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19th Century Shining
Star:
Texas Ranger
William A. A. “Bigfoot” Wallace
(1817 - 1899)
by Steve Moore
Vengeance
sought, vengeance found. William Alexander Anderson Wallace came to
Texas to settle a score. He accomplished his mission while serving with
the Texas Rangers, fighting both Mexican soldiers and frontier Indians.
Never married, he became something of a folk hero and was known throughout
Texas as “Bigfoot.”
Born April 3, 1817,
in Lexington, Virginia, Wallace was a large and powerful man. During
the prime of his life, he weighed 240 pounds and stood 6 feet, 2 inches
tall—a towering giant for those days. One story later claimed
that Mexican soldiers gave him the sobriquet “Bigfoot” because
they could not find shoes big enough to fit their large prisoner. Wallace
denied this folk story, saying that although he was a large man, his
feet actually fit comfortably in a size-10 shoe.
Another version
of the origin of Wallace’s nickname comes from the story he told
one of his biographers, A. J. Sowell. Wallace hunted and worked odd
jobs, including hauling cedar down the Colorado River to the settlements.
According to his story, he earned the name “Bigfoot” during
1839 while working his logging business near Austin. A certain Waco
Indian had a small band of eight Indians who often raided settlements
near Austin, killing settlers and stealing horses. The leader of this
small Waco bunch was known to the settlers as “Bigfoot,”
as he weighed 300 pounds and stood a reported 6 feet, 7 inches tall.
William Wallace
and the Waco named Bigfoot both wore moccasins. Following a depredation,
large moccasin footprints were found around the victim’s home.
The settler alleged that the tracks must belong to Wallace. Wallace
settled the accusation by placing his foot into one of the tracks and
proving that his own foot size was actually smaller. After that, the
locals began referring to both the troublesome Indian and Wallace as
“Bigfoot.” The nickname would stick with Wallace for life,
and various other stories would surface as to the origination of the
name.
Some of William
Wallace’s relatives, including his brother Samuel, went to Texas
in 1835 to fight in the revolution. When Lieutenant Colonel James Fannin’s
men were executed by General Santa Anna’s Mexican soldiers at
Goliad in the famous massacre, three Wallace relatives were among those
killed. One was William’s cousin and another was his older brother,
Samuel P. Wallace. William swore that he would go to Texas and avenge
the loss of his brother and cousin by killing Mexicans. He reached Galveston
in October 1837 and drifted about the Colorado River settlements during
the next few years. He lived alone, and spent a great deal of time hunting
in the woods. During 1838, he killed his first Indian while pursing
a band that had raided settlers near La Grange.
In 1840, Wallace
moved up on the Medina River beyond San Antonio, where he resumed his
hunting and camping. Despite previous accounts that state otherwise,
Wallace did not claim to his biographer Sowell to have directly fought
at either the 1839 Brushy Creek battle or the 1840 Plum Creek battle.
He was with a group of about twenty volunteers who narrowly missed Brushy
Creek.
Wallace first joined
Captain Jack Hays’ Texas Ranger company in San Antonio on March
10, 1842. Hays’ men were active throughout the year, chasing Mexican
horse thieves and clashing with the Comanches. Wallace later recalled
one such 1842 Indian expedition from his Ranger days:
We collected by
agreement at my ranch, organized a company of forty men and the next
time the Indians came down from the mountains we took the trail, determined
to follow it as long as our horses could hold out. The trail led us
up toward the head waters of the Llano, and on the third day out I discovered
a great many signal smokes rising up a long distance off in the direction
we were traveling. Before dark, a campfire was seen some three miles
ahead.
Wallace received
permission from his captain to scout out the Indian camp during the
early morning hours. In the darkness, he ran into a husky Indian scout,
and the duo engaged in a free-for-all, hand-to-hand battle for life
or death. Wallace finally managed to plunge his Bowie knife into the
Indian’s chest and survive the contest.
Although Hays’
company protected the settlements from hostile Indians, the greatest
menace the communities faced in 1842 was of the Mexican soldier variety.
