early 1843, Glanton applied for a 320 acre grant of land in Jackson County, Arkansas. He improved the land but, receiving no certificate of purchase, he transferred his claim to his brother Benjamin in 1845 and returned to Louisiana. He was still receiving his mail in New Orleans in September 1846 but had apparently already left for Texas. Mexican–American War By the time of the Mexican–American War, he was part of Walter P. Lane's San Antonio company of Texas Rangers. Contemporary sources charged him with killing a Mexican civilian in Magdalena, New Mexico, while serving as a perimeter sentry in 1847. Glanton defended himself, saying the civilian had ignored his commands to halt. This event brought Walter P. Lanethen a major in the armyinto conflict with his general Zachary Taylor. Glanton evaded the military police sent to arrest him but then enlisted in John Coffee Hays's second regiment of the First Texas Mounted Rifles, also informally known as the Texan Rangers. He saw action as part of Gen. Winfield Scott's Mexico City campaign, during which Private Glanton was noted by Gen.Joseph Lane to have "attracted general notice for his extraordinary activity and daring throughout the actions both of the 23d and 24th" Nov. 1847 at Galaxara Pass in Puebla. Glanton organization After the summer of 1849, Glanton and his employees were hired by Mexican authorities to eliminate troublesome Apaches in northern Mexico and what is now part of the Southwestern United States. For increased income, their organization scalped peaceful agricultural American Indians and Mexicans to claim the bounty for scalps. The soldier and memoirist Samuel Chamberlain claimed he worked as a member of the organization. According to Chamberlain, Glanton's second-in-command was a Texian known as Judge Holden. Reneging on their contracts, the state of Chihuahua put a bounty on the heads of the organization, declaring them outlaws on December, 1849. Chihuahuan authorities drove them out to Sonora. Eventually, they wore out their Sonaran welcome, then moved north into the Arizona territory. Glanton Massacre In Arizona, the Glanton organization became partners in a ferry at the Yuma Crossing of the Colorado River, a popular crossing for settlers and prospectors traveling to and from California during the California Gold Rush. According to claims from competing ferry operators, the Glantons sometimes killed Mexican and American passengers returning from the gold-fields to take their money and goods. Other highly-sensationalized accounts claim they destroyed a