Download or read book Early San Angelo written by Virginia Noelke and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon after the Civil War, the city of San Angelo developed around Fort Concho. The mission of this western fort was to protect transportation routes, travelers, and settlers as they moved into territory claimed by Native Americans; and the mission of San Angelo was to make money by providing goods that the military personnel wanted and needed. After Fort Concho created peace in West Texas, it ceased operations. By 1889, however, San Angelo had plenty of dedicated citizens who would create an important western city on the banks of the Concho River. Agriculture was the basis of the economy in early San Angelo, which became a financial and marketing center for a wide region of West Texas. This book presents fascinating photographs that highlight the early history of a frontier town. The story ends in the late 1920s, when the discovery of oil changed the area dramatically.

Download or read book Fort Concho written by James T. Matthews and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1867 the United States Army established a permanent camp on the plateau where the North and Middle Concho rivers join. For centuries, this high open plateau had remained barren except for passing expeditions or Native American hunting parties. The establishment of Fort Concho provided a vital link in the line of frontier defense and led to the development of the town of San Angelo across the North Concho River from the military post. In more than twenty years of federal service, Fort Concho was home to companies of fifteen regiments in the regular United States Army, including Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie's Fourth Cavalry and Col. Benjamin Grierson's Tenth Cavalry of buffalo soldiers. The post provided a focal point for major campaigns against the Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches. Patrols from Fort Concho charted vast areas of western Texas and provided a climate for settlement on the Texas frontier. Today Fort Concho stands restored, thanks to numerous preservation efforts, as a memorial to all the peoples who struggled to survive on the plateau where the rivers join. Fort Concho: A History and a Guide by James T. Matthews has been hailed by Fort Concho director Bob Bluthardt as "the first book on the history of the fort in fifty years." Fort Concho is another title in the Texas State Historical Association's Fred Rider Cotten Popular History Series, which publishes short books about important historical sites or events in Texas history. Number Eighteen: Fred Rider Cotten Popular History Series

Download or read book The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 written by Paul Howard Carlson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1877 was a drought year in West Texas. That summer, some forty buffalo soldiers struck out into the Llano Estacado, pursuing a band of raiding Comanches. Several days later they were missing and presumed dead from thirst. Although most of the soldiers straggled back into camp, four died, and others faced court-martial for desertion. Here, Carlson provides insight into the interaction of soldiers, hunters, settlers, and Indians on the Staked Plains.

Download or read book Uniforms Arms and Equipment Headgear clothing and footwear written by Douglas C. McChristian and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on the success of his best-selling The U.S. Army in the West, 1870-1880:Uniforms, Arms, and Equipment, Douglas C. McChristian here presents a two-volume comprehensive account of the evolution of military arms and equipment during the years 1880–1892. The volumes are set against the backdrop of the final decade of the Indian campaigns—a key period of transition in United States military history. In Volume 1, McChristian shows how the Quartermaster Department modified the design and manufacturing of uniforms and other clothing to meet the developing needs of troops in the American West. Drawing on extensive research in public and private collections throughout the United States and lavishly illustrated with more than four hundred color and black-and-white illustrations, these volumes will serve as invaluable references for collectors, curators, and students of militaria and of the frontier era.

Download or read book Along the Texas Forts Trail written by B. W. Aston and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A travel guide to the Texas Forts Trail, providing historical background on each of the eight forts along the route, and including information for tourists on independent motels, inns, and restaurants, as well as listings of festivals, specialty shops, and other points of interest.

Download or read book Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier written by J. Evetts Haley and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which was first published in 1952, first began as a history of San Angelo and the adjacent region drained by the Conchos rivers. It grew, in writing, into a history of West Texas. It embodies author J. Evetts Haley’s unequaled knowledge of the country from the Rio Grande to the Canadian, from San Antonio and Austin to the border of New Mexico. It could have been written only by a man familiar by personal acquaintance with the location of every water hole and spring, the exploration of every trail from Coronado’s to the Overland Mail, the great cattle drives of the seventies and eighties, the establishment of every military post, and the shifting Indian policies of the United States from the annexation of Texas to the final retirement of the Comanches to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Haley has an intimate knowledge of hundreds of salty characters who played their picturesque roles in transforming the land from nature to civilization. Haley possesses all this equipment—gained from intensive study, personal experience, and thoughtful reflection—for writing a vivid story. Five previous books and unnumbered articles on phases of the region contribute to the facility with which he tells this stirring tale and account of its comprehensiveness. It is no less than a history of West Texas in its heroic age.

