After the Civil War, Texans were broke. Their only hope lay in the five million maverick longhorns roaming the river breaks and running wild on the Texas Plains. In a few short years in the late 1800s a rare breed of hard-riding cowboys drove millions of these rangy longhorn cattle over hundreds of miles of treacherous frontier, inhabited by rustlers, hostile Indians and After the Civil War, Texans were broke. Their only hope lay in the five million maverick longhorns roaming the river breaks and running wild on the Texas Plains. In a few short years in the late 1800s a rare breed of hard-riding cowboys drove millions of these rangy longhorn cattle over hundreds of miles of treacherous frontier, inhabited by rustlers, hostile Indians and renegades. In 1866, Charles Goodnight took the first historic trail drive from Texas to the High Plains of Colorado. The herds that followed blazed trails to railheads at Sedalia, Wichita, Abilene and Dodge City. Available now.