Download or read book The Old Army in Texas written by Thomas Ty Smith and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-27 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Old Army in Texas, U.S. Army officer and historian Thomas "Ty" Smith presents a comprehensive and authoritative single-source reference for the activities of the regular army in the Lone Star State during the nineteenth century. Beginning with a series of maps that sketch the evolution of fort locations on the frontier, Smith furnishes an overview with his introductory essay, "U.S. Army Combat Operations in the Indian Wars of Texas, 1849–1881." Reprinted from the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Smith's essay breaks new ground in an innovative analysis of the characteristics of army tactical methods and the nature of combat on the Texas frontier, introducing a unique historical model and methodology to examine the army-Indians conflicts. The second part of this guide, "Commanders and Organization, Department of Texas, 1848–1900," lists the departmental commanders, the location of the military headquarters, and the changes in the administrative organization and military titles for Texas. Part III, "U.S. Army Sites in Texas 1836–1900," provides a dictionary of 223 posts, forts, and camps in the state. It is the most extensive inventory published to date, including essential information on all of the major forts, as well as dozens of obscure sites such as Camp Las Laxas, Camp Ricketts, and Camp Lugubrious. The fourth part, "Post Garrisons, 1836–1900," gives a year by year snapshot of total army strength in the state, the regiments assigned, and the garrisons and commanders of each major fort and camp. Supplying the only such synopsis of its kind, the "Summary of U.S. Army Combat Actions in the Texas Indian Wars, 1849–1881," the guide's Part V, offers a chronological description of 224 U.S. Army combat actions in the Indian Wars with vivid details of each engagement. The 900 entries in the selected bibliography of Part VI are divided topically into sections on biographical sources and regimental histories, histories of forts, garrison life, civil-military relations, the Mexican War, and frontier operations. In addition to being a helpful catalog of standard histories, there are two important and unusual aspects to the bibliography. It contains a complete range of primary source microfilm material from the National Archives, including the roll numbers of specific periods of forts and units; and secondly, the bibliography integrates nearly all of the published archeological reports into the section on fort histories. The Old Army in Texas is an indispensable reference and research tool for students, scholars, and military history aficionados. It will be of great value to those interested in Texas history, especially military history and local and regional studies. This superb reference work is illustrated with a number of maps and rare photographs of the U.S. Army in nineteenth century Texas.
Download or read book The Old Army in the Big Bend of Texas written by Thomas Ty Smith and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even before Pancho Villa’s 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, and the following punitive expedition under General John J. Pershing, the U.S. Army was strengthening its presence on the southwestern border in response to the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Manning forty-one small outposts along a three-hundred mile stretch of the Rio Grande region, the army remained for a decade, rotating eighteen different regiments, primarily cavalry, until the return of relative calm. The remote, rugged, and desolate terrain of the Big Bend defied even the technological advances of World War I, and it remained very much a cavalry and pack mule operation until the outposts were finally withdrawn in 1921. With The Old Army in the Big Bend of Texas: The Last Cavalry Frontier, 1911–1921, Thomas T. “Ty” Smith, one of Texas’s leading military historians, has delved deep into the records of the U.S. Army to provide an authoritative portrait, richly complemented by many photos published here for the first time, of the final era of soldiers on horseback in the American West.
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 Ante Bellum written by William Hemphill Bell and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Old Army written by Edward M. Coffman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1986 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of America's leading military historians, this vivid study draws on letters, diaries, and other primary documents to recreate the world of the peacetime army during the 19th century.
Download or read book Soldiers of the Old Army written by Victor Vogel and published by Williams-Ford Texas A&M Univer. This book was released on 1990 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The all-volunteer army served the country as professional soldiers for reasons of patriotism or adventure or even economics, since monthly pay of twenty-one dollars was to some men better than nothing and better than charity. Many men reenlisted time and time again. Whether a private was stationed in Texas or New Jersey for his three-year hitch, he first had basic training, the length of which varied according to how long it took each soldier to master the fundamental skills of the infantryman. If an enlisted man grew tired of the disciplined life where he had no responsibility except to follow basic orders, he could purchase an honorable discharge. If he couldn't come up with the cash from his twenty-one dollar pay envelope or winnings from poker or dice, he could go AWOL and after ninety days the army would simply remove the soldier from the rolls with a court-martial in absentia and a dishonorable discharge.
Download or read book The Old Army written by James Parker and published by . This book was released on 1929 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memoirs of Brigadier General James Parker who, upon graduating from West Point, reported to Fort Sill in 1876 to fight the Indians. There is considerable information on the Kiowas and the Comanches and material on Ranald MacKenzie, buffalo hunts, the Ute campaign, the Navajos, the Geronimo outbreak, the Geronimo campaign, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine insurrection, military forts, etc. The memoirs are of importance as the lives of many military officers, who later went on to military prominence are discussed. The author also deals with the outlaws Babe Mahardy and Jim and John Anderson.
Download or read book Sea of Mud written by Gregg J. Dimmick and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two forgotten weeks in 1836 and one of the most consequential events of the entire Texas Revolution have been missing from the historical record - the tale of the Mexican army's misfortunes in the aptly named Sea of Mud, where more than 2,500 Mexican soldiers and 1,500 female camp followers foundered in the muddy fields of what is now Wharton County, Texas. In 1996 a pediatrician and avocational archeologist living in Wharton, Texas, decided to try to find evidence in Wharton County of the Mexican army of 1836. Following some preliminary research at the Wharton County Junior College Library, he focused his search on the area between the San Bernard and West Bernard rivers.Within two weeks after beginning the search for artifacts, a Mexican army site was discovered, and, with the help of the Houston Archeological Society, excavated.
Download or read book Five Years a Cavalryman Or Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier Twenty Odd Years Ago written by H. H. McConnell and published by . This book was released on 1888 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal narrative of army life from approximately 1867-1871. Includes appendices: The cowboy's verdict, by R.G. Carter (pages 301-306) and Cattle-thieving in Texas, by WWW (pages 307-313).
Download or read book The Reminiscences of Major General Zenas R Bliss 1854 1876 written by Zenas Randall Bliss and published by Texas State Historical Assn. This book was released on 2007 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Reminiscences" of Maj. Gen. Zenas R. Bliss are a remarkably detailed account of his army service in Texas before and after the Civil War. Many scholars consider Bliss's recollections to be one of the best from a soldier of the "Old Army." It has become a staple primary resource for Texas frontier research for the last three decades. Bliss's memoirs serve as a rare and important window into Texas' military, political, cultural, and geographical history. The memoirs cover Bliss's graduation at West Point in 1854, his antebellum service at Fort Duncan, Camp Hudson, and Fort Davis, as well as his return to the Texas frontier in 1870, and end with his duties at Fort Davis in 1876. Details also describe his capture by Texas Confederate forces in 1861, his tribulations as a prisoner of war, and his subsequent Civil War experiences as a Union regimental commander at Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg, where he was at the battle of the Crater. For gallantry at Fredericksburg, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. While commanding buffalo soldiers at Fort Duncan in 1870, Bliss conceived the idea of enlisting Seminole-Negro Indians from Mexico as army scouts. After successfully lobbying the departmental commander and the War Department for approval, Bliss formed the first band of Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts in August of 1870. The unit served the army with extraordinary devotion and distinction until 1912. Bliss served in Texas longer than any other army officer (twenty-three years) and rose in rank from second lieutenant to departmental commander. Possessing a keen sense of humor, an eye for detail, and a boisterous social nature, his lively account of the people and places of the antebellum and post-Civil War Texas frontier is among the very best of Texas history.
Download or read book Army Camels written by Doris Fisher and published by Pelican Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE SCBWI CRYSTAL KITEWINNER OF THE WRITER'S LEAGUE OF TEXAS PICTURE BOOK AWARD. The U.S. Army's oddest recruits: Camels! In this strange but true historical tale, 34 camels were imported to Texas to work as pack animals for the army in 1856. Many people had never seen such strange animals; they didn't believe that these smelly beasts could possibly be useful. Despite many Texans' initial doubts, the camels thrived in the state's desert and transported important military messages and supplies.
Download or read book The Old Sergeant s Story written by John B. Charlton and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Under the Double Eagle written by Thomas T. Smith and published by Texas State Historical Assn. This book was released on 2023-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first detailed study of its kind, Col. (Ret.) Thomas T. "Ty" Smith, known for his extensive research and writing on the U.S. Army in Texas, presents an in-depth examination of the civilian employees of the U.S. Army in the nineteenth century. Under the Double Eagle: Citizen Employees of the U.S. Army on the Texas Frontier, 1846-1899 reflects the fact that citizens employed by the frontier army in Texas came under the impact of two symbolic eagles. The first was the eagle impressed into gilt buttons on the uniforms of the army officers for whom they labored. The second was the double eagle twenty-dollar gold piece they often received at the pay table, especially in the antebellum era when all army wages were paid in hard coin rather than paper. Those two eagles had a lasting impact on the Texas frontier. Between 1846 and 1899, the U.S. Army in Texas issued more than $3 million in wages to citizen employees. Smith offers a detailed accounting of these wages, but his primary interest is in the people. After an introductory essay providing an overview, historical context, and demographic profiles, the author examines post by post the 111 army forts, camps, and stations documenting a civilian employee. He provides a brief history of each post, the names of the individuals employed, and where possible the position, wage, and length of employment. Altogether Smith names 1,721 army employees, and sample biographies demonstrate the diversity of the characters involved. Included among these employees are 309 contact civilian physicians. In the appendix, Smith offers biographies of 180 of these contract doctors who greatly contributed to the advance of medicine in Texas. This work will be of importance to historians, to the general public with an interest in Texas history or Texas medicine, and especially genealogists.
Download or read book The Army of the Republic of Texas written by Joseph Hefter and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Texas and World War I written by Gregory W. Ball and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On November 11, 1918, what was then called “the Great War” ended. The consequences of four years of warfare in Europe reverberated throughout the world, leaving few places untouched. Even though it was far from the scenes of conflict, Texas was forever changed, as historian Gregory W. Ball details in Texas and World War I. This accessible history recounts the ways in which the war affected Texas and Texans politically, socially, and economically. Texas’s position on the United States border with Mexico and on the western edge of the American South profoundly influenced the ways in which the war affected the state, from fears of invasion from the across the Rio Grande—fears that put the state’s significant German American population under suspicion—to the racial tensions that flared when African American soldiers challenged Jim Crow. When thousands of Texas men were drafted into the U.S. Army and the federal government developed a host of training grounds and airfields (many close to the state’s burgeoning cities) in response to U.S. entry into the war, this heavily rural state that had long been outside the national mainstream was had become more “American” than ever before.
Download or read book Five Years a Cavalryman written by H. H. McConnell and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Five Years a Cavalryman: Or Sketches of Regular Army Life on the Texas Frontier, Twenty Odd Years Ago About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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.
