George Wythe Baylor

George Wythe Baylor (August 24, 1832 – March 24, 1916) was a Confederate cavalry officer from Texas, and a veteran of many battles of the American Civil War. He was also a noted lawman and frontiersman with the Texas Rangers.

Born at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, in 1832, Baylor came to Texas at the end of 1845 as a boy and was educated there. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army, and was elected first lieutenant, 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles. He witnessed the death of General Johnston at Shiloh, and fought in many engagements of the Red River campaign in Louisiana in 1864. He was promoted to major, and later colonel, by President Davis, although his promised regiment of Texas Rangers was never raised owing to the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865.

After the war, Baylor commanded Texas Rangers in hunting Comanches and Apaches in Texas and across the border into Mexico, often in pursuit of the Apache chief Victorio and his raiding band. He was also an elected representative of the Texas State Government, representing El Paso from 1887 to 1889. He later retired to Guadalajara, Mexico, and lived there for some years, but was compelled to return to the United States in 1913 due to the Mexican Revolution. He died in San Antonio in 1916.

Early life George Wythe Baylor was born at Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, on August 24, 1832. His father, an army surgeon in the 7th Infantry Regiment, was John Walker Baylor, eldest son of Major Walker Baylor, of Bourbon County, Kentucky, whose wife was Jane, , a sister of Jesse Bledsoe, of Kentucky. His mother was Sophia Maria, , of Baltimore, Maryland, her father being Henreich Weidner, of Hessen Cassel, Germany, and her mother being Marie Chartelle, of an old Huguenot family.

His father moved from Bourbon county, Kentucky, to Fort Gibson, with his young family, going down from Louisville to the mouth of the Arkansas River on a keel boat, and this boat was dragged up the river to Fort Gibson. His mother took along a lot of fruit trees, roses and plants. The campaign lasted six weeks and was the first extended service which Baylor saw. In the same year, Baylor's profession was listed on the Parker county tax records and the United States census as "Indian killer".

Civil War

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Baylor enlisted in the Confederate States Army, joining Captain Hamner's company (Company H, 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles) at Weatherford on March 17, 1861, and was elected first lieutenant, the company being attached to Colonel John S. Ford's regiment of cavalry. He enlisted for three years and was sworn in as first lieutenant of his company in San Antonio in May 1861. His troops captured the Warren, a steamboat loaded with supplies and troops going up the Red River in Louisiana.

While the promised regiment of Texas rangers was never raised, because of the coming of the close of the Civil War, Colonel Baylor retained his rank, and it was a dispute over this that led him to kill General John A. Wharton during a heated quarrel on April 6, 1865, Thirty-two bodies of the Mexicans were found and buried. Baylor went to the scene with 15 men and took up the trail of the Apaches.

Personal life

Baylor married Sallie (Sally) Garland, , of Houston, Texas, in 1863. Their children were:

Hel(l)en, born December 10, 1865; Sophie Marie, died in infancy; Mary Courtenay, born June 11, 1874.

Of the foregoing children, Helen was married three times: first, to James Gillett; second, to Captain Frank Jones of the Texas rangers, who was killed in a skirmish with a band of outlaws; third, to Captain Merwin Lee. By her first husband, she left one son, Harper Gillett, and also a son by her second husband, Frank Jones. She died at Monterey, Mexico, on May 25, 1903. Colonel Baylor's wife, Sallie, died in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1904, and was buried there.