This new study revolves around the Tonkawa tribe in the history of the Lone Star State and the greater Southwest. The chronological account allows readers to understand its triumphs and struggles over the course of a century or more, and places the story in a larger historical narrative of shifting alliances, cultural encounters and economic opportunity. From a coalition with the Lipan Apaches to the incorporation of Tonkawa scouts in the U.S. Army during the late nineteenth century, the author tells the story of these often overlooked people. By highlighting the role of the Tonkawas, Dr. McGowen provides a fresh appreciation of their influence in frontier history and renders their ultimate fate all the more heartbreaking. This book made possible in part by a grant from Summerfield G. Roberts Foundation.

"With a breadth and depth unsurpassed by any other cultural historian of the South, Lewis Simpson examines the writing of southerners Thomas Jefferson, John Randolph, Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, William Faulkner, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Arthur Crew Inman, William Styron, and Walker Percy. Simpson offers challenging essays of easy erudition blessedly free of academic jargon.... [They] do not propose to support an overall thesis, but simply explore the southern writer's unique relationship with his or her region, bereft of myth and tradition, in the grasp of science and history." -- Library Journal

Addressing everything from the details of everyday life to recreation and warfare, this two-volume work examines the social, political, intellectual, and material culture of the American "Old West," from the California Gold Rush of 1849 to the end of the 19th century. What was life really like for ordinary people in the Old West? What did they eat, wear, and think? How did they raise their children? How did they interact with government? What did they do for fun? This encyclopedia provides readers with an engaging and detailed portrayal of the Old West through the examination of social, cultural, and material history. Supported by the most current research, the multivolume set explores various aspects of social history—family, politics, religion, economics, and recreation—to illuminate aspects of a society's emotional life, interactions, opinions, views, beliefs, intimate relationships, and connections between the individual and the greater world. Readers will be exposed to both objective reality and subjective views of a particular culture; as a result, they can create a cohesive, accurate impression of life in the Old West during the second half of the 1800s.

A reassessment of the military's role in developing the Western territories moves beyond combat stories and stereotypes to focus on more non-martial accomplishments such as exploration, gathering scientific data, and building towns.

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has played a vital role in the maturing processes of both the United States Army and the United States. Lewis and Clark, whose expedition introduced the Louisiana Purchase to the American people, were the initial instruments of that spirit of "Manifest Destiny" which eventuated in the establishment of Fort Leavenworth, a post that was to play an instrumental role in the "settling" of the West and every American war fought after 1827. The fort, built by Colonel Leavenworth between Missouri and Little Platte rivers, was, from its inception, located in a storm center of American history. The area known as Kansas adapted violently to civilization's cultivating hoe. Indians, the original landowners, through unhonored treaties and brute force, were systematically pushed off their land; Brigham Young and his "fanatical" brethren tried unsuccessfully to sink roots there; ferocious fighting between slave owners and abolitionists gave currency to the term "Bleeding Kansas"; during the Civil War Kansas was the scene of the savage battle known as "Gettysburg of the West." After the Union's victory and the eventual pacification of the area, the post became the first Army Tactical School in a pilot program that proved to be extremely successful; Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton were three of many Leavenworth graduates who distinguished themselves in World War II. The Fort and Kansas have experienced numerous transitions, but the importance of Leavenworth in America's defense is still vital today. Carefully researched and vividly written, George Walton's Sentinel of the Plains follows in fascinating detail the forced march American civilization made "from Sea to shining Sea" -- Book jacket.

Most military biographies focus on officers, many of whom left diaries or wrote letters throughout their lives and careers. This collection offers new perspectives by focusing on the lives of enlisted soldiers from a variety of cultural and racial backgrounds. Comprised of ten biographies, Soldiers in the Southwest Borderlands showcases the scholarship of experts who have mined military records, descendants’ recollections, genealogical sources, and even folklore to tell common soldiers’ stories. The essays examine enlisted soldiers’ cross-cultural interactions and dynamic, situational identities. They illuminate the intersections of class, culture, and race in the nineteenth-century Southwest. The men who served under U.S. or Mexican flags and on the payrolls of the federal government or as state or territorial volunteers represented most of the major ethnicities in the West—Hispanics, African Americans, Indians, American-born Anglos, and recent European immigrants—and many moved fluidly among various social and ethnic groups. For example, though usually described as an Apache scout, Mickey Free was born to Mexican parents, raised by an American stepfather, adopted by an Apache father, given an Irish name, and was ultimately categorized by federal authorities as an Irish Mexican White Mountain Apache. George Goldsby, a former slave of mixed ancestry, served as a white soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, and then served twelve years as a “Buffalo Soldier” in the all-black Tenth U.S. Cavalry. He also claimed some American Indian ancestry and was rumored to have crossed the Mexican border to fight alongside Pancho Villa. What motivated these soldiers? Some were patriots and adventurers. Others were destitute and had few other options. Enlisted men received little professional training, and possibilities for advancement were few. Many of these men witnessed, underwent, or inflicted extreme violence, some of it personal and much of it related to excruciating military campaigns. Spotlighting ordinary men who usually appear on the margins of history, the biographical essays collected here tell the stories of soldiers in the complex world of the Southwest after the U.S.-Mexican War.