The Killing of General J. J. Byrne

During 1880, in one of the final acts of violence in raiding led by the feared Apache chieftain Victorio, his band of 100 to 200 men had just finished two years of sanguinary raiding in southwest Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. Victorio's brilliant guerrilla tactics baffled his U. S. Army pursuers and earned their grudging admiration. J. J. Byrne, a surveyor and retired military man who had fought in the U. S. Army in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865 and had been cited for gallantry and meritorious conduct, was the lone passenger on a stage bound for Fort Davis after it left Fort Quitman on August 13, 1880. As the coach, drawn by small, swift Mexican mules, entered a steep canyon, Victorio's men attacked. Byrne was killed almost at once, but driver Ed Walde turned the stage and raced back to the fort for safety. Later in 1880, the United States and Mexico fielded 5,000 soldiers to hunt down Victorio, who was finally killed in Mexico, ending the career of one of the most notable Indian chiefs in the southwest. Byrne, born in Ireland about 1842, was buried near Fort Quitman and later reinterred in Fort Worth.

Sierra Blanca, Texas · United States