The Texas Ranger tradition of over twenty-five years of frontier defense influenced the methods by which Texans provided for frontier defense, 1861-1865. The elements that guarded the Texas frontier during the war combined organizational policies that characterized previous Texas military experience and held the frontier together in marked contrast to its rapid collapse at the Confederacy's end. The first attempt to guard the Indian frontier during the Civil War was by the Texas Mounted Rifles, a regiment patterned after the Rangers, who replaced the United States troops forced out of the state by the Confederates. By the spring of 1862 the Frontier Regiment, a unit funded at state expense, replaced the Texas Mounted Rifles and assumed responsibility for frontier defense during 1862 and 1863. By mid-1863 the question of frontier defense for Texas was not so clearly defined as in the war's early days. Then, the Indian threat was the only responsibility, but the magnitude of Civil War widened the scope of frontier protection. From late 1863 until the war's end, frontier defense went hand in hand with protecting frontier Texans from a foe as deadly as Indians—themselves. The massed bands of deserters, Union sympathizers, and criminals that accumulated on the frontier came to dominate the activities of the ensuing organizations of frontier defense. Any treatment of frontier protection in Texas during the Civil War depends largely on the wealth of source material found in the Texas State Library. Of particular value is the extensive Adjutant General's Records, including the muster rolls for numerous companies organized for frontier defense. The Barker Texas History Center contains a number of valuable collections, particularly the Barry Papers and the Burleson Papers. The author found two collections to be most revealing on aspects of frontier defense, 1863-1865: the William Quayle Papers, University of Alabama, and the Bourland Papers, Library of Congress. As always, the Official Records is indispensible for any military analysis of the American Civil War.

The study challenges many traditional stereotypes of Texas during Reconstruction. Contrary to what Democrats charged, the Davis government did not levy exorbitant taxes. Radical taxes seemed high in comparison to antebellum taxes, because antebellum governments had financed operations with indemnity bonds, but they were not high in comparison to taxes in other states. Radical taxes constituted only 1.77 percent of the assessed value of property in Texas, which was lower than the average for the United States and about the same for other states undergoing Reconstruction. In Texas most of the tax increases during Reconstruction were made necessary by the Civil War and the increase in population. The tax increases paid for state and local governments, frontier and local protection, public buildings, internal improvements, and public schools. Edmund J. Davis, Radical governor, contributed significantly to Texas government when he attempted to focus attention on reforming the tax system,limiting state expenses to state income, limiting state aid for railroad companies, and protecting the public from railroad company abuses.

When the national Democratic Party began to transform to progressive era politics because of the New Deal, conservative reactionaries turned against the social welfare programs and used red scare tactics to discredit liberal and progressive New Deal Democrat professors in higher education. This process continued during the Second World War, when the conservatives in Texas lumped fascism and communism in order to anchor support and fire and threaten professors and administrators for advocating or teaching “subversive doctrine.” In 1948 Texas joined other southern states and followed the Dixiecrat movement designed to return the Democratic Party to its original pro-business and segregationist philosophy. Conservatives who wanted to bolster their Cold Warrior status in Texas also played upon the fears of spreading communism during the Cold War, and passed several repressive laws intended to silence unruly students and entrap professors by claiming they advocated communist doctrine. The fight culminated during the Civil Rights movement, when conservatives in the state attributed subversive or communist behavior to civil rights organizations, and targeted higher education to protect segregated universities. In order to return the national Democratic Party to the pro-business, segregationist philosophy established at the early twentieth century, conservatives used redbaiting tactics to thwart the progressivism in the state’s higher education facilities.

Archaeological and paleontological datasets are used in conservation to add time-depth to ecology. In central Texas several top carnivores including prehistoric Native American hunters have been extirpated or have had their historic ranges restricted, which has resulted in pest-level white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus texana) populations in some areas. Predator extermination has dramatically reduced the average body size of members of the extant predator guild, and large carnivores most capable of hunting white-tailed deer are extirpated. Character release in the remaining “large” predatorsmesocarnivoresis a predicted outcome related to the adaptive vacuum at the top of the trophic hierarchy. Differences in body size of deer between prehistory and modernity are expected given that a lack of predation likely has increased intraspecific competition for forage among deer resulting in smaller body size today. In fact modern deer from settings without harvest pressure are significantly smaller than those from harvested areas and from prehistoric deer. From a natural history perspective, this research highlights potential evolutionary causes and effects of top-predator removal on deer populations and related components of biological communities in central Texas.

This thesis covers a history of Kaufman County, including information about the geography, the historical background, organization and early history, development, military contributions, and more in depth analysis of the largest cities.

This thesis covers the history of education in Reconstruction Period Texas.

For four hundred years the Red River Valley has been the battleground between contending Indian tribes and European races, and for almost three hundred of these years the river has been a disputed boundary line, either between rival nations, or between neighboring states of our country. The river has never been of much importance as a commercial route, yet very few rivers in all the United States have played so an important and persistent a part in this history of their sections as the Red River has played in the history of the Southwest.

This study is a historical analysis of the significant events from 1971 leading to the establishment of The Criswell College and a depiction of the actions of key individuals contributing to the development of The Criswell College.

After the Civil War, the government needed to send an occupation force into Texas to help rebuild the state government and confront the French Imperialist forces that had invaded Mexico. Unfortunately, the government was required to use volunteers because the Regular Army was not yet prepared to handle such a mission. Using citizen soldiers for peacetime occupation was a break from past military tradition, and the men did not appreciate such an act. Historians of Reconstruction Texas have focused on state politics, the rampant violence in the state throughout this period, and the role of freedmen in situating themselves to an uncertain and hostile society. Studies of the military in post-Civil War Texas have examined the army’s role in the state’s political reconstruction, but largely ignore the soldiers. Additionally, these works tend to over-generalize the experience and relations of the troops and Texans. This thesis looks at Western citizen soldiers, comprising the Fourth and Thirteenth Army Corps as well as two cavalry divisions, stationed in Texas after the war from the Rio Grande to San Antonio to Marshall. Beginning with the unit’s receiving official orders to proceed to Texas after the surrender of the principal Confederate forces in 1865, it follows the movements from wartime positions in Tennessee and Alabama to peacetime posts within Texas. The study examines Texan-soldier relations as they differed from place to place. It also investigates the Westerners’ peacetime occupation duties and the conditions endured in Texas. The thesis argues that there was diversity in both the Western volunteers’ experiences and relations with occupied Texans, and it was not as monolithic as past historians have suggested. Specifically, this study endeavors to supplement the existing historiography of the army in Texas during Reconstruction. Broadly, this thesis also hopes to be a more general look at the use of citizen soldiers for postwar occupation duty.

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