When the Republic of Texas was organized in December, 1837, the new state found herself with an enormous frontier to protect. To the south was the hostile Mexico while to the west and northwest roved the Indian and the bandit. To furnish protection against such enemies and to form the nucleus of a national standing army the ranger troop was retained. During the seven years that Texas had to maintain her own independence before she was admitted into the American Union, her rangers repelled hordes of Mexicans, fought the murderous Apaches, Comanches, and Kiowas, and administered justice on a wholesale plan to a great number of outlaws and ruffians that had flocked pell mell into the new Republic from the less attractive parts of the United States. So vital was the service rendered by the rangers in protecting the lives and property of the settlers along the frontiers of the state that Texas retained twelve hundred rangers as mounted police for patrol of the Mexican border and as a safeguard against the savage redskins of the southwest. When the Civil War broke out between the North and the South, Texas was drawn into the conflict on the side of the Confederacy. General Con Terry, an old ranger, organized the famous body of men known as Terry's Texas Rangers. This command was composed almost exclusively of ex-rangers and frontiersmen. From Bull Run to Appomattox this ranger troop rendered gallant service, and lost seventy-five per cent of its original muster roll. General Sherman, in his memoirs, speaks admiringly of the bravery of the rangers at the battle of Shiloh. Return to peace and the days of reconstruction did not do away with the necessity for the service that could only be rendered by the ranger. Banditry, Indian uprisings and massacres, cattle thievery, all flourished, for the bad man confidently expected the post-war turmoil would protect him from punishment for his misdeeds. He was to be undeceived, for the rangers effectively taught him that they were in the state for the purpose of protecting lives and property, and right royally did they perform that duty. From 1868 to 1873 the ranger companies were gradually reduced from one thousand to about three hundred men.