Rube Burrow was a prolific train robber in the 1880s and early 1890s ranging from Texas to Arkansas to Mississippi and Alabama. He ended his career with a cold-blooded murder that triggered a major manhunt. Rick Miller through diligent research has laid out the true story from primarary resources (see 456 endnotes) correcting many errors previously written about Burrow and his cohorts.

Rube Burrow, Desperado is the factual story of a prolific train robber in the 1880s and 1890s who briefly captured national attention through his daring deeds. His robberies ranged from Texas to Arkansas to Mississippi and Alabama, the state where he was raised. He topped off his criminal career with a cold-blooded murder that triggered a major manhunt. Burrow managed to pull off a number of amazing escapes from his pursuers, finally resulting in the inevitable violent end. Various writers attempted to write about him and his deeds, but often getting the facts wrong. Through diligent research, Rick Miller has laid out the true story from primary sources, correcting the many errors written about Burrow and his cohorts. While Burrow did not achieve the lasting notoriety of Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, or Billy the Kid, his story is as exciting and interesting as his outlaw counterparts.

For over a year, Railroad Bill eluded sheriffs, private detectives hired by the L&N line, and bounty hunters who traveled across the country to match guns with the legendary desperado. The African American outlaw was wanted on multiple charges of robbery and murder, and rumor had it that he stole from the rich to give to the poor. He terrorized busy train lines from east of Mobile to the Florida Panhandle, but as soon as the lawmen got close, he disappeared into the bayous and pine forests--until one day his luck ran out, and he was gunned down inside a general store in Atmore, Alabama. Little is known about Railroad Bill before his infamy--not his real name or his origins. His first recorded crime, carrying a repeating rifle without a license, led him into a gunfight with a deputy and made him a wanted man throughout Florida in 1894. His most celebrated escape--a five-day foot chase with scores of men and several bloodhounds--led to tales of Railroad's supernatural ability to transmogrify into an animal or inanimate object at will. As his crimes progressed from robbing boxcars to wounding trainmen to murdering sheriffs, more and more reward money was offered for his capture--dead or alive. Today, Railroad Bill is the subject of many folk songs popularized by singers such as Paul McCartney, Taj Mahal, Gillian Welch, and Ramblin' Jack Elliot. But who was he? Where did he come from? What events led to his murderous spree? And why did some view him as a hero? In Railroad Bill, Larry Massey separates fact from myth and teases out elusive truths from tall tales to ultimately reveal the man behind the bandit's mask.

After the upheavals of the Civil War and Reconstruction shattered the plantation economy of the Old South, white southerners turned to the railroad to reconstruct capitalism in the region. Examining the rapid growth, systemization, and consolidation of the southern railroad network, R. Scott Huffard Jr. demonstrates how economic and political elites used the symbolic power of the railroad to proclaim a New South had risen. The railroad was more than just an economic engine of growth; it was a powerful symbol of capitalism's advance. However, as the railroad spread across the region, it also introduced new dangers and anxieties. White southerners came to fear the railroad would speed an upending of the racial order, epidemics of yellow fever, train wrecks, violent robberies, and domination by corporate monopolies. To complete the reconstruction of capitalism, railroad corporations and their allies had to sever the negative aspects of railroading from capitalism's powers and deny the railroad's transformative powers to black southerners. This study of the New South's experience with the growing railroad network provides valuable insights into the history of capitalism--how it evolves, expands, and overcomes resistance.

Many well-read students, historians, and loyal aficionados of Texas Ranger lore know the name of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones (1856-1893), who died on the Texas-Mexico border in a shootout with Mexican rustlers. In Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands, Bob Alexander has now penned the first full-length biography of this important nineteenth-century Texas Ranger. At an early age Frank Jones, a native Texan, would become a Frontier Battalion era Ranger. His enlistment with the Rangers coincided with their transition from Indian fighters to lawmen. While serving in the Frontier Battalion officers' corps of Company D, Frank Jones supervised three of the four "great" captains of that era: J.A. Brooks, John H. Rogers, and John R. Hughes. Besides Austin Ira Aten and his younger brothers Calvin Grant Aten and Edwin Dunlap Aten, Captain Jones also managed law enforcement activities of numerous other noteworthy Rangers, such as Philip Cuney "P.C." Baird, Benjamin Dennis Lindsey, Bazzell Lamar "Baz" Outlaw, J. Walter Durbin, Jim King, Frank Schmid, and Charley Fusselman, to name just a few. Frank Jones' law enforcing life was anything but boring. Not only would he find himself dodging bullets and returning fire, but those Rangers under his supervision would also experience gunplay. Of all the Texas Ranger companies, Company D contributed the highest number of on-duty deaths within Texas Ranger ranks.