He Broke the Comanche Nation Without a Real Battle — At 43 the Army Declared Him Insane

In the autumn of 1883, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie took command of the Department of Texas. He was 43, a brigadier general, engaged to be married, and planning a ranch near Boerne. Ulysses S. Grant had called him the most promising young officer in the army. Nine years earlier, at Palo Duro Canyon, he had ended the war for the southern plains almost without a battle. By December, army doctors had diagnosed him with "paralysis of the insane." By March 1884, he was retired from the army. Five years later he was dead, and the officers' own newspaper described his last years as "a living death." This is the story of how the army's most effective Indian fighter came apart: seven wounds, a head injury at Fort Sill, twenty years of command, a diagnosis that may or may not have been right, and a collapse so fast almost no one around him could believe it. CHAPTERS 0:00 New York, winter 1883 2:15 The man they couldn't kill 5:15 Texas, 1871 to 1874 8:30 The wounds nobody could see 12:15 San Antonio, autumn 1883 16:00 New York, 1884 18:45 A living death, 1884 to 1889 SOURCES Michael D. Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer (1993) Army and Navy Journal, January 1889 #RanaldMackenzie #TexasHistory #RedRiverWar #WildWest #MilitaryHistory