The Texas Rangers in the Feud and Pete Loggins

This comes from The 1887 Conner Fight on the Sabine by Paul N. Spellman c2003.

Mr. Spellman offers some great incite into the feud.  I wish I could share the entire article, but I do not want to infringe on his copyright.  You can find this at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

Here are some of the more interesting  extracts and details from the article:

"First light, March 31, 1887. The Ranger company stood six abreast in the bottom of the dry gulch, their Winchesters and pistols at the ready. Not twenty paces in front of them, three shadowy figures crouched frozen in the thick underbrush while a fourth flanked the scene in a sniper’s position. Not a breath of wind stirred along Lick Branch; not a twig or leaf moved.

One of the crouching figures stood up, his shotgun pointed at the Ranger line. The movement attracted the attention of every man standing around the creek bed.
Then all hell broke loose."

 

 When the Conners broke out of jail and took to the woods, the adjutant general of Texas sent in "Ranger Captain William Scott and Company "F" to take care of them.  They tracked Alfred "Alfie" Conner into Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana and captured him in 1887.

 

 "Scott's force in Hemphill included Sergeant John Brooks and Private John H. Rogers-later, two of the famous "Four Captains" of the turn of the century..." 

 

 "Uncle Willis Conner fired into the melee from his sniper's position, and the bullet struck Ranger Jim Moore in the heart.  Moore collapsed, his rifle flung into the underbrush. Carmichael bent down to him.  Moore managed a crooked smile for a brief moment and then died."

"The Conner fight along the Sabine in 1887 was one of the bloodiest encounters for the Texas Rangers.  It left in its wake both accolades for bravery and steep criticism from some for the unsuccessful confrontation.  It also left a legacy of fact and fiction, high drama and legend, and a place of significance in Ranger lore."

 

In the Article Outlaw with two faces, Bob Bowman tells us a little more about Pete Loggins, one of the men who broke the Conners out of jail.

Here is the article by Bob Bowman:

In July of 1888, Rupert P. Wright, dressed in rags and one eye blinded by his own hand, pleaded for mercy on a charge of bigamy before an Arkansas judge.

To those who knew Wright, his appearance and demeanor were far removed from the days when he was a prominent newspaper editor, attorney, and aspiring legislator in Little Rock.

But they would soon learn that he was also an escaped murderer, forger, arsonist and jail breaker named Pete Loggins from East Texas.

Born Lewis L. Loggins in 1848 near San Augustine, Loggins moved to Jasper County in 1871, became a printer, studied law and was admitted to the Texas Bar in 1874.

Seemingly on his way to success, Loggins married, sired three children and was elected county attorney for Jasper County. But he soon returned to San Augustine County to practice law and edit a local newspaper.

Between the late 1870s and early 1880s, Loggins’ law practice and newspaper career prospered and he became well known in East Texas.

But in 1881 his career took a deadly turn when he and a friend, Abe Smith, forged a land document for 1,107 acres near Hemphill. When his crime was discovered, Loggins fled to Arkansas and married again.

On an 1882 trip to Hemphill he was arrested, but set fire to the jail and escaped. When Smith turned state’s evidence against Loggins on the forgery charge, Loggins ambushed him at a sawmill and killed him.

Loggins also became an ally of outlaw Willis Conner and his sons Fed, Bill, Charley, Leander and John, who were indicted for murdering two men in 1883 during a feud over wild hogs.

When the Conners’ trial began, it was transferred to San Augustine on a change of venue and the Conners were placed in jail there. In March of 1885, Loggins helped break Willis Conner and one of his sons from the jail.

Loggins apparently left East Texas in 1885, assuming the name of Rupert P. Wright and became a reporter and city editor for the Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock, where he covered the Arkansas Legislature, and made friends with influential politicians.

Wright/Loggins eloped to Searcy, Arkansas, in 1887 with Alice White, a farmer’s daughter. It was his fourth known marriage and his past soon caught up with him when a former wife charged him with bigamy at Searcy.

Loggins fled to Tennessee, but was hauled back to Searcy by a police chief, placed on trial and given a five-year prison sentence. While in the Searcy jail he attempted suicide twice.

In 1892 he was released from prison on good behavior after four years, but was seized by lawmen from Sabine County, Texas, on pending charges of murder, forgery, arson and jailbreaking in East Texas.

Loggins was convicted of murder and jailbreaking in Hemphill, but served only five years at the old State Prison in Rusk, where he studied medicine.

He became a physician and practiced at Willis in Montgomery County, where he was killed in 1905 by a former constable in a fight over a woman.

Pete Loggins remains one of the most intriguing outlaws in frontier East Texas and even his descendants in East Texas remain puzzled about his strange life, the details of his death and his burial site.