Download or read book The Sparrows of Montenegro written by BJ Mayo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tree “Bigfoot” Smith and Cedar Jones first meet on the day they join the US Cavalry’s Fourth Cavalry Regiment based out of the Historic Fort Concho in what is now San Angelo, Texas, in 1870. Their journey takes them into the heart of the dangerous Llano Estacado region known as the Comancheria. The area is ruthlessly defended by a band of Quahadi Comanche and their stoic leader, Lonely Horse. The Troop encounters a large group of Comanches and the gun-running Comancheros at Mushaway Mountain, close to Gail, Texas. A quick battle ensues that leaves eight men dead. Post Cavalry life finds Tree Smith and Cedar Jones as cowhand and cook on the large Rolling J cattle ranch in South Texas bordering the Rio Grande River. The ranch employs two Vaqueros from the village of Montenegro in Mexico, just across the river, whom Tree befriends. The quiet life on the Rolling J ranch is brought to an abrupt halt when a local sheriff warns that a band led by the cold-blooded, sadistic killer known as Gato Montes has been preying on the ranches along the Rio Grande. After the sheriff is nearly killed by these men, Tree is tasked with tracking them down, only this time, he is traveling alone and the dangers are greatly multiplied. His epic journey takes him back into the Llano Estacado where he is captured by Lonely Horse and taken to Mushaway Mountain where the Comanche carry out their own form of frontier justice. Tree’s return journey puts him on the same path as Marco, a Mexican goat herder, who rides with him to the Mexican Village of Montenegro, where Tree meets Julia, who changes his life forever after he becomes involved in and bears witness to the wonderful celebration of Dia de los Muertos.

Download or read book Fort Davis written by Robert Wooster and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This engaging, illustrated history of Fort Davis, one of the U.S. Army's most important western posts, relates the exciting history of Trans-Pecos Texas—the far western reaches off the state. Wooster traces the history of this Davis Mountains region from the days when Indians and later Spaniards and Mexicans inhabited the area, through its days as the site of Texan and American interests. The establishment and construction of Fort Davis in the mid-1850s tells the story of one of the army's largest western posts. We learn about the famous army camels which Secretary of War Jefferson Davis brought to the area, with Fort Davis serving as a base of operations, and about the difficult conditions imposed on the army by weather, climate, and Indians, Evacuated by the U.S. Army at the beginning of the Civil War, Fort Davis later was occupied by Texas state troops, then briefly reoccupied by the Federals. After the war, the War Department began shifting regular army units back to the western frontiers. Among these units were each of the famous black regiments, many of them composed of former slaves who proved to be excellent soldiers. The details of daily life—food, clothing, social activities, weapons, medical care—are thoroughly discussed, as are the often ineffective campaigns against Indians. Robert Wooster skillfully uses the forty-year history of Fort Davis to provide a clear window into the frontier military experience and into nineteenth-century American society. Because of its black soldiers, and its large Mexican-American civilian community, Fort Davis is a prime resource for studying and understanding the stratified racial relations which accompanied the army's and the nation's westward expansion.

Download or read book Fort Randall on the Missouri 1856 1892 written by Jerome A. Greene and published by South Dakota State Historical Society. This book was released on 2005 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strategically located along the Missouri River near the present South Dakota-Nebraska border, Fort Randall served as an important outpost on the western frontier. It played a key role in maintaining peace between American Indians and new settlers in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and its most famous residents included African American "Buffalo Soldiers" and the imprisoned Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull. In Fort Randall on the Missouri, 1856-1892 , Jerome A. Greene immerses the reader in the day-to-day life of a frontier garrison, using original maps, soldiers' drawings, and excerpts from their letters. Stories of soldiers' families, food, education, entertainment, and worship depict a self-sufficient community, weathering local conflicts as well as the Civil War. The appendixes name the commanding officers and regiments stationed there as well as the imprisoned members of Sitting Bull's band; twenty-four Bailey, Dix and Mead photographs of Sitting Bull's people taken in 1882 are also featured. Greene concludes by chronicling the demise of the post as thriving communities grew up around it.