Rumors surfaced in late August that General Adrian Woll planned to invade
Texas, so Jack Hays and Antonio Menchaca were authorized to raise new
Ranger companies.
In the absence
of government money, Hays had to send Bigfoot Wallace and Nathan Mallon
to Austin to secure munitions with private funds. Wallace had just been
given a payment voucher of $127.50 from Captain Hays, affirming his
service for five months and twenty days’ service spanning the
period of March 10 to September 1, 1842.
The new invasion
by Woll kept Wallace active with Hays’ Rangers beyond his original
tour of duty. General Woll managed to slip into San Antonio with 1,300
troops and take the city on September 11, 1842, after a short fight.
Wallace returned
from his munitions trip to Austin to find Captain Hays gathering Texas
volunteer companies at Seguin. Noted Ranger Mathew Caldwell took overall
command of the troops, which included companies under Captains James
Bird, Ewen Cameron, Daniel Friar, Jack Hays, and Adam Zumwalt. The Texans
engaged General Woll at Salado Creek and won a solid victory. Bigfoot
Wallace had a close call from a rifle shot that grazed his nose, and
his mule was wounded during one of the charges.
The Mexican force
retreated. They had with them some Texas prisoners and more than 200
of their own soldiers who were wounded. At the Hondo Creek crossing
of the Medina River, Jack Hays’ Rangers, including Bigfoot, made
a daring charge to overtake Woll’s cannon. Hays’ men rode
into the midst of the Mexican army’s camp and killed the cannon
gunners, but the balance of the Texan infantry failed to follow through
on their charge.
President Sam Houston
called for an expedition to avenge Woll’s invasion of Texas. Shortly
 after
his first service with Hays’ Rangers, Wallace signed up again
under Captain Hays for the expedition into Mexico led by Brigadier General
Alexander Somervell. Bringing his own horse and firearms, Wallace enlisted
on October 17, 1842. Fellow soldiers Gilbert R. Brush and James A. Glascock
later certified in June 1850 that they and Wallace “were mustered
in as members of the campaign of 1842 to proceed to the Rio Grande.”
After guiding the
expedition to the vicinity of the Mexican town of Mier, Captain Hays
tried to convince the leaders to give up their attack plan and return
to San Antonio. He had been warned that a large force under General
Pedro Ampudia had been sent out to repel the Texan invaders. Hays, Ben
McCullough, and some others departed. However, William S. Fisher, elected
to command, was determined to lead the assault on Mier. He would soon
find that General Ampudia had indeed reinforced Mier with an additional
700 soldiers.
During the battle
of Mier, Bigfoot Wallace claims to have loaded and fired his rifle fifteen
times, with deadly result to Mexican soldiers. Nevertheless, the Texans
were ultimately outnumbered and forced to surrender to General Ampudia.
Wallace was one of the last to quit fighting. The Texas soldiers were
captured on December 26, 1842, and were conveyed to Perote, where they
were held.
Following an escape
attempt by the Texas prisoners, President Santa Anna ordered that some
of the Texans be executed as punishment. The prisoners were forced to
draw lots for their own execution. Into a large container were placed
159 white beans and 17 smaller black ones. Anyone drawing a black bean
would face the firing squad. When Bigfoot Wallace’s turn came
to draw, he grabbed a handful of beans and sorted them in his hand,
feeling them until he found one large bean and one small. Believing
the white beans to be smaller, he kept it and dropped the larger one.
He was right. Seventeen of Wallace’s comrades drew the fatal black
bean and were put to death before the Mexican firing squad.
Wallace remained
a prisoner until September 16, 1844, almost two years exactly after
he had first enlisted for the campaign into Mexico. He had lost everything.
Upon landing in New Orleans from his Mexican prison, he spent some time
there claiming bounties by capturing runaway slaves. Bigfoot returned
to Texas in 1845, settling in his old hunting cabin on the Median River.
