Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules

Sharps Rifles and Spanish Mules PDF

Author: Wayne Randolph Austerman

Publisher:

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Reading almost like a western novel, this well-documented history of a frontier business enterprise reveals the turbulent career of a stagecoach line that stretched from San Antonio to El Paso and at times reached to Santa Fe and San Diego.

The Ranger Ideal Volume 1

The Ranger Ideal Volume 1 PDF

Author: Darren L. Ivey

Publisher: University of North Texas Press

Published: 2017-10-15

Total Pages: 672

ISBN-13: 1574417010

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service which has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. Thirty-one Rangers, with lives spanning more than two centuries, have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 1: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1823-1861, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the seven inductees who served Texas before the Civil War. He begins with Stephen F. Austin, “the Father of Texas,” who laid the foundations of the Ranger service, and then covers John C. Hays, Ben McCulloch, Samuel H. Walker, William A. A. “Bigfoot” Wallace, John S. Ford, and Lawrence Sul Ross. Using primary records and reliable secondary sources, and rejecting apocryphal tales, The Ranger Ideal presents the true stories of these intrepid men who fought to tame a land with gallantry, grit, and guns. This Volume 1 is the first of a planned three-volume series covering all of the Texas Rangers inducted in the Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas.

Paper Trails

Paper Trails PDF

Author: Cameron Blevins

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0190053674

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent one of the most dramatic reorganizations of people, land, capital, and resources in American history. Paper Trails tells a new history of the nation's western expansion by shining a light on the era's largest government institution: the US Post.

Fort Bowie, Arizona

Fort Bowie, Arizona PDF

Author: Douglas C. McChristian

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2012-10-19

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0806180234

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Fort Bowie, in present-day Arizona, was established in 1862 at the site of the famous Battle of Apache Pass, where U.S. troops clashed with Apache chief Cochise and his warriors. The fort’s dual purpose was to guard the invaluable water supply at Apache Spring and to control Indians in the developing southwestern region. Douglas C. McChristian’s Fort Bowie, Arizona, spans nearly four decades to provide a fascinating account of the many complex events surrounding the small combat post. In a sweeping narrative, McChristian presents Fort Bowie in fresh contexts of national expansion and regional development, weaving in threads of early exploration, transcontinental railroad surveys, the overland mail, mining, ranching, and the conflict with the Apaches.

Civil War in the Southwest

Civil War in the Southwest PDF

Author: Jerry D. Thompson

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1603447032

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Written "to set the record straight," these veterans' stories provide colorful accounts of the bloody battles of Valverde, Glorieta, and Peralta, as well as details fo the soldier's tragic and painful retreat back to Texas in the summer of 1862.

American Rifle

American Rifle PDF

Author: Alexander Rose

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Published: 2008-10-21

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 0440338093

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized. Now, in this first-of-its-kind book, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle. Drawing on the words of soldiers, inventors, and presidents, based on extensive new research, and encompassing the Revolution to the present day, American Rifle is a balanced, wonderfully entertaining history of this most essential firearm and its place in American culture. In the eighteenth century American soldiers discovered that they no longer had to fight in Europe’s time-honored way. With the evolution of the famed “Kentucky” Rifle—a weapon slow to load but devastatingly accurate in the hands of a master—a new era of warfare dawned, heralding the birth of the American individualist in battle. In this spirited narrative, Alexander Rose reveals the hidden connections between the rifle’s development and our nation’s history. We witness the high-stakes international competition to produce the most potent gunpowder . . . how the mysterious arts of metallurgy, gunsmithing, and mass production played vital roles in the creation of American economic supremacy . . . and the ways in which bitter infighting between rival arms makers shaped diplomacy and influenced the most momentous decisions in American history. And we learn why advances in rifle technology and ammunition triggered revolutions in military tactics, how ballistics tests—frequently bizarre—were secretly conducted, and which firearms determined the course of entire wars. From physics to geopolitics, from frontiersmen to the birth of the National Rifle Association, from the battles of the Revolution to the war in Iraq, American Rifle is a must read for history buffs, gun collectors, soldiers—and anyone who seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between the rifle and this nation’s history.

Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather

Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather PDF

Author: Charles G. Worman

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 544

ISBN-13: 9780826335937

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The many roles played by guns in the old West with personal accounts by many early settlers and hundreds of photos.

From the Pass to the Pueblos

From the Pass to the Pueblos PDF

Author: George D. Torok

Publisher: Sunstone Press

Published: 2019-09-07

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1611394295

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road of the Interior, was a 1,600-mile braid of trails that led from Mexico City, in the center of New Spain, to the provincial capital of New Mexico on the edge of the empire’s northern frontier. The Royal Road served as a lifeline for the colonial system from its founding in 1598 until the last days of Spanish rule in the 1810s. Throughout the Mexican and American Territorial periods, the Camino Real expanded, becoming part of a larger continental and international transportation system and, until the trail was replaced by railroads in the late nineteenth century, functioned as the main pathway for conquest, migration, settlement, commerce, and culture in today’s American Southwest. More than 400 miles of the original trail lie within the United States today, and stretch from present-day San Elizario, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This segment comprises El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail. It was added to the United States National Trail System in 2000 and is still in use today. This book guides the reader along the trail with histories and overviews of places in New Mexico, West Texas and the Ciudad Juárez area. It includes a broad overview of the trail’s history from 1598 until the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s, and describes the communities, landscape, archaeology, architecture, and public interpretation of this historic transportation corridor.