Lawrence Sullivan Ross

Lawrence Sullivan Ross came from an Iowa-born family that came to Texas in 1839. He gained experience with Indians in central Texas while his father was an Indian agent and later led reservation Indians in campaigns against Comanches. As a Ranger company captain in 1855, he killed the noted Comanche Chief Peta Nocona in hand-to-hand combat and captured long-lost Cynthia Ann Parker. After distinguished Confederate service as a general, he returned to Texas, served as McLennan County sheriff, was a member of the 1875 Constitutional Convention, was elected to the state senate in 1880, and was Governor of Texas from 1887 to 1891, becoming the first chief executive to occupy the present capitol building. He gave much attention to public land and railroad regulation policy, made special pleas for public schools and free textbooks, and saw four eleemosynary institutions established during his administration. He had entered Confederate service as a private in 1861, became Colonel of the 6th Texas Cavalry in May 1862, was commended for an outstanding role in the withdrawal from Corinth, Mississippi, in October 1862, and was made Brigadier General in December 1863. He led the famed Ross Cavalry Brigade, composed chiefly of Texans, in almost continual action in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee until the war's end, with major battles at Lawrenceburg, Harpeth River, and Murfreesboro, and in 135 engagements had five horses shot from under him.

Alpine, Texas · United States