Blood and Treasure tells the fascinating story of the Confederacy's ambitious plan to conquer the Southwestern territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Led by Lieutenant Colonel, and later Arizona governor, John R. Baylor and General H. H. Sibley, Texan soldiers trekked from San Antonio to Fort Bliss in El Paso, then northward up the Rio Grande, to Santa Fe. Fighting both Apaches and Federal troops, the half-trained, undisciplined army met success at the Battle of Val Verde and defeat at the Battle of Apache Canyon. Finally, the Texans won the Battle of Glorieta Pass, only to lose their supply train - and eventually the campaign. Pursued and demoralized, the Confederates abandoned their dream of empire and began a dispirited journey back to El Paso and San Antonio. Using narratives of veterans of the campaign and official Confederate and Union documents, the author explains how this seemingly far-fetched fantasy of building a Confederate empire was an essential part of the Confederate strategy. Military historians will be challenged to modify traditional views of Confederate imperial ambitions. Generalists will be drawn into the fascinating saga of the soldiers' fears, despair, and struggles to survive.

Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (Texas a & M University Military History Series)

History

Frazier, Donald S.

Americas

Texas A & M Univ Pr

For decades before the Civil War, Southern writers and warriors had been urging the occupation and development of the American Southwest. When the rift between North and South had been finalized in secession, the Confederacy moved to extend their traditions to the west–a long-sought goal that had been frustrated by northern states. It was a common sentiment among Southerners and especially Texans that Mexico must be rescued from indolent inhabitants and granted the benefits of American civilization. Blood and Treasure, written in a readable narrative style that belies the rigorous research behind it, tells the story of the Confederacy's ambitious plan to extend a Confederate empire across the continent. Led by Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, later a governor of Arizona, and General H. H. Sibley, Texan soldiers trekked from San Antonio to Fort Bliss in El Paso, then north along the Rio Grande to Santa Fe. Fighting both Apaches and Federal troops, the half-trained, undisciplined army met success at the Battle of Val Verde and defeat at the Battle of Apache Canyon. Finally, the Texans won the Battle of Glorieta Pass, only to lose their supply train--and eventually the campaign. Pursued and dispirited, the Confederates abandoned their dream of empire and retreated to El Paso and San Antonio. Frazier has made use of previously untapped primary sources, allowing him to present new interpretations of the famous Civil War battles in the Southwest. Using narratives of veterans of the campaign and official Confederate and Union documents, the author explains how this seemingly far-fetched fantasy of building a Confederate empire was an essential part of the Confederate strategy. Military historians will be challenged to modify traditional views of Confederate imperial ambitions. Generalists will be drawn into the fascinating saga of the soldiers' fears, despair, and struggles to survive.

Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (Volume 41) (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

Texas A&M University Press

Tempest Over Texas: The Fall and Winter Campaigns, 1863-1864 is the fourth installment in Dr.&nbsp;Donald S. Frazier's award-winning Louisiana Quadrille series. Picking up the story of the Civil&nbsp;War in Louisiana and Texas after the fall of Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Tempest Over Texas&nbsp;describes Confederate confusion on how to carry on in the Trans-Mississippi given the new&nbsp;strategic realities. Likewise, Federal forces gathered from Memphis to New Orleans were in&nbsp;search of a new mission. International intrigues and disasters on distant battlefields would all&nbsp;conspire to confuse and perplex war-planners. One thing remained, however. The Stars and&nbsp;Stripes needed to fly once again in Texas, and as soon as possible.

Tempest over Texas: The Fall and Winter Campaigns of 1863–1864

State House Press

1862. Admiral David Farragut orders enclaves to be established in Texas as part of the Federal blockade. This involves attempts against Corpus Christi, Sabine Pass, Galveston, and Port Lavaca. By the end of the year Federal troops reduce the defenses of Sabine Pass and occupy Galveston, the state's principal port. However, the gains prove tenuous. While Federal sailors await Union infantry reinforcements, the Confederates, under Gen. John B. Magruder, seize the initiative. They organize a makeshift fleet of "cottonclads"—lightly armed and armored, but good platforms for sharpshooters—and boldly attack the Union fleet whenever it lies close to shore. Meanwhile, Confederate troops bombard from land. Ultimately, this counterattack results in the destruction or capture of four Union warships and three supply vessels and temporarily lifts the blockade. A lively account of innovative and daring tactics against superior forces by a dynamic historian.

Cottonclads!: The Battle of Galveston and the Defense of the Texas Coast (Civil War Campaigns and Commanders Series)

Fire in the Cane Field: The Federal Invasion of Louisiana and Texas, January 1861 - January 1863

McWhiney Foundation Pr

An illustrated history of Abilene, Texas paired with histories of the local companies

Historic Abilene: An Illustrated History (Community Heritage)

Coffey, David

Shilcutt, Tracy

HPN Books

The Buffalo Gap Historic Village, in Buffalo Gap, Texas, got its start in 1956 as the "Ernie Wilson Museum of the Old West" and was housed in the original Taylor County Courthouse. Over the next fifty years, however, the museum evolved into a full-fledged historic village, boasting twenty buildings and more than 9,000 artifacts. With this transformation, the historic village also began to tell a story about the history of a time period--the critical decades between 1875 and 1925.
 The Texas You Expect(tm) does more than simply relate the history of the Buffalo Gap Historic Village. It tells the story of how a frontier transformed into a heartland of America. Following the three interpretive periods displayed at the historic village (1883, 1904, 1925), the authors paint a picture of what life in America was like in each of those decades. The book weaves together the story of the practical and technological advances that ultimately brought the frontier period to an end. Using the buildings and artifacts of the village as examples, the book acts as a virtual tour, not only of the historic village, but of this critical half century of our nation's past.