Download or read book On the Border with Mackenzie written by Capt. R. G. Carter and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it was first published in 1935, On the Border with Mackenzie, or Winning West Texas from the Comanches quickly became known as the most complete account of the Indian Wars on the Texas frontier during the 1870s, and remains one of the most exhaustive histories ever written by an actual participant in the Texas Indian Wars. The author, Capt. Robert G. Carter, a Union Army veteran and West Point graduate, was appointed in 1870 to serve as second lieutenant in the Fourth United States Cavalry stationed at Fort Concho, Texas. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1900 for his gallantry in action against the Indians occurring on October 10, 1871, during the battle of Blanco Canyon. Led by Col. Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, the Fourth Cavalry moved its headquarters to Fort Richardson, Texas, in 1871 where they soon became one of the most effective units on the western frontier. Among the battles and skirmishes they participated in were the Warren wagon train raid of 1871; the Kicking Bird pursuit of 1871; the Remolino fight of 1873; the Red River War of 1874-75; and the Black Hills War of 1876. “...a splendid contribution to the early frontier history of West Texas...a story filled with humor and pathos, tragedies and triumphs, hunger and thirst, war and adventure.”—L. F. Sheffy “...[Carter] pulls no punches in this outspoken narrative, and the reader always knows where he stands.”—John H. Jenkins, Texas Basic Books “...essential to any study of the Indian Wars of the Southern Plains.”—Charles Robinson, Foreword

Download or read book The US Army and the Texas Frontier Economy written by Thomas T. Smith and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventy million dollars in fifty-five years. From Texas' annexation in 1845 until the turn of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army pumped at least that much or more into the economy of the fledgling state, a fact that directly challenges the popular heritage of Texas as the state with roots of pioneer capitalism and fervent independence. In The U.S. Army and the Texas Frontier Economy, 1845-1900, Thomas T. Smith sheds light on just who bankrolled the evolution of Texas into viable statehood. Smith draws on extensive research gathered from both government archives and Texas army posts in order to evaluate the symbiotic relationship between army quartermasters and the economy of the young state. Texas was the army's largest--and most costly--engagement, absorbing up to thirty percent of the total operating budget and channeling that currency into the commercial development of its frontier. Smith expands on historian Robert Wooster's theory that the military was engaged in an alliance with the political authority in Texas, and using documents such as army contracts for freighting, foraging, and fort leasing, he illustrates how federal fiscal activity spurred commercial growth for the citizens of Texas. Besides the obvious development of towns on the skirts of military bases and of roads between them, the establishment of military spending as a bedrock of the Texas economy and the protector of middle class interests shaped the future of the state's commercial prosperity. Writing with exceptional detail and clarity, Smith traces the emergence of the army's influence and includes analyses of information on army spending and development such as the introduction of army weather and telegraph services to the state, as well as accounts of real estate transactions involving the fort building program. Smith also accounts for army failures, maintaining that no one was truly prepared for the reality of western expansion. As an examination of the complex yet mutually beneficial economic relationship between the nation and the state, The U.S. Army and the Texas Frontier Economy, 1845-1900 is ideal for anyone interested in the early days of the state as well as in U.S. military and frontier history.

Download or read book San Antonio written by Char Miller and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first general history of San Antonio, Texas, the seventh largest city in the nation. Its past is complex and ranges across 300 years, from the community’s origins as a tiny Spanish frontier town to its contemporary status as a vital American mega-city. Site of some of the most violent struggles between warring empires and people—historians believe San Antonio may be the most fought-over city in U.S. history—it is perhaps most celebrated for the iconic 1836 Battle of the Alamo. The city is also home to four beautifully restored Spanish missions, which in 2015 UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site and have become integral to San Antonio’s robust tourist economy along with the fabled River Walk. This study weaves together a series of environmental, social, political, and cultural pressures that have shaped life in the Alamo City over the last three centuries. Residents have long fought to protect and utilize water and other resources even as they have struggled to achieve equal rights and build a more open and democratic society. Activists from all sectors of this multicultural city have believed deeply in its promise even though they have had to push hard to secure and expand its potential. Their efforts were every bit as intense in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as they have been in the twenty-first. Written for a general audience, but with a scholarly attention to detail and nuance, San Antonio: A Tricentennial History immerses readers in the city’s fascinating and fraught past.

