Download or read book TEXIAN MACABRE written by STEPHEN L. HARDIN and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Texian Macabre written by Stephen L. Hardin and published by TX A&m-McWhiney Foundation. This book was released on 2013-03-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mandred Wood may have caught a glint off the Bowie knife that sank into his belly--but probably not. On the afternoon of November 11, 1837, he had exchanged "harsh epithets" with David James Jones, a hero of the Texas Revolution. When words failed, Jones closed the argument with his blade. Such affrays were common in Houston, the fledgling capital of the Republic of Texas. This one, however, was singular. Wood was a gentleman and Jones a member of a disruptive gang of vagrants that the upper crust denounced as the "rowdy loafers." Jones went to jail; Wood went to his grave. In the weeks that followed, the killing resounded throughout the squalid, verminous city that one resident described as the "most miserable place in the world." Stephen L. Hardin's suspenseful and witty narrative reads like a contemporary page-turner, yet all is carefully documented history. He entwines the murder into the story of the sordid city like the strands of a hangman's rope. It is an astonishing tale peopled by remarkable characters: the one-armed newspaper editor and political candidate who employs the crime to advance his sanctimonious agenda; the Kentucky lawyer who enjoys champagne breakfasts and collecting human skulls; the German immigrant who sees rats gnaw the finger off an infant lying in his cradle; the Alamo widow whose circumstances force her to practice the oldest profession; the sociopathic physician who slaughters an innocent man in a duel; the Methodist minister horrified by the drunken debaucheries of government officials; and the president himself--the Sword of San Jacinto-- who during a besotted bacchanal strips to his underwear. Skillfully conceived and masterfully written, Texian Macabre: A Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston will transport readers to a lost time and place.

Download or read book Texian Macabre written by Stephen L. Hardin and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mandred Wood may have caught a glint off the Bowie knife that sank into his belly--but probably not. On the afternoon of November 11, 1837, he had exchanged "harsh epithets" with David James Jones, a hero of the Texas Revolution. When words failed, Jones closed the argument with his blade. Such affrays were common in Houston, the fledgling capital of the Republic of Texas. This one, however, was singular. Wood was a gentleman and Jones a member of a disruptive gang of vagrants that the upper crust denounced as the "rowdy loafers." Jones went to jail; Wood went to his grave. In the weeks that followed, the killing resounded throughout the squalid, verminous city that one resident described as the "most miserable place in the world." Stephen L. Hardin's suspenseful and witty narrative reads like a contemporary page-turner, yet all is carefully documented history. He entwines the murder into the story of the sordid city like the strands of a hangman's rope. It is an astonishing tale peopled by remarkable characters: the one-armed newspaper editor and political candidate who employs the crime to advance his sanctimonious agenda; the Kentucky lawyer who enjoys champagne breakfasts and collecting human skulls; the German immigrant who sees rats gnaw the finger off an infant lying in his cradle; the Alamo widow whose circumstances force her to practice the oldest profession; the sociopathic physician who slaughters an innocent man in a duel; the Methodist minister horrified by the drunken debaucheries of government officials; and the president himself--the Sword of San Jacinto-- who during a besotted bacchanal strips to his underwear. Skillfully conceived and masterfully written, Texian Macabre: A Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston will transport readers to a lost time and place.

Download or read book Texian Exodus written by Stephen L. Hardin and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As the Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande in early 1836, communities in the south-central portions of Texas began to leave the area. After the Alamo fell in March of 1836, Sam Houston dispatched couriers to carry the news across Texas. Frightened Texians used any means of transportation, or none at all, to leave, often without any preparation. The mass evacuation congealed as groups, including soldiers, helped one another toward the Sabine River (the border with Louisiana) or Galveston Island. On April 21, 1836, the retreating Texian army doubled back and surprised Santa Anna's forces while they were at rest, routing the Mexicans and essentially securing Texas's independence. The "Runaway Scrape," as it came to be known, ended when news of the decisive battle at San Jacinto spread, announcing Texas's separation from Mexico. First-hand accounts by the Anglo-American colonists, Tejano residents, and enslaved people provide the backbone of the narrative, bolstered with original interpretation and analysis"--

