Stephen L. Hardin

Like most people, I am familiar with the battle of the Alamo. I know about Goliad and San Jacinto. This book covers all of that, of course, but it also includes the numerous other small clashes that preceded those battles. It includes minute details from those battles that I hadn’t encountered elsewhere.

It touches on the political aspect of the struggle for Texas independence and the individuals involved (Austin, Houston, Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Santa Anna). Each chapter is preceded by a drawing of a typical combatant, explaining his clothing, his weaponry and other details of his life. Some of these were highly instructive.

I can recommend this book for anyone with an interest in American history and military history of the period.… (lisätietoja)

A highly entertaining, yet scholarly book regarding the early years of the Republic of Texas and its struggle to survive. Bookended by the story of David James Jones, a survivor of the Goliad massacre and a Battle of San Jacinto veteran, the author plunges you into the personalities and politics of the volunteer army in the months following the capture of Santa Anna. As volunteers ready for a fight continued to flood into Texas, President Sam Houston furloughed the army, setting loose upon the country thousands of "rowdy loafers." Setting up the national capitol in the newly created city of Houston proved challenging as the rowdy loafers clashed with the more genteel population.

Well-researched and scholarly, but this book reads more like a novel. You can almost hear the author's Texas drawl as he spins a good yarn, all the while pulling in material from primary sources. You'll meet memorable characters such as Dr. Robert Watson, who liked to drink his whiskey from a human skull, Francis Moore, Jr. the newspaper editor, Houston mayor, and "one-armed Proteus", and Felix Huston, an effective fundraiser who arrived too late to engage the enemy in combat; he refused to step down as "temporary commander,” shooting the man who would replace him, though together they developed grand ideas to invade Mexico. All men naturally were armed with the sinister-looking and deadly Bowie knife.

If you like murder, mayhem, politics, and personalities, you don’t want to miss Texian Macabre. Maybe Texas hasn’t changed that much in 172 years.… (lisätietoja)