THE TEXAS PEOPLE belong to a fighting tradition that the majority of
them are proud of. The footholds that the Spaniards and Mexicans held in
Texas were maintained by virtue of fighting, irrespective of missionary
baptizing. The purpose of the Anglo-American colonizer Stephen F. Austin
to "redeem Texas from the wilderness" was accomplished only by fighting.
The Texans bought their liberty with blood and maintained it for nine
years as a republic with blood. It was fighting men who pushed back the
frontiers and blazed trails.
The fighting tradition is now giving way to the oil tradition. The Texas
myth as imagined by non-Texans is coming to embody oil millionaires in
airplanes instead of horsemen with six-shooters and rifles. See Edna
Ferber's Giant (1952 novel). Nevertheless, many Texans who never rode
a horse over three miles at a stretch wear cowboy boots, and a lot of
Texans are under the delusion that bullets and atomic bombs can settle
complexities that demand informed intelligence and the power to think.
As I have pointed out in _The Flavor of Texas_, the chronicles of men
who fought the Mexicans and were prisoners to them comprise a unique
unit in the personal narratives and annals of America.
Many of the books listed under the headings of "Texas Rangers," "How the
Early Settlers Lived," and "Range Life" specify the fighting tradition.
BEAN, PETER ELLIS. _Memoir_, published first in Vol. I of Yoakum's
_History of Texas_; in 1930 printed as a small book by the Book Club of
Texas, Dallas, now OP. A fascinating narrative.
BECHDOLT, FREDERICK R. _Tales of the Old Timers_, New York, 1924.
Forceful retelling of the story of the Mier Expedition and of other
activities of the "fighting Texans." OP.
CHABOT, FREDERICK C. _The Perote Prisoners_, San Antonio, 1934.
Annotated diaries of Texas prisoners in Mexico. OP.
DOBIE, J. FRANK. _The Flavor of Texas_, Dallas, 1936. OP. Chapters on
Bean, Green, Duval, Kendall, and other representers of the fighting
Texans.
DUVAL, JOHN C. _Adventures of Bigfoot Wallace_, 1870; _Early Times
in Texas_, 1892. Both books are kept in print by Steck, Austin. For
biography and critical estimate, see _John C. Duval: First Texas Man of
Letters_, by J. Frank Dobie (illustrated by Tom Lea), Dallas, 1939.
OP. _Early Times in Texas_, called "the _Robinson Crusoe_ of Texas," is
Duval's story of the Goliad Massacre and of his escape from it. Duval
served as a Texas Ranger with Bigfoot Wallace, who was in the Mier
Expedition. His narrative of Bigfoot's _Adventures_ is the rollickiest
and the most flavorsome that any American frontiersman has yet inspired.
The tiresome thumping on the hero theme present in many biographies of
frontiersmen is entirely absent. Stanley Vestal wrote _Bigfoot Wallace_
also, Boston, 1942. OP.
ERATH, MAJOR GEORGE G. _Memoirs_, Texas State Historical Association,
Austin, 1923. Erath understood his fellow Texians. OP.
GILLETT, JAMES B. _Six Years with the Texas Rangers_, 1921. OP.
GREEN, THOMAS JEFFERSON. _Journal of the Texan Expedition against Mier_,
1845; reprinted by Steck, Austin, 1936. Green was one of the leaders
of the Mier Expedition. He lived in wrath and wrote with fire. For
information on Green see _Recollections and Reflections_ by his son,
Wharton J. Green, 1906. OP.
HOUSTON, SAM. _The Raven_, by Marquis James, 1929, is not the only
biography of the Texan general, but it is the best, and embodies most
of what has been written on Houston excepting the multivolumed _Houston
Papers_ issued by the University of Texas Press, Austin, under the
editorship of E. C. Barker. Houston was an original character even after
he became a respectable Baptist.
