Note 5 — FOREWORD

During the Civil War the cattle on the open Texas ranges increased many fold with the loss by the Confederacy of control of the Mississippi River. After that war they so far exceeded local demand that cattle drives on a much larger scale than ever before attempted, got under way. The Chisholm and Western Trails, “from anywhere in Texas,” on north through the western part of the Indian Territory entrained cattle in Kansas for the Eastern feedlots. The Goodnight-Loving Trail running west along the Middle Concho River, thence north along the Pecos and on parallel to the Front Ranges, supplied cattle for the new ranches being opened from New Mexico to the Canadian Border.