Download or read book The Texas Rangers written by Chuck Parsons and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Texas Rangers. The words evoke exciting images of daring, courage, high adventure. The Rangers began as a handful of men protecting their homes from savage raiding parties; now in their third century of existence, they are a highly sophisticated crime-fighting organization. Yet at times even today the Texas Ranger mounts his horse to track fugitives through dense chaparral, depending on his wits more than technology. The iconic image of the Texas Ranger is of a man who is tall, unflinching, and dedicated to doing a difficult job no matter what the odds. The Rangers of the 21st century are different sizes, colors, and genders, but remain as vital and real today as when they were created in the horseback days of 1823, when what is today Texas was part of Mexico, a wild and untamed land.

Download or read book Texan Identities written by Light Townsend Cummins and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texan Identities rests on the assumption that Texas has distinctive identities that define “what it means to be Texan,” and that these identities flow from myth and memory. Each contributor to this volume provides in some fashion an answer to the following questions: What does it mean to be Texan? What constitutes a Texas identity and how may such change over time? What myths, memories, and fallacies contribute to making a Texas identity, and how have these changed for Texas? Are all the myths and memories that define Texas identity true or are some of them fallacious? Is there more than one Texas identity? Many Texans do believe the story of their state’s development manifesting singular, unique attributes, which are prone to expression as stereotypical, iconic representations of what it means to be Texan. Each of the essays in this volume addresses particular events, places, and people in Texas history and how they are related to Texas identity, myth, and memory. The discussion begins with the idealized narrative and icons revolving around the Texas Revolution, most especially the Alamo. The Texas Rangers in myth and memory are also explored. Other essays expand on traditional and increasingly outdated interpretations of the Anglo-American myth of Texas by considering little known roles played by women, racial minorities, and specific stereotypes such as the cattleman.

Download or read book Mennonites in Texas written by Laura L. Camden and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With their distinctive head coverings, plain dress, and quiet, unassuming demeanor, the Mennonites are a distinctive presence within the often flamboyant and proud people of Texas. If you have seen them at a gas station, in a grocery store, or even at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, you have probably taken note and wondered how they came to be there. In this photographic tour of two Texas Mennonite communities, separated by almost 450 miles, Laura L. Camden and Susan Gaetz Duarte introduce you to the Beachy Amish Mennonites of Lott, a small community of approximately 160 people in Central Texas, and the very different Mennonites of Seminole, a West Texas farming community of more than five thousand residents and five separate congregations, several of which still speak the Mennonite Low German. Spending more than a year getting to know the families, participating in day-to-day activities, and photographing the unique culture of the communities, Camden and Gaetz Duarte developed deep insight into not just the religious beliefs but the family relationships, role expectations, and daily routines of these people. Through their camera lenses, they offer others a touchingly intimate view of a unique lifestyle seldom experienced by outsiders. In a foreword, former governor Ann Richards identifies the book as part of both the long photographic tradition in Texas and the tradition of cultural and religious diversity in the state. Mark L. Louden's introduction provides the historical backgrounds of Mennonites in Europe, their core beliefs, and their development into branches in North America. Dennis Carlyle Darling offers insightful comments on the photography that allows an intimate, respectful view of the people, their lifestyle, and their culture.

Download or read book Single Star of the West written by Kenneth W. Howell and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Texas’s experience as a republic make it unique among the other states? In many ways, Texas was an “accidental republic” for nearly ten years, until Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States after winning independence from Mexico. Single Star of the West chronicles Texas’s efforts to maneuver through the pitfalls and hardships of creating and maintaining the “accidental republic.” The volume begins with the Texas Revolution and examines whether or not a true Texas identity emerged during the Republic era. Next, several contributors discuss how the Republic was defended by its army, navy, and the Texas Rangers. Individual chapters focus on the early founders of Texas—Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Anson Jones—who were all exceptional men, but like all men, suffered from their own share of fears and faults. Texas’s efforts at diplomacy, and persistence and transformation in its economy, also receive careful analysis. Finally, social and cultural aspects of the Texas Republic receive coverage, with discussions of women, American Indians, African Americans, Tejanos, and religion. The contributors also focus on the extent that conditions in the republic attracted political and economic opportunists, some of whom achieved a remarkable degree of success. Single Star of the West also highlights how the Texas Republic was established on American political ideology. With the majority of the white settlers coming from the United States, this will not surprise many scholars of the era. In some cases, the Texans successfully adopted American political and economic ideology to their needs, while other times they failed miserably.