Download or read book Fighting for Uncle Sam written by John P. Langellier and published by Schiffer + ORM. This book was released on 2016-02-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exciting general history of the first generation of blacks to serve in the US Army Rousing narrative and accompanying images bring to life over a century of African American military history Combines a half century of combing public and private collections across the nation

Download or read book Springs of Texas written by Gunnar M. Brune and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.

Download or read book Forts of the American Frontier 1820 91 written by Ron Field and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early decades of the 19th century, the Southern Plains of the North American continent were only occasionally visited by explorers, trappers, traders, and missionaries. The first trading posts and forts were built then, such as Adobe Walls in the panhandle of North Texas, and Tubac Presidio in New Mexico. During the 1840s, when the 'Great American Desert' became the scene of an inexorable westward expansion, European pioneers and settlers flooded overland from the eastern seaboard. As they headed west, these settlers invaded and absorbed the traditional lands of the Native American. Via a series of Acts passed by Congress, many members of the Five Civilized Tribes (the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole) were moved to reservations. It was hoped that a Permanent Indian Frontier guarded by a line of military forts would separate the Indian from the 'white man' forever. Numerous posts were built to police the southern end of this frontier between 1820 and 1840. Following the establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836, and the Mexican War of 1846-48, the lands and wealth then acquired lured many more migrants to the Southwest. The resulting trails first breached and then destroyed the Permanent Indian Frontier. The US Government constructed a line of forts on the Texan frontier in 1848-49 to protect traders and settlers. This chain, which included forts Graham, Worth, Gates, Crogham, Inge and Duncan, extended for more than 800 miles. In 1850-52 it became necessary to erect another line of posts 200 miles further west, in order to keep pace with the rapidly advancing frontier and protect against the marauding Kiowas and Comanches. To combat constant Apache and Navajo raids, a network of posts was built in New Mexico throughout the remainder of 1850s. During the Civil War, the Texan forts seized and occupied by Confederate forces came under regular attack from marauding Indians. Also, in 1864, Kiowa and Comanche attacks on Santa Fe wagontrains on the borders of New Mexico Territory prompted a punitive expedition led by Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson which led to the First Battle of Adobe Walls. This book is a detailed exploration of the design and development and operational histories of all of these forts and defensive systems.

Download or read book Faded Glory written by Thomas E. Alexander and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each of the wars fought by Texans spawned the creation of scores of military sites across the state, from the lonely frontier outpost at Adobe Walls to the once-bustling World War II shipyards of Orange. Today, although vestiges of the sites still exist, many are barely discernible, their once-proud martial trappings now faded by time, neglect, the elements and, most of all, public apathy. ?In Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, Thomas E. Alexander and Dan K. Utley revisit twenty-nine sites—many of them largely forgotten—associated with what was arguably the most tumultuous hundred-year period in a five-century span of Texas history.? Whether in the war with Mexico, the American Civil War, in clashes between Indians and the frontier army, or in two worldwide conflicts fought on foreign shores, Texas and Texans have often answered the call to arms. Beginning in 1845 and continuing through 1945, the Lone Star State and its people were fully involved in seven major conflicts. ?In this thoroughly researched and absorbing guide, Alexander and Utley recount the full story of the sites from their days of fame to the present. Comparing historic sketches, paintings, and period photographs of the original installations with recent photographs, they illustrate how time has dealt with these important places. Providing maps to aid readers in locating each site, the authors close with a resounding call for preservation and interpretation for future generations. ?The descriptions and images restore, at least in the mind’s eye, a touch of vitality and color to these forgotten and disappearing sites. Thanks to Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, both the traveler and the armchair tourist can recover a sense of these places and events that did so much to shape the military history of Texas.

Download or read book Standing in the Gap written by Loyd Uglow and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Large military posts have been examined in detail in numerous books written about the Texas frontier, but the importance of smaller outposts and picket stations has been generally overlooked. In Standing in the Gap, Loyd M. Uglow examines these smaller outposts in relation to the larger forts that controlled them and explores their significance in military strategy and the pacification of the frontier. The army's role in the settlement of West Texas has been, until now, explained through biographies of prominent officers and histories of both Indian campaigns and the larger forts. With only passing mention of outposts such as Grierson's Spring, Van Horn's Wells, and Pecos Station in these texts, the stories of minor posts have gone, for the most part, untold.".