KENDALL, GEORGE W. _Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition_, 1844;
reprinted by Steck, Austin, 1936. Two volumes. Kendall, a New Orleans
journalist in search of copy, joined the Santa Fe Expedition sent by
the Republic of Texas to annex New Mexico. Lost on the Staked Plains and
then marched afoot as a prisoner to Mexico City, he found plenty of copy
and wrote a narrative that if it were not so journalistically verbose
might rank alongside Dana's _Two Years Before the Mast_. Fayette
Copeland's _Kendall of the Picayune_, 1943 but OP, is a biography. An
interesting parallel to Kendall's _Narrative is Letters and Notes on the
Texan Santa Fe Expedition, 1841-1842_, by Thomas Falconer, with Notes
and Introduction by F. W. Hodge, New York, 1930. OP. The route of the
expedition is logged and otherwise illuminated in _The Texan Santa
Fe Trail_, by H. Bailey Carroll, Panhandle-Plains Historical Society,
Canyon, Texas, 1951.
LEACH, JOSEPH. _The Typical Texan: Biography of an American Myth_,
Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1952. At the time Texas
was emerging, the three main types of Americans were Yankees, southern
aristocrats, Kentucky westerners embodied by Daniel Boone. Texas took
over the Kentucky tradition. It was enlarged by Crockett, who stayed in
Texas only long enough to get killed, Sam Houston, and Bigfoot Wallace.
Novels, plays, stories, travel books, and the Texans themselves have
kept the tradition going. This is the main thesis of the book. Mr. Leach
fails to note that the best books concerning Texas have done little to
keep the typical Texan alive and that a great part of the present Texas
Brags spirit is as absurdly unrealistic as Mussolini's splurge at making
twentieth-century Italians imagine themselves a {illust. caption = John
W. Thomason, in his _Lone Star Preacher_ (1941)} reincarnation of
Caesar's Roman legions. Mr. Leach dissects the myth and then swallows
it.
LINN, JOHN J. _Reminiscences of Fifty Years in Texas_, 1883; reprinted
by Steck, Austin, 1936. Mixture of personal narrative and historical
notes, written with energy and prejudice.
MAVERICK, MARY A. _Memoirs_, 1921. OP. Mrs. Maverick's husband, Sam
Maverick, was among the citizens of San Antonio haled off to Mexico as
prisoners in 1842.
MORRELL, Z. N. _Fruits and Flowers in the Wilderness_, 1872. OP.
Morrell, a circuit-riding Baptist preacher, fought the Indians and the
Mexicans. See other books of this kind listed under "Circuit Riders and
Missionaries."
PERRY, GEORGE SESSIONS. Texas, A _World in Itself_, McGraw-Hill, New
York, 1942. Especially good chapter on the Alamo.
SMYTHE, H. _Historical Sketch of Parker County, Texas_, 1877. One
of various good county histories of Texas replete with fighting. For
bibliography of this extensive class of literature consult _Texas County
Histories_, by H. Bailey Carroll, Texas State Historical Association,
Austin, 1943. OP.
SONNICHSEN, C. L. _I'll Die Before I'll Run: The Story of the Great
Feuds of Texas_--and of some not great. Harper, New York, 1951.
SOWELL, A. J. _Rangers and Pioneers of Texas_, 1884; _Life of Bigfoot
Wallace_, 1899; _Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest
Texas_, 1900. All OP; all meaty with the character of ready-to-fight but
peace-seeking Texas pioneers. Sowell will some day be recognized as an
extraordinary chronicler.
STAPP, WILLIAM P. _The Prisoners of Perote_, 1845; reprinted by Steck,
Austin, 1936. Journal of one of the Mier men who drew a white bean.
THOMASON, JOHN W. _Lone Star Preacher_, Scribner's, New York, 1941. The
cream, the essence, the spirit, and the body of the fighting tradition
of Texas. Historical novel of Civil War.
WEBB, WALTER PRESCOTT. _The Texas Rangers_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
1935. See under "Texas Rangers."
WILBARGER, J. W. _Indian Depredations in Texas_, 1889; reprinted
by Steck, Austin, 1936. Narratives that have for generations been a
household heritage among Texas families who fought for their land.