When discussing the experiences of Unionists in Texas during the Civil War era, the scholarly focus has often been on persecution during and after the war. Similarly, the First Texas Cavalry, USA, has been described as mostly Germans or Mexicans, and the Texas Republican Party after Reconstruction is dismissed as an alliance of misfits and African Americans. The story of Francis A. Vaughan helps to correct both stereotypes. A native of Tennessee, raised in Mississippi among relatives who had dozens of slaves, Vaughan came to Texas with his family in 1853. He served with distinction in the First Texas, then prospered as a businessman and active Republican for decades after the war. Rather than being persecuted, he was elected several times to postwar offices.
Meet Dr. Richard McCaslin
Richard B. McCaslin, the Director of Publications for the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), is the retired TSHA Professor of Texas History at the University of North Texas and the author or editor of nineteen books. Eight of these won awards, while his biography of Robert E. Lee was nominated for a Pulitzer. He is currently working on two co-authored works focused on the Civil War—a biography of a Texas Unionist and an analysis of the wartime Texas cotton trade--as well as a biography of Pompeo Coppini. a prolific sculptor whose public works in Texas include the Alamo Cenotaph. A Fellow of the TSHA and Admiral in the Texas Navy, McCaslin has commendations from the Civil War Round Tables in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Shreveport for his academic work.
Bridles and Biscuits: Contraband Culture in Spanish East Texas, written by Gary L. Pinkerton in collaboration with Tom Gann, explores the complex economies and shifting structures of a borderland environment. In 1773, as residents of Los Adaes were abruptly forced to relocate to Béxar, the Spanish retreat from the region created a greater opening for unregulated trade among French, American, and Italian settlers. For five years before Spanish subjects resettled Nacogdoches in 1779, the people forced out of Los Adaes forged a new existence on the Trinity River in a place they called Bucareli. There, Antonio Gil Ibarvo solidified his role as a key figure in contraband trade. Through the story of Ibarvo's rise to become the leader of Nacogdoches and his subsequent arrest and removal from that post, Pinkerton demonstrates how the region that hosted the exiled Adaeseños "became the entry point for those with bigger goals than trading horses and skins."
Meet Gary Pinkerton
Gary L. Pinkerton is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Texas History (alliancefortexashistory.org). Since 2016 when he published Trammel's Trace: The First Road to Texas from the North, he has been actively engaged as an author, independent researcher, and web designer. He is a Fellow of the East Texas Historical Association and a former board member. He has published works in the Handbook of Texas, the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. Gary has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Houston and worked in human resources in his professional career.
They came up from Texas driving cattle to Cochise County, Arizona, where they got paid off and spent their money on wine, women, song, and gambling, totally wasting the rest finding themselves with no way to get back. So, they took to herding other folks' cattle . . . without permission and then went after stagecoaches. Soon they discovered that three of the largest and wealthiest towns in the West, Tombstone, Bisbee, and Silver City, were prime pickin's. Take a close look at the outlaws and gunfighters who emerged in droves from southeast Arizona.
Meet Doug Hocking
Doug Hocking has completed advanced studies in American history, ethnology, and historical archaeology. Raised on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, Doug retired from the US Army after serving in military intelligence and as an officer in the armored cavalry. He is the author of many award-winning books of Southwest history including Southwest Train Robberies, Terror on the Santa Fe Trail, a history of the Jicarilla tribe, Tom Jeffords, Friend of Cochise and Black Legend, about the Bascom Affair. He has won the Spur Award, the Will Rogers Medallion, the Co-founders' Award for Best History, and the Danielson for best presentation.
State and federal entities of the relatively new United States may have set borders, but archaeological history does not. William Moore's book Arrow Points of Texas and Its Borderlands illuminates surviving archaeological material in the form of Native American arrow points commonly found in Texas and the surrounding regions. He has assembled the latest research on typology and distribution to produce this guide. Incorporating points found not only in Texas but also in the nearby areas of Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and northern Mexico, this book provides, in the words of the foreword by noted lithic specialist John E. Dockall, "a much-needed synthesis of regional and chronological data that will be useful to professional and avocational archaeologists alike."
For our Westerners meeting, he will introduce artifact typology, explain the format of the book, clarify the difference between it and previous books on the topic, and provide specific examples.
Meet William E. Moore
William E. Moore is a retired professional archaeologist and former sole proprietor of Brazos Valley Research Associates (BVRA) in Bryan, Texas, where he currently lives. He is the author of several books including The Texas Calaboose and Other Forgotten Jails (Texas A&M University Press, 2019), as well as articles and national magazines. He is the sole living member of the Houston Archeological Society.