On December 17,
1845, Wallace enlisted lawyer and Ranger buddy R. A. Gillespie to file
a claim for the losses he incurred while a prisoner of Mexico, including
his lost horse and personal equipment. By this time, he had returned
to service with the Texas Rangers. Wallace was first sergeant of Captain
Robert Addison Gillespie’s Texas Mounted Rangers, who were mustered
into federal service on September 28, 1845. Recruited primarily from
San Antonio, the company served through March 28, 1846.
The company’s
second tour of service began on that closing date, and Gillespie’s
men were discharged from service on June 28, 1846. Captain Gillespie’s
company was mustered back into service on August 30, 1846, at San Antonio.
By now, Bigfoot Wallace was serving as the first lieutenant. Gillespie’s
unit served as Company I of Colonel Jack Hays’ First Regiment,
Texas Mounted Riflemen, through September 29, 1846.
Wallace was among
those who stormed and captured the Bishop’s Palace in Monterey
in 1848. His senior officer, Captain Gillespie, was mortally wounded
during this bloody fight.
During 1849, Wallace
was in command of his own Ranger company. A group of nearly two dozen
Comanches tried to steal his horses on one occasion, but an alert Ranger
picked up the sound of their approach. Wallace’s men took cover
and poured lead into them, killing or wounding four of their number.
One Ranger was wounded and one of the Texans’ pack mules was killed.
The Indians retreated
and prepared for another advance. “We had scarcely reloaded our
rifles and six shooters when they rose up all around the little thicket
in which we were,” recalled Captain Wallace. With Colts blazing,
the Rangers withstood several more charges by the Comanches. One other
Ranger was wounded.
The Indians stayed
in the vicinity of Wallace’s camp, and the captain and his men
managed to kill four more of them before the day was out. Another forty-odd
Comanches arrived shortly as reinforcements, and they challenged Wallace
to fight them. Wallace accepted the offer and said that his men would
meet the Comanches at a certain springs after they had finished their
meal. With only a small company of men, and three of them wounded, Wallace
knew that the Indians were stirred up to avenge their own losses. His
men instead returned to Fort Clark as fast as they could ride.
In 1850, Bigfoot
Wallace took a contract to carry mail from San Antonio to El Paso. He
rode with guards and had a number of exciting fights with Comanches
during his trips out. On at least one occasion, one of his guards was
wounded and several Comanches killed. After quitting the mail service,
Wallace was commissioned by Governor Peter Bell to take command of seventy-six
Rangers to protect southwest Texas. They were constantly on the scout
and fought a number of small skirmishes with Indians.
One of Wallace’s
hardest fights in the early 1850s was at a place called Black Hills
in present La Salle County. As he related to biographer Sowell, his
Rangers trailed the Indians for some time. They closed steadily on the
Indians and were finally confronted by one lone native who showed himself
on a ridge and invited the Rangers to fight.
Wary of an ambush,
Wallace scouted ahead and found hundreds of Indians lying in wait. After
a number of challenges to attack their main body was refused by Wallace,
a group of twenty-five Indians attacked the Rangers. Wallace’s
men killed several of the enemy, wounded more, and killed and wounded
many of their horses. The Indians re-formed, grabbed new horses, and
made their attacks again. The Rangers poured more accurate gunfire into
the Indians, again killing and wounding horses and Indians alike. The
Indians regrouped, gathered more reserve warriors, and then charged
into the Rangers for a third time. “But it was the same old thing,”
recalled Bigfoot Wallace. “We pitched the rifle bullets into them
so rapidly they couldn’t stand the racket, and once more retreated
toward their camp.”
Among those killed
during the third charge was the tribe’s medicine man, who rode
forward “waving a bunch of roots he held in his hands.”
The spirits brought this man no luck as the Rangers soon put a bullet
through his chest. The Indians scrambled to draw his body to safety
and regroup. Their chief was seen riding up and down the lines, preparing
his men for another charge.
Prior to this fourth
and final charge, Captain Wallace yelled to his men to prepare themselves
for the worst. “We are going to catch it hot and heavy!”
