"Texas John” Slaughter was a Civil War veteran, trail-driver, cattleman, Texas Ranger, famed Cochise County Sheriff, professional gambler, and an Arizona State Representative during his lifetime. Before he died at the age of 80, he was a symbol of the American West and much celebrated hero. 

John was born in Sabine Parish, Louisiana on October 2, 1841 to Benjamin and Minerva Mabry Slaughter. However, when he was just three months old, his family moved to a land grant near Lockhart, Texas and began raising cattle.

Though schooled in Sabine and Caldwell counties, Slaughter’s formal education was brief. But the boy was a quick learner and found other opportunities to increase his knowledge such as learning how to speak Spanish and mastering cowboy skills from Mexican vaqueros. As a young man, he ranched with his father and brothers and just before the Civil War began, he enlisted as a Texas Ranger with Captain John Files Tom's company to fight the Comanches.

The diminutive, 5 foot 6 inch man, with penetrating black eyes and a sometimes stuttering voice, was evidently determined to make his mark upon the world.

On March 9, 1862, he joined the Confederate Army, but by 1864 he was sent home because of an illness. However; after he recovered, he returned to service with the Third Frontier Division, Texas State Troops, in Burnet County, where he earned a reputation of a fearless fighter skilled with firearms.

When the war was over, he and his brothers established the San Antonio Ranch Company in Atascosa County, Texas, where they not only raised their own cattle but also transported herds to Mexico, California, Kansas and New Mexico. They were some of the first to ever drive cattle up the Chisholm Trail. While he was in California on a cattle drive he became an avid poker player, a compulsion that would follow him throughout his life.

On August 4, 1871, he married Eliza Adeline Harris and the two would eventually have four children, though only two would survive to adulthood.

In 1876, Slaughter was playing poker in a saloon in San Antonio, Texas, when he caught another player named Barney Gallagher cheating. When Gallagher won the hand, Slaughter challenged him with a gun and took back his losses. Later, the cheating man was so enraged that he followed Slaughter to his ranch where he told the foreman to call him out, intending on killing him. As soon as John came in sight, Gallagher took a shot at him but missed. Slaughter returned the fire on was not so unlucky. Gallagher fell dead on the ground with a bullet in his heart.