dodge City, Kansas.  Riding in the pitch-black night, riders navigated by the glimpses caught with the aid of lightening, by the sound of the herd, and sometimes by the dim balls of light of arcing electricity.

 …Then came thunder in my ears.

As over us swept the sea of steers,

Blows that beat black in my eyes.

When I could rise-

Lasca was dead!…

“Lasca” by Frank Desperza

 Death and danger were friends of the stampede.  Close your eyes, and just think about the action and of riding for the lead in the dark.  As in “Lasca” getting stomped to death was a possibility, and indeed many old timers called stampedes, “stompedes”.  Several cowhands have mentioned friends that were killed by the cattle.  Teddy Blue Abbott, mentions the loss of a cowhand in 1876, “…the rest of the horse and man was ground flat as a pancake.  The only thing you could recognize was the handle of his six shooter.”.  One thing about this tragedy is that the cattle had been milled for hours on the spot where the rider went down.  C.W. Ackermann recounted a stampede that occurred on his first trip up the trails.  Ackermann recalled that on their first night the cattle stampeded running into one of the riders.  He claimed the cowhand was carried about a quarter of a mile on the backs of the cattle yet only suffered minor injuries.  Unfortunately his horse was crippled.  Other very knowledgeable folk, like Ab Blocker and Charles Goodnight said you would not get run over by running longhorns.  Goodnight even jumped in front of a stampeding herd once to get them away from the wagon.  Blocker commented that it was amazing that the herd could avoid a fallen rider.  Horses were another story, and Goodnight said the improved cattle of later years would run over a man.

 More likely to cause a death on the trail was just the danger of a fall.  Riding at night full tilt created many dangers.  One of the great dangers was the unseen crevasse that could swallow up both horse and rider.  This was illustrated in Jack Thorpe’s song of a true event, “Little Joe The Wrangler”:

The next morning just at day break, we found where Rocket fell,

Down in a washout twenty feet below;

And beneath the horse, mashed to a pulp, his spur had rung the knell,

Was our little Texas stray, poor Wrangling Joe.

 A horse fall could kill a man even without the crevasse.  Not only could you land badly, but the horse with his forward momentum might roll over you.  One thousand equine pounds can sure squash the best of cowboys.  Other bad accidents have been blamed on getting hung up in a stirrup during a fall.

 Lightening was also very dangerous.  Lightening not only lit up the night, it occasionally struck men and animals.  One common belief was that it was attracted to metal.  Many boys put their pistols in the wagon as the lightening approached.  Repeatedly the old cattlemen have mentioned hands and animals alike that were struck by lightening.   M. A. Withers told the Old Trail Drivers Association of the terrible lightening strike he experienced in 1883.  Gus Johnson, Withers, and G. B. Withers were riding together when lightening struck.  Withers was only slightly hurt, but Johnson was killed.  His undershirt was set afire and a gold shirt stud melted.  G.B. Withers lost an eye in this incident. In another account of a lightening strike that occurred during a stampede, Robert T. Hill told J. Frank Dobie how their lead steer, Old Buck, was struck down and another rider was knocked unconscious by a bolt of lightening.  Dobie was of the opinion that far more men were killed by lightening, than by stampedes.

 Well pard the great stampedes slowly faded away with the eventual closing of the range by barbed wire in the 1880s and 1890s.  As the trails north were fenced and railroads opened the markets to southern cattlemen, the range evolved into an era of big pastures, and later to what we have today.  The average size of a ranch in America today is quite small.  Most cattlemen raise only about 30-40 cattle.  It is still a physical job with exposure to bad weather and other discomforts.  At the end of the day most ranchers and cowboys can return home to families and comfort.  For those of us who enjoy the history and stories of the past, we have a wealth of resources to choose from.  Songs, verse, and the words of those who have been there can pull us into the past where the thrill and fear of a stampede lives on through our imaginations.

He turned the maddened cattle from Lenore, his little friend.

As the mighty herd rushed upon him, he paused to meet his end.

As the mighty herd rushed upon him, his pistol he quickly drew

To fight to his last minute, as all brave cowboys do.

“Utah Carol” Traditional

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©2003 Scott Hill Bumgardner