In Nathan Jennings’ Riding for the Lone Star: Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822-1865, (University of North Texas Press, $32.95), readers get the San Jacinto campaign, Comanche raiders, Texas Rangers and the Mexican and Civil wars, all in one volume. With a cast of legendary Western characters such as John Coffee Hays, John Salmon Ford, Ben McCulloch and Edward Burleson, and supporting players who include Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, Sam Houston, Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott and even Robert E. Lee, the author weaves a tale of frontier violence largely around the origin and operations of the Texas Rangers before it became primarily a law enforcement agency. Jennings’ strongest argument is that the Rangers’ success against Indians, Mexicans and Yankees was due to employment of superior weaponry (Colt revolvers and American long rifles) and mounted mobility.
—Blaine P. Lamb, author of The Extraordinary Life of Charles Pomeroy Stone: Soldier, Surveyor, Pasha, Engineer
– Courtesy North Texas University Press –
Related Articles
-
In 1952, Haley’s excellent Fort Concho was published in a short press run that guaranteed…
-
The history of the Texas Rangers is the story of real people surrounded by the…
-
Justice as meted out on the frontier still has a strange appeal at times, and…
