Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate

by J. R. S. Pitts

We were now over two hundred miles from the place where we had stolen the negroes; we here enquired for several places and where was the best place to locate. We wanted to find a rich neighborhood where there was good society, etc. We got directions for several places, among the rest the lower settlement on the Brasos river. After we had rested, late in the afternoon, we set out, pretending to be bound for San Antonio, but we steered our course for the Brasos river, where we arrived the second day after. We quartered our negroes with a planter there and traveled around. We at length found a purchaser, some twenty miles from the place where the negroes were. We delivered them to him and received the pay for them—sixteen hundred dollars. We took the horses about forty miles and sold one, and about thirty miles further we sold the other. We then went some distance and sold our own horses.

We had realized from all our sales a little short of two thousand dollars. This was about the tenth of May. The money was principally in New Orleans Bank bills, and we had some gold and silver to pay our little expenses. We now steered our course for San Antonio, on foot, and reached there in about five days. We traveled leisurely, and procured some two-headed Texas gourds to carry our water through the prairies. After resting a day or two, we looked around to see how the land lay. We went into a store and bought two light Spanish saddles, with bridles and all the apparatus for riding. We put them up in a genteel package, and provided ourselves with provisions for two days. Each shouldered his pack, and we left San Antonio in the night, and steered our course west. We had traveled some ten or fifteen miles, when we stopped at a small creek and camped. Next morning we traveled on some twenty-five miles farther, when we came to a ranche, where there was a great stock of horses, mules, jacks, jennies and horned cattle. We hid our saddles before we approached the place, and went up with our bundles of clothes and guns and asked for something to eat, which was given us—plenty milk and bread. Only one or two of the people could speak English, and that very indifferently. An old man, the head of the place, and his drover and herdsman, spoke the best English. We asked the old man to let us have a couple of horses and saddles, and we would go with him a hunting and take our guns; we told him we wished to see the country; he told us “yes,” and furnished us with horses. We spent a week or more with him. We killed plenty of venison to supply the whole ranche.

MURDER OF THE TWO MEXICANS IN TEXAS.

One day Wages told him that we wanted to go and camp out that night about twenty-five miles off; we would be back next night, and wanted one of his gentle mules to pack; he told us to take the mule and any horses we pleased, and helped us to pack up, with water, provisions and whatever we wanted. We started and remained out that night and the next, and returned the third day. We had seven fine deer in all; he asked what kept us so long—had we been lost? We told him we had, and that while we were out we had met with an acquaintance of ours, buying horses and mules, and that he had furnished us money to buy thirty good horses and thirty mules, if we could get them delivered at a certain place named, about one hundred miles from there. We showed him the gold we had, and satisfied him as to the money, which was to be paid on delivery of the horses and mules at the place mentioned. The horses and mules were selected, and the price agreed upon. Gentle lead and pack mules were selected, and every preparation was made for our departure. We were to go with him and return with him, so as to see that the contract was complied with. The day arrived and we set out with five mules packed, and five gentle lead mules, with bells on, and a young half-breed Indian to assist in driving, and all of us mounted on the best of horses. We had managed to procure our new saddles and put them in their packs, on a mule that was set apart for us. Thus equipped, with plenty of water and provisions, we set out a little after daylight. Our travel that day was upwards of thirty miles, on account of having water. The next day was farther. We however made the two points. The next day our only stopping place was about twenty miles, and the next was thirty miles.

This twenty-mile place appeared to be a dead lake or spring, with an underground discharge, with a few small groves of timber near by, and several lakes or sinks in the ground, in the direction the water was supposed to run under ground. We left our second night’s camp on the third morning, and arrived at the twenty-mile place in the forenoon. We, as usual, stripped and hampered our horses to graze, eat dinner, and the old Mexican and his man lay down to sleep. Wages and I took our guns and went off, pretending to hunt. We killed a turkey and a prairie hen and a small deer. We cleaned our guns, wiped them out, loaded them with the largest buck-shot, took our game and went to the camp. While loading our guns, we made the arrangement in what way to dispatch our traveling companions, for that was the way we intended to pay for the horses and mules. So it was agreed that the next morning, before day, we were to prepare some dry grass and have our guns ready; Wages was to get up, wake me, and we were to set the straw on fire, to make a light to see the position in which the two men lay.

All that night I did not sleep one minute of sound sleep. The most awful and frightful dreams infested my mind all night, and Wages told me the next day that his sleep was disturbed in the same way, and he then regretted the act and wished he had not done it.

Wages rose in the morning and easily waked me, for I was not in a sound sleep. We took our guns; I crawled close to where the young man lay, and got my gun ready. Wages was to fire first. He put his light against a small brush, and the old man partly waked and turned his face toward Wages, who fired the contents of one barrel in the old man’s forehead.

The young man was lying with his back to me; I placed the muzzle of my gun to the back of his head, where the neck joined it. My finger was on the trigger. At the report of Wages’ gun, I pulled the trigger, and there was but little distinction in the report of the two guns.

Both men gave a suppressed, struggling scream, and expired.

Our next work was to dispose of them, which we did by slinging them with ropes, swinging them on a pole, carrying them to one of the sink holes close to the camp, and burying them there. We deposited with them all the clothes that had any blood on them; and with the hatchet they had, we sharpened a short pole and partially covered them with dirt. We next went to the camp and raked out with sticks and brush all the signs of blood, and took brush and dry leaves and built fires on the ground where we had killed them. All of this we had accomplished by a little before sunrise.