Local 'Rifles' were itching for fight
By Van Craddock
Spirits were high in May 1898 when the 75-man Longview Rifles enlisted into federal service, becoming Co. A of the Third Texas Infantry, U.S. Volunteers.
The nation's patriotic fervor was at fever pitch when the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor in February 1898, killing 260 American sailors. The nation's press blamed Spain for the explosion (which remains unexplained), and in April the United States formally declared war against the Spanish.
The Longview Rifles, a militia unit, was composed of young men from Longview's finest families. Organized in 1884, the unit was part of the Texas Volunteer Guard. The men drilled on the courthouse lawn and occasionally were called out to provide security in times of emergency and civil unrest.
Most sizable Texas towns boasted their own militia units. By the 1890s the Texas Volunteer Guard had 55 local companies, six regiments and two brigades. Local units had such names as the Tyler Douglas Rifles, Marshall Guards, Jefferson Light Guard, Carthage Cooper Guards, Mineola Reagan Rifles and Rusk Rifles.
Now, in 1898, the Longview men were anxious to get into the fight. Texas' quota was 4,229 troops of a national total of 125,000. The Lone Star State was to provide four regiments, three infantry and one cavalry unit.
After being sworn into service, the locals traveled by train to Camp Mabry just outside Austin.
Camp Mabry was a place familiar to the Longview troops. In the early 1890s the camp had been established for an annual encampment for the Texas Volunteer Guard.
Each summer the Longview Rifles, along with several dozen other units from around Texas, would travel to Camp Mabry to participate in a weeklong drill-and-war games session. Only a year earlier, in 1897, the Longview Rifles had been honored as "one of the best-kept camps in the regiment."
In mid-June the Third Texas Infantry - composed of 1,282 men in 12 companies -- arrived at Fort Clark, a U.S. post at Brackettville (Kinney County), not far from the Mexican Border.
Most of the 200-mile trip had been by train. However, the final 10 miles was a march from Spofford Junction, south of Brackettville, "on which they waded two streams, one of which was waist deep. All the boys are more than pleased with the new camp," said Col. R.P. Smythe, commander of the Third Texas. "They have good water, a fine bathing house, water works, an ice plant, good buildings for all the companies."
Smythe told the Houston Post, "I am glad that Fort Clark is situated in an isolated country. The climate is very healthful. It will be the very place at which to induct and discipline the men."
The Third Texas drilled … and then drilled some more. The Longview men were ready to ship out to Cuba and battlefield glory, but the U.S. Army had other ideas.
For the next eight months the Third Texas helped guard the Mexican border, occasionally working with local law enforcement to ensure any Mexican bandits stayed south of the Rio Grande.
On Feb. 21, 1899, the El Paso Daily Herald reported that "Company A of Longview" had been mustered out of the service at Fort McIntosh," a U.S. Army post established a half-century earlier at Laredo.
The Longview boys traveled by train to Brownsville where they boarded the Southern Pacific Steamer Morgan which took the Third Texas Infantry to Galveston. From there the East Texans headed home via train.
The locals were disappointed to miss front-line action in Cuba, but no doubt regaled family and friends with tales of their eight months of service along the Mexican border.
In 1903, five years after the Spanish-American War ended, the Texas Volunteer Guard was permanently federalized and became the Texas National Guard.
Brackettville's Fort Clark, which served as a military post for almost a century (1852-1946), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.