After serving in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he came to own 40,000 cattle and over one million acres of ranch land in West Texas.

Christopher Columbus Slaughter was born on February 9, 1837, in Sabine County, Texas.

[1] In 1857, Slaughter became a rancher with his father in Palo Pinto County, Texas, where they owned 15,000 cattle.

[2] They sold beef to Fort Belknap and local Native American reservations.

[1] During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he served as a colonel in Terry's Texas Rangers of the Confederate States Army (C.S.A.).

[1][6] Shortly after the civil war, Slaughter explored Mexico with Goodnight and four other companions.

[1][2][3][9][10] Indeed, by 1905, he owned 40,000 cattle and oversaw over a million acres of land in West Texas by 1905.

[2][9] He was also a donor to the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium and the Nurses' Home and Training School.

[4] Additionally, he served on the board of trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

[15] Slaughter married Cynthia Anna Jowell (1849–1876) in 1861, at the beginning of the civil war.