The Texas You Expect: The Stoy of Buffalo Gap Historic Village

Pace, Robert F.

Wettemann, Robert P., Jr.

Every city has a look and feel that informs how people respond to it. Visitors react to the skyline, clean streets, traffic patterns and the like, while its citizens speak of civic pride, heritage, and spirit. This love of place illustrates the passions and values of the society that fosters it. Some economists and thinkers refer to social capital, others cultural capital, when discussing the value added by the appreciation of the history and heritage of a community. The more people know about their hometown, the more they support it, love it, and keep it. The settlement that sprang up along the Texas and Pacific Railroad at milepost 407 is no exception. Here, for the first time, are one hundred of Abilene's landmark buildings telling the history, hopes, and humanity of this city. Readers will not only discover a host of remarkable stories in this book, but they will also find the architectural expressions of a civilization that have made their mark on the West Texas landscape. From humble cottages to the first Hilton Hotel, and from railway depots to an air force base, Abilene's unique contribution to the American story unfolds through the buildings that compose its city scapes. Donald S. Frazier is a professor of history at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. He also serves as the President and CEO of the McWhiney History Education Group. Robert F. Pace is a former professor of history at McMurry University. Steve Butman, a local Abilene artist, is a San Francisco Art Institute trained freelance photographer specializing in commercial, aerial, and industrial photography.

Abilene Landmarks: An Illustrated Tour: The Story of Abilene as told through 100 of its most historic buildings

Echoes from the Battle of Galveston had barely faded before a new Federal offensive began rolling down the banks of the Mississippi River. General Ulysses S. Grant, intent on reducing the Confederate citadel at Vicksburg, began looking for ways to reduce the fortress and return control of the mightiest of American rivers to northern control. Downstream in New Orleans, General Nathaniel P. Banks received orders to cooperate however he could in this effort, but faced challenges of his own, blocked by the Confederate bastion at Port Hudson. The problem facing Union war planners seemed nearly intractable. Both of these Confederate positions had key vulnerabilities. Both garrisons depended heavily on supplies thrown across the Mississippi from sources in Louisiana and Texas, and the task fell to the United States Navy to cut off this stream of cattle and corn. The ensuing campaign to interdict these rations turned into one of the most massive raids in Civil War history, involving tens of thousands of Union foot soldiers and cavalry and scores of warships and transports, plunging Louisiana into the pit of a destructive war that wrecked everything in its path. When General Banks launched his campaign up Bayou Teche and the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana, Confederates in the region faced the greatest challenge yet to their claims of independence and experienced for the first time the true devastation of war and the consequences of rebellion. Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February–May 1863 is the second of the four books in Donald S. Frazier’s highly acclaimed Louisiana Quadrille. In this fast-paced narrative, readers ride along with gunboat skippers in duels along the Mississippi, trot along with cavalrymen as they slash their way through enemy lines, experience the dust and confusion of infantry assaults, and mourn with Louisiana, Texas, and New England families that watch their property and families destroyed by civil war. Most students of this national calamity may believe they know well the campaigns on the Mississippi; Thunder Across the Swamp promises to fill in the less well-known story of the fight to control the west bank during the crucial campaigns of 1863.

Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863

The West Texas frontier—the area encompassing the region stretching from Fort Worth to the Caprock, from Palo Duro Canyon to the San Saba River—has been a crossroads of humanity for thousands of years. Each group of humans who trekked across its sun-drenched prairies had to contend with the challenges of life in an area that has always been a climatic, geographical, political, and cultural borderland. In addressing these challenges, the people of the frontier developed perseverance, toughness, and determination—all necessities for life on the Texas frontier.This book tells the epic story of this region and its many transitions throughout the centuries. It traces the struggles and triumphs of many groups as they tried to tame the region for their own purposes. Early humans hunted mammoths and other game in the region. Then came the Jumanos following the great bison herds, then the Apaches, the Comanches, the Spaniards, and the Texans. By 1845, with Texas' entrance into the United States, more formal efforts to tame the frontier brought forts and soldiers. Cattlemen and their herds shared the plains with the buffalo and the Plains Indians.Battles and ambushes, justice and injustice defined the struggle for the next several decades. The military abandoned the region during the Civil War, only to return with force upon its completion. The vast postwar expansion of the cattle industry and the systematic slaughter of the buffalo herds ensured that Americans would claim the region permanently and that the Plains Indians' dominance of the frontier had come to an end. By 1880 barbed wire, windmills, railroads, and towns demonstrated that the frontier had been permanently transformed.

Frontier Texas: History of a Borderland to 1880

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Books by Frazier, Donald S.