Download or read book Inside the Texas Revolution written by James E. Crisp and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herman Ehrenberg wrote the longest, most complete, and most vivid memoir of any soldier in the Texan revolutionary army. His narrative was published in Germany in 1843, but it was little used by Texas historians until the twentieth century, when the first—and very problematic—attempts at translation into English were made. Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg is a product of the translation skills of the late Louis E. Brister with the assistance of James C. Kearney, both noted specialists on Germans in Texas. The volume’s editor, James E. Crisp, has spent much of the last 27 years solving many of the mysteries that still surrounded Ehrenberg’s life. It was Crisp who discovered that Ehrenberg lived in the Texas Republic until at least 1840, and spent the spring of that year as ranger on the frontier. Ehrenberg was not a historian, but an ordinary citizen whose narrative of the Texas Revolution contains both spectacular eyewitness accounts of action and almost mythologized versions of major events that he did not witness himself. This volume points out where Ehrenberg is lying or embellishing, explains why he is doing so, and narrates the actual relevant facts as far as they can be determined. Ehrenberg’s book is both a testament by a young Texan “everyman” who presents a laudatory paean to the Texan cause, and a German’s explanation of Texas and its “fight for freedom” against Mexico to his fellow Germans—with a powerful subtext that patriotic Germans should aspire to a similar struggle, and a similar outcome: a free, democratic republic.

Download or read book Big Wonderful Thing written by Stephen Harrigan and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. “I couldn’t believe Texas was real,” the painter Georgia O’Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, “the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas’s evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists—all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas.

Download or read book Murder Mayhem in Houston written by Mike Vance and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Houston, we have a problem. The largest city in Texas has a wild west past filled with dodgy criminals and murderous madmen. When the Allen brothers sold Houston’s first lots, the city became a magnet for enterprising tycoons and opportunistic crooks alike. As the young city grew, a scourge of crime and vice accompanied the success of oil and real estate. The Bayou City’s seedy side—flashing Bowie knives, privileged bad boys, hardened prostitutes and unchecked serial killers—established its hold. From a young Clyde Barrow to the Man Who Killed Halloween, Houston’s past is filled with bloody tales, heartbreaking loss and despicable deeds. Authors Mike Vance and John Nova Lomax shine a light on these dark days. Includes photos!

Download or read book Vengeance is Mine written by Bill Neal and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1912 Boyce-Sneed feud in West Texas began with Lena Snyder Sneed, the headstrong wife; Al Boyce, Jr., Lena's reckless lover; and John Beal Sneed, Lena's vindictive husband, who responded to Lena's plea for a divorce by locking her in an insane asylum. The lovers escaped to Canada, but Sneed assassinated Al's unarmed father, and eventually killed Al Boyce, Jr., who had returned to Texas.

Download or read book Discovering Texas History written by Bruce A. Glasrud and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to Texas historiography of the past quarter-century, this volume of original essays will be an invaluable resource and definitive reference for teachers, students, and researchers of Texas history. Conceived as a follow-up to the award-winning A Guide to the History of Texas (1988), Discovering Texas History focuses on the major trends in the study of Texas history since 1990. In two sections, arranged topically and chronologically, some of the most prominent authors in the field survey the major works and most significant interpretations in the historical literature. Topical essays take up historical themes ranging from Native Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans, and women in Texas to European immigrant history; literature, the visual arts, and music in the state; and urban and military history. Chronological essays cover the full span of Texas historiography from the Spanish era through the Civil War, to the Progressive Era and World Wars I and II, and finally to the early twenty-first century. Critical commentary on particular books and articles is the unifying purpose of these contributions, whose authors focus on analyzing and summarizing the subjects that have captured the attention of professional historians in recent years. Together the essays gathered here will constitute the standard reference on Texas historiography for years to come, guiding readers and researchers to future, ever deeper discoveries in the history of Texas.

