J.J. Kilpatrick versus the Army: Strife in Candelaria, Texas, 1919-1921.

James Judson Kilpatrick (1857-1935), a native of Georgia, came to Candelaria, Texas, in 1908 to teach school. Over the next 10 years he created a cotton empire there, eventually placing 800 acres under cultivation by 45 tenant families. Between 1917 and 1922 Kilpatrick engaged in a controversy with Captain Stephen Matlack of Troop K, 8th Cavalry, that escalated to engulf the entire 8th Cavalry, the Army court-martial system, Senator Albert Fall's Senate Committee on Mexican Affairs, and, eventually, to involve President Woodrow Wilson. This presentation makes use of the J.J. Kilpatrick Papers at the Briscoe Center for American History and the J.J. Kilpatrick Family Candelaria Papers at the Archives of the Big Bend of Sul Ross State University to examine the origins, progress, and consequences of this controversy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]