James halted the westward movement at the banks of the Colorado river, turned north, and settled on a tract of land near present day Austin. The land was partly black, open-prairie soil, part timberland and part brushy undergrowth. The prairie would serve for crops. The timberland would provide the lumber to build homes, barns and fences, and the brush a grazing area for cattle. James had found his stopping place. Modern subdivisions rarely offer that kind of all-in-one survival package.
The most valuable feature of homestead, and the most unexpected, was its extensive population of wild, longhorn cattle. These big longhorns belonged to no one and came as part of the land they settled on, like the grass and the timber. The animals provided very good meat, hides for clothing, rawhide for everything from string to stout rope, and tallow for candles.
Print, now a one-syllable-named lad, was getting formative messages from two directions. His father’s words stressed the miracle that they had found, land and resources that would assure their family’s survival and prosperity. The second message, although not verbal, was likely just as commanding. His Cherokee blood, informed by centuries of his ancestors’ own survival experience, immediately recognized the value of the longhorns, there for the taking and everything they’d need to build a stable life.
The windfall of the longhorns changed everything. Survival seemed secured; prosperity now appeared a possibility. Jim Olive used some of the cattle for food and clothing for his family, but there were far more steers than he could use…. herds that he drove to Gulf ports and sold for more hard cash on a single trip than most pioneering farmers earned in a lifetime. One trip to New Orleans netted $3000 in gold coins, the only money of worth in a country too new for banks.
Print grew quickly into his father’s top hand. By age 17 he was handling almost all of the production operation, all the hunting, handling, moving. The Olive family flourished, as did their small community. A church was built, a social hall. Print was becoming the most successful cattleman in the county, and the late 1850s were halcyon years.
But the winds from earlier times and places were blowing in dark clouds. Talk of secession was dominating many of what had previously been carefree social gatherings. Jim Olive was an avowed Unionist and argued that the cattlemen should stay out of politics and stick to cattle. It was working for all of them. Good counsel, but no match for those nearly two-hundred-year-old plantation-generated winds.
In 1861 the Texas legislature, dominated by the cotton-growing interests, voted to leave the Union. That vote drove wedges between families, none more than the Olives. Jim, having found his staying place, reasoned for continuing their thriving cattle operation and leaving the government matters to others. Twenty-one-year-old Print, who had faced little of his father’s poverty-shaping experience, was drawn to the idea of fighting for their freedom from Yankee domination. That choice, opting for an idea over a herd, sent him on a very different and violent path.
Print’s outfit, the 2nd Texas Volunteers, was in action for 454 days, from April 6, 1862, until July 4, 1863. Before that April morning the Confederacy had suffered no critical defeat, and the Union had won no decisive victory. From that day forward, the Confederacy won no important victory, and the Union suffered no major defeat. Print, wounded seriously but not mortally in that first battle at Shiloh, surrendered at Vicksburg and signed a parole letter where, as a condition of his release, he vowed never to take up arms against the Union. Print Olive saw the Confederacy die, and with that knowledge a vital part of the boy known by his family and friends vanished forever.
Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek