[8][9] Two years later, they joined seven other families under Captain Daniel Monroe and settled near present-day Cameron,[9] where they received 640 acres (260 ha) of land along the Little River.

[13] Eager to further his education, Ross entered the Preparatory Department at Baylor University (then in Independence, Texas) in 1856, despite the fact that he was several years older than most of the other students.

[10][16] The Wesleyan faculty originally deemed his mathematics knowledge so lacking, they refused his admittance; the decision was rescinded after a professor agreed to tutor Ross privately in the subject.

The United States Army had conscripted Indians from the reserve to help the "Wichita Expedition" of 2nd Cavalry in a search for Buffalo Hump, a Penateka Comanche chief who had led several deadly raids on Texas settlements.

When many Comanche tried to flee the area, Ross, one of his scouts, Lieutenant Cornelius Van Camp of the 2nd Cavalry, and one of his troopers chased a party of noncombatants that appeared to contain a white child.

Mohee was killed by buckshot fired by Lieutenant James Majors of the 2nd Cavalry as the warrior approached the temporarily paralyzed Ross with a scalping knife.

Within a week, Governor Sam Houston authorized Ross to raise his own company of 60 mounted volunteers to protect the settlements near Belknap from Native American attacks.

[30] In late October and November 1860, Comanches led by Peta Nocona conducted numerous raids on various settlements, culminating in the brutal killing of a pregnant woman.

[42] In Myth, Memory and Massacre: The Pease River Capture of Cynthia Ann Parker the authors contend most of the material in the 1886 book of James T. Deshields was falsified or exaggerated for political gain.

[44] In early 1861 after Texas voted to secede from the United States and join the Confederacy, Ross's brother Peter began recruiting men for a new military company.

[45] Ross enlisted in his brother's company as a private,[2][3] and shortly afterwards, Governor Edward Clark requested he instead proceed immediately to the Indian Territory to negotiate treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes, so they would not help the Union Army.

He led the group 70 mi (110 km) behind the enemy lines, to Keetsville (now Washburn), Missouri, where they gathered intelligence, destroyed several wagonloads of commissary supplies, captured 60 horses and mules, and took 11 prisoners.

Between the beginning of November and December 27, his men captured 550 prisoners, several hundred horses, and enough overcoats and blankets to survive the winter chill.

The combined farming and ranching incomes left Ross wealthy enough to build a house in the Waco city limits and to send his children to private school.

[88] Although the Texas Legislature typically meets once every two years, a fire destroyed the state capitol building in November 1881, and Ross was called to serve in a special session in April 1882.

He declined and asked his friend George Clark to attend the 1884 state Democratic convention to prevent Ross from being named the gubernatorial candidate.

[100] In his second inaugural address, Ross, a true Jeffersonian Democrat,[93] maintained, "a plain, simple government, with severe limitations upon delegated powers, honestly and frugally administered, as the noblest and truest outgrowth of the wisdom taught by its founders.

Sheriff Jim Garvey feared armed battles would occur between the white-supremacist Democrats (the Jaybirds) and the black men who had retained political power (who, with their white supporters, were known as Woodpeckers).

[102][103] In March 1890, the U.S. attorney general launched a suit in the Supreme Court against Texas to determine ownership of a disputed 1,500,000-acre (6,100 km2) plot of land in Greer County.

[104] Determined to meet personally with the attorney general, Ross and his wife traveled to Washington, DC, where they visited President Benjamin Harrison at the White House.

[110] His reform acts were beneficial for the state, leading Ross to become the only Texas governor to call a special session of the legislature to deal with a treasury surplus.

[116] The public was skeptical of the idea of scientific agriculture[117] and the legislature declined to appropriate money for improvements to the campus because it had little confidence in the school's administrators.

Many of the men Ross had supervised during the Civil War wanted their sons to study under their former commander, and 500 students attempted to enroll at the beginning of the 1890–1891 school year.

When students returned for the 1891–1892 school year, they found a new three-story dormitory with 41 rooms (named Ross Hall), the beginning of construction on a new home for the president, and a new building to house the machine and blacksmith shops.

However, he eliminated many practices he considered unnecessary, including marching to and from class, and he reduced the amount of guard time and the number of drills the students were expected to perform.

[130] Although enrollment had always been limited to men, Ross favored coeducation, as he thought the male cadets "would be improved by the elevating influence of the good girls".

[131] In 1893, Ethel Hudson, the daughter of a Texas AMC professor, became the first woman to attend classes at the school and helped edit the annual yearbook.

[136][137] Ross had always been an avid hunter, and he embarked on a hunting trip along the Navasota River with his son Neville and several family friends during Christmas vacation in 1897.

In his public relations he exhibited sterling common sense, lofty patriotism, inflexible honesty and withal a character so exalted that he commanded at all times not only the confidence but the affection of the people.

In 1917, the state appropriated $10,000 for the monument, and two years later, a 10-ft (3 m) bronze statue of Ross, sculpted by Pompeo Coppini, was unveiled at the center of the Texas AMC campus.