Download or read book Seeds of Empire written by Andrew J. Torget and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the late 1810s, a global revolution in cotton had remade the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing wealth and waves of Americans to the Gulf Coast while also devastating the lives and villages of Mexicans in Texas. In response, Mexico threw open its northern territories to American farmers in hopes that cotton could bring prosperity to the region. Thousands of Anglo-Americans poured into Texas, but their insistence that slavery accompany them sparked pitched battles across Mexico. An extraordinary alliance of Anglos and Mexicans in Texas came together to defend slavery against abolitionists in the Mexican government, beginning a series of fights that culminated in the Texas Revolution. In the aftermath, Anglo-Americans rebuilt the Texas borderlands into the most unlikely creation: the first fully committed slaveholders' republic in North America. Seeds of Empire tells the remarkable story of how the cotton revolution of the early nineteenth century transformed northeastern Mexico into the western edge of the United States, and how the rise and spectacular collapse of the Republic of Texas as a nation built on cotton and slavery proved to be a blueprint for the Confederacy of the 1860s.

Download or read book Texas Lithographs written by Ron Tyler and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Westward expansion in the United States was deeply intertwined with the technological revolutions of the nineteenth century, from telegraphy to railroads. Among the most important of these, if often forgotten, was the lithograph. Before photography became a dominant medium, lithography—and later, chromolithography—enabled inexpensive reproduction of color illustrations, transforming journalism and marketing and nurturing, for the first time, a global visual culture. One of the great subjects of the lithography boom was an emerging Euro-American colony in the Americas: Texas. The most complete collection of its kind—and quite possibly the most complete visual record of nineteenth-century Texas, period—Texas Lithographs is a gateway to the history of the Lone Star State in its most formative period. Ron Tyler assembles works from 1818 to 1900, many created by outsiders and newcomers promoting investment and settlement in Texas. Whether they depict the early French colony of Champ d’Asile, the Republic of Texas, and the war with Mexico, or urban growth, frontier exploration, and the key figures of a nascent Euro-American empire, the images collected here reflect an Eden of opportunity—a fairy-tale dream that remains foundational to Texans’ sense of self and to the world’s sense of Texas.

Download or read book Foreign Fighters written by David Malet and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In conflict zones around the world, the phenomenon of foreign insurgents fighting on behalf of local rebel groups is a common occurrence. They have been an increasing source of concern because they engage in deadlier attacks than local fighters do. They also violate international laws and norms of citizenship. And because of their zeal, their adversaries - often the most powerful countries in the world - are frequently incapable of deterring them. Foreign fighters have made headlines in recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, and the term is widely equated with militant Islamists. However, foreign fighters are not a new phenomenon. Throughout modern history, outside combatants have fought on behalf of causes ranging from international communism to aggrieved ethnic groups. Analyzing the long history of foreign fighters in the modern era helps us understand why they join insurgencies, what drives their behavior, and what policymakers can do in response. In Foreign Fighters, David Malet examines how insurgencies recruit individuals from abroad who would seem to have no direct connection to a distant war. Remarkably, the same recruiting strategies have been employed successfully in all foreign fighter cases, regardless of the particular circumstances of a conflict. Malet also catalogues foreign fighters in civil wars over the past two centuries, providing data indicating that they are disproportionately successful and growing in number. Detailed case histories constructed from archival material and original interviews demonstrate the same recruitment patterns in highly diverse conflicts including the Texas Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Israeli War of Independence, and the Afghanistan War. The results show that foreign fighters from Davy Crockett to George Orwell to Osama bin Laden create and respond to strategically crafted appeals to defend transnational communities under dire threat.

Download or read book Revolution in Texas written by Benjamin Heber Johnson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Revolution in Texas, Benjamin Johnson tells the little-known story of one of the most intense and protracted episodes of racial violence in United States history. In 1915, against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, the uprising that would become known as the Plan de San Diego began with a series of raids by ethnic Mexicans on ranches and railroads. Local violence quickly erupted into a regional rebellion. In response, vigilante groups and the Texas Rangers staged an even bloodier counterinsurgency, culminating in forcible relocations and mass executions. eventually collapsed. But, as Johnson demonstrates, the rebellion resonated for decades in American history. Convinced of the futility of using force to protect themselves against racial discrimination and economic oppression, many Mexican Americans elected to seek protection as American citizens with equal access to rights and protections under the US Constitution.