Captain Thomas Rabb (CSA)

The Deming Graphic

Deming, Luna Co. New Mexico

Friday, February 26, 1915

CAPTAIN THOMAS RABB, PIONEER,

DIED TUESDAY AT HOME ON PEARL

Stockman, Soldier, and Indian Fighter Came to This Section From Texas in 1885; Funeral Services Held at 3 O'clock Yesterday Afternoon.

Captain Thomas Rabb, 85 years old and a resident of this section since 1885, died at 10:30 o'clock Tuesday night at his home on Pearl street. The funeral services were held at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon at the home and burial was made in the local cemetery. The Rev. E. C. Morgan of the Methodist church, of which the pioneer was a member, preached the funeral sermon. Death was the result of age and its infirmities. Mrs. Rabb died about a year ago. Those who survive are: John Rabb and Ocie Rabb, sons; and Mrs. James L Upton, a daughter. Ocie Rabb in Mogollon and Mrs. Upton in Los Angeles.

The career of Captain Rabb is a thrilling narrative taken from the annals of the Southwest. Cowman, farmer, soldier, and Indian fighter, all were familiar roles in the life of the frontiersman. At the end of the Civil War, Captain Rabb was mustered out of Company D of the Thirty-third regiment, C. S. A., after four years and a half of service in Texas and New Mexico. Previous to the war, he had been a member of the famous organization, the Texas rangers. He was born in Horton county, Texas.

Captain Rabb took up farming and stock raising on the Upper Membres after coming to New Mexico in, what was then, Grant county. He took part in the exciting struggle with the Indians which ended in the final expulsion of the Apaches from New Mexico and the capture of their leader, Geronimo. His declining years were spent in Deming.

Thomas Rabb, farmer, Texas Ranger, Confederate captain, and stock raiser, was born to Andrew and Margaret Howell (Ragsdale) Rabb on January 26, 1831, in what is now Wharton County, Texas. His father, Andrew Rabb, one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colonists, had moved to Texas by 1824, served as a delegate to the Convention of 1833, and later served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Thomas Rabb was named for his uncle, Thomas J. Rabb, who fought in the Texas Revolution and served as an early Texas Ranger. The same year Thomas was born, Andrew Rabb moved his family to the developing community of La Grange in present-day Fayette County. On October 23, 1850, Thomas Rabb married Martha J. Harrell in Fayette County, Texas. The couple had four children—John, Margret, Elizabeth, and Edward. By 1860 Rabb was farming in Karnes County, where he raised 600 horses, 43 head of cattle, and 300 hogs on 900 acres. His real estate was listed at $3,000, and his personal estate was listed at $40,000 on the 1860 census. Rabb’s obituary indicated that he possibly served with the Texas Rangers prior to the war.

During the Civil War in June 1861 in Karnes County, Rabb was elected captain of a company of Mounted Volunteer Rangers designated in the Twenty-ninth Brigade, Texas State Troops, to repel a potential invasion of the state. In October a report states that the men furnished their own horses. Soon Captain Rabb commanded Company A, Frontier Regiment, Texas State Troops, under Col. James M. Norris. Rabb enlisted in Karnes County for twelve months and was mustered at Helena on January 23, 1862. The company established Camp Rabb which was situated fifteen miles northeast of Eagle Pass and was one of eighteen Confederate outposts placed a day's ride apart, from Red River to Rio Grande, to prevent American Indian attacks and Federal invasion. The camp was established by James M. Norris on April 7, 1862, as a ranger station for the Frontier Regiment and named for company commander, Capt. Thomas Rabb. Rabb was stationed at Rio Grande Camp (Station) in May 1862; he earned $140 a month. The company was soon designated Company H in Norris’s Frontier Regiment, Texas Militia. The camps guarded the road and a ford on the Cotton Road, used as major Southern supply line through the frontier.

On January 1, 1863, Captain Rabb was enrolled as captain in Company D, Duff’s Partisan Corps, under Col. James Duff. In February 1863 Col. James E. McCord took command of the Frontier Regiment and reorganized Captain Rabb’s command as First Company A, McCord’s Frontier Regiment, Texas Cavalry. Rabb mustered in as captain of Company D, Thirty-third Texas Cavalry, at Camp McCord on January 24, 1863. On May 1, 1863, Rabb was mustered into Confederate service as captain of Company D, Thirty-third Texas Cavalry. In July 1863 he was detached from the company for recruiting service.

Rabb was still not with his command in September 1863, when part of Company D, along with Capt. Cristóbal Benavides' Company H, engaged in a skirmish with bandits under Octaviano Zapata near Mier, Mexico. In November 1863 Captain Rabb's company was in camp near Richard King's ranch, after coming across Carrizo on the Rio Grande. In January 1864 Rabb and Company D were stationed at Victoria, Texas, and stayed in this vicinity until Rabb reported for “Special duty” serving on a general court martial in Bonham where he served through August 1864.

After the war, Thomas Rabb returned to Karnes County. His wife, Martha, died on May 3, 1876, and on April 16, 1878, Rabb married Nannie L. (Williams) Goode in Fayette County. They had a son, Osceola (“Ocie”). The couple resided in Karnes County, where Rabb was listed as a stock raiser on the 1880 federal census. According to Rabb’s own recollection, as reported in a feature in the February 4, 1906, edition of the San Antonio Daily Express, he and his family moved to Silver City, New Mexico, in 1885. That same year his mother, Margaret Ragsdale Rabb, who was living with the family, died in Silver City. Rabb continued farming and raising stock. His obituary stated that during this time he was also involved in some part of the Apache Wars, which eventually resulted in the capture of Geronimo. In 1886 the family moved to the Mimbres River area of New Mexico, where they lived until about 1900, when they moved to Deming, New Mexico. There, he was listed on the 1900 census as a “Retired Farmer.” Thomas Rabb died on February 23, 1915, in Deming and was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery there.