A Private in the Texas Rangers: A. T. Miller of Company B, Frontier Battalion
Deconstructing myths and reconstructing realities, this gritty, day-to-day portrayal, written by Private A. T. Miller, Company B, Frontier Battalion, yields a complex vision of the passing West and its lawmen.\ A Private in the Texas Rangers takes the reader on a tumultuous ride along the fading Texas-Oklahoma frontier. Three diaries, excