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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 199 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 History of Fort Davis Texas written by Robert Wooster and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Old Army in Texas written by Thomas Ty Smith and published by Texas State Historical Assn. This book was released on 2020 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic work in Texas military history, The Old Army in Texas is now available in paperback with a new foreword by Robert Wooster. 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. The second part of this guide lists the departmental commanders, the location of the military headquarters, and the changes in the administrative organization and military titles for Texas. Part III provides a dictionary of 223 posts, forts, and camps in the state. The fourth part 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 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. 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 Riding for the Lone Star written by Nathan A. Jennings and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of Texas was forged in the crucible of frontier warfare between 1822 and 1865, when Anglo-Americans adapted to mounted combat north of the Rio Grande. This cavalry-centric arena, which had long been the domain of Plains Indians and the Spanish Empire, compelled an adaptive martial tradition that shaped early Lone Star society. Beginning with initial tactical innovation in Spanish Tejas and culminating with massive mobilization for the Civil War, Texas society developed a distinctive way of war defined by armed horsemanship, volunteer militancy, and short-term mobilization as it grappled with both tribal and international opponents. Drawing upon military reports, participants' memoirs, and government documents, cavalry officer Nathan A. Jennings analyzes the evolution of Texan militarism from tribal clashes of colonial Tejas, territorial wars of the Texas Republic, the Mexican-American War, border conflicts of antebellum Texas, and the cataclysmic Civil War. In each conflict Texan volunteers answered the call to arms with marked enthusiasm for mounted combat. Riding for the Lone Star explores this societal passion--with emphasis on the historic rise of the Texas Rangers--through unflinching examination of territorial competition with Comanches, Mexicans, and Unionists. Even as statesmen Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston emerged as influential strategic leaders, captains like Edward Burleson, John Coffee Hays, and John Salmon Ford attained fame for tactical success.
Download or read book Nine Years Among the Indians 1870 1879 written by Herman Lehmann and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1927 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Remember Goliad written by Craig H. Roell and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Sam Houston's revolutionary soldiers won the Battle of San Jacinto and secured independence for Texas, their battle cry was "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" Everyone knows about the Alamo, but far fewer know about the stirring events at Goliad. Craig Roell's lively new study of Goliad brings to life this most important Texas community. Though its population has never exceeded two thousand, Goliad has been an important site of Texas history since Spanish colonial days. It is the largest town in the county of the same name, which was one of the original counties of Texas created in 1836 and was named for the vast territory that was governed as the municipality of Goliad under the Republic of Mexico. Goliad offers one of the most complete examples of early Texas courthouse squares, and has been listed as a historic preservation district on the National Register. But the sites that forever etched this sleepy Texas town into historical consciousness are those made infamous by two of the most controversial episodes of the entire Texas Revolution—the Fannin Battleground at nearby Coleto Creek, and Nuestra Señora de Loreto (popularly called Presidio La Bahía), site of the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. This book tells the sad tale of James Fannin and his men who fought the Mexican forces, surrendered with the understanding that they would be treated as prisoners of war, and then under orders from Santa Anna were massacred. Like the men who died for Texas independence at the Alamo, the nearly 350 men who died at Goliad became a rallying cry. Both tragic stories became part of the air Texans breathe, but the same process that elevated Crockett, Bowie, Travis, and their Alamo comrades to heroic proportions has clouded Fannin in mystery and shadow. In Remember Goliad!, Craig Roell tells the history of the region and the famous battle there with clarity and precision. This exciting story is handsomely illustrated in a popular edition that will be of interest to scholars, students, and teachers.
Download or read book McKinney Falls written by Margaret Swett Henson and published by Fred Rider Cotten Popular Hist. This book was released on 1999 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McKinney Falls State Park, which lies across the Colorado River from Austin, is the 672-acre center of a 40,000 acre tract where Texas pioneer Thomas Freeman McKinney established his ranch. This carefully researched and well-written history relates the fascinating life story of the influential frontiersman and entrepreneur who lived and ranched at McKinney Falls. Born in Kentucky in 1801, McKinney led an adventuresome life on the early Texas frontier. In 1823, he and his cousin Phil Sublett left Missouri with a Santa Fe caravan. Finding the market there glutted, they took their goods on south to Chihuahua, Mexico. Returning through Saltillo and San Antonio, they stopped long enough in Stephen F. Austin's fledgling Texas colony for McKinney to claim a league of land. En route home, the men stopped in Nacogdoches where both young men settled and married. McKinney became a successful trader, eventually moving to the Brazos River valley, a jumping off point for his pack trains of cotton to Saltillo. Handy with a Kentucky rifle and fluent in Spanish, he traveled in Texas and Mexico as a businessman and made valuable contacts for the commission business he founded at the mouth of the Brazos in 1834. His firm of McKinney and Williams prospered and helped supply the Texas revolution in 1835-36. In 1837, McKinney and others founded the Galveston City Company. When he moved the McKinney & Williams commission house there, he became one of the wealthiest leaders of the new Republic. He was a power behind the political scenes, supporting Sam Houston, among others. After statehood, he served in the Texas House of Representatives. A Unionist like Houston in 1860, McKinney opposed secession, but when Texas left the Union, he reluctantly helped the struggling Confederacy. Eventually Confederate mismanagement and corruption ruined McKinney and he lost his fortune. When he died at McKinney Falls in 1871, after years of ranching and raising thoroughbred horses, Thomas F. McKinney had lived an eventful and influential life that spanned the entire early history of Texas.