The chief rallied his troops, and this time they charged straight at
Wallace’s Rangers, not bothering to circle them as before. Wallace
called to his men to take out the leader’s horse. Waiting until
the Indian chief had closed to thirty yards, three Rangers blasted his
horse out from under him. As the chief scrambled to his feet, Captain
Wallace “fired and shot him in the right hip.” The Indian
leader fell, yelling, and his followers raced to help him from the battlefield.
Two of Wallace’s
Rangers had been wounded, and the men were in dire need of water. Taking
advantage of the lull as the Indians bore off their wounded chief, Wallace
had his parched men mount their horses and fall back to the last Indian
camp they had passed through. Captain Wallace knew that some Indians
were certainly left behind to guard the camp’s water source, so
he took ten Rangers on foot and ran, zigzagging through the brush as
they approached camp. Wallace and his men came under fire, and they
returned it. Wallace, Billy Johnson, and Jim Brown each killed an Indian.
The shooting raised another party of Indians from the main body that
they had so recently engaged. As more Indians raced toward the camp,
Wallace and his men were forced to return to their horses and flee the
Indian camp.
Having stirred
up a large hornets’ nest this day and being badly outnumbered,
Captain Wallace decided to leave well enough alone. He waited for the
Indians to retreat from the camp that afternoon before moving back in
to get water for his horses and men. Aside from water, the Rangers found
one other treasure when they finally searched the camp. As Wallace recalled,
“The Indian killed by Johnson had two plugs of tobacco in his
shot pouch, which was a God-send to us, as we had been without a ‘chaw’
for several days.”
Throughout the
day’s fighting, Wallace suffered three Rangers wounded. The bodies
of twenty-two Indians were found on the ground, and Wallace estimated
that his Rangers had wounded at least fifteen others.
Aside from his
stories, little specific information remains on Captain Wallace’s
1850s Texas Ranger service. It is likely that his muster rolls and other
records burned in the 1855 Adjutant General’s office fire, which
consumed many early Texas military records.
During the Civil
War, old veteran William Wallace helped protect the frontiers of Texas
by keeping raiding Indian forces at bay while the able men were off
fighting the war. While living in Medina County in 1874, Wallace filed
a pension claim for any money that he was due for having been a Mier
prisoner. At age 81, he was living with W. W. “Doc” Cochran
and family some three miles from the community of Bigfoot, which was
named in his honor.
A. J. Sowell, himself
a Texas Ranger and also a writer, spent several weeks with Wallace in
1898. Wallace was reportedly not happy with some of the stories written
about himself in an 1871 biography by John Duval. He hoped to set the
record straight, including how he earned his nickname of “Bigfoot.”
 Wallace
died of pneumonia at 10:00 a.m. on January 7, 1899, in Frio County,
at his ranch near Devine. The January 8th edition of the San Antonio
Daily Express ran his obituary with the headline, “Heroic ‘Big
Foot’ Wallace Dead.” His remains were later moved from Medina
County to Austin’s State Cemetery. The epitaph on his gravestone
reads, in part:
BIG
FOOT WALLACE
Here Lies He Who Spent His Manhood Defending the Homes of Texas
Brave Honest and Faithful Texas Representative
Representative
Tarver, speaking at Bigfoot Wallace’s reinterment in the Austin
cemetery, said that “his name and fame are indelibly impressed
on every page of the earlier history” of Texas. Wallace had avenged
his brother’s death and had lived a single life, participating
in any worthwhile fight he had the opportunity to join. In Tarver’s
words, Bigfoot Wallace’s “whole life was a sacrifice to
duty.”
Key
Sources
William A. A. Wallace
Audited Claims, Pension Papers and Public Debt Papers, Texas State Archives.
Duval, John C. The Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace. J. W. Burke and Company:
Macon, Georgia, 1871.
Sowell, A. J. Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas.
1900. Reprint. State House Press: Austin, 1986. Released under the title
Texas Indian Fighters.
Sowell, A. J. Life of “Big Foot” Wallace. 1899. Reprint.
State House Press: Austin, 1989. Introduction by Mike Cox.
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