John Joel Glanton

John Joel Glanton (1819 – April 23, 1850) was an early settler of Mexican Texas, a Texian fighting for independence, and later a Texas Ranger. After the Mexican-American War, he became a soldier-of-fortune and mercenary and led the notorious Glanton Gang of scalp hunters in the American Southwest.

Glanton (sometimes spelled "Gallantin"), was born in Edgefield County, South Carolina, in 1819. He was said to have been an outlaw in Tennessee, where his family had moved, before they went to Texas. He would have been under arms at an early age.

In 1835, at age 16, Glanton was living with his parents at Gonzales, Texas. Some accounts said he was engaged but his fiancée was killed that year by Lipan Apaches.

Glanton was involved in early military affairs in Texas and the Southwest, participating in both the Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War. While a member of Walter P. Lane's San Antonio company of Texas Rangers in the Mexican-American War, contemporary sources attribute to him the 1847 killing of a Mexican civilian in the city of Magdalena. Although Glanton protested he had done so when the civilian had refused to obey his commands as sentry to halt passage, other witnesses claimed it had been an act of murder. The event brought Walter P. Lane, then a major in the army, into conflict with General Zachary Taylor. As a result, Glanton was forced to flee the American army police who were sent to arrest him. He later re-enlisted in John Coffee Hays' second regiment of the First Texas Mounted Rifles, and saw action with Winfield Scott's army in central Mexico.

...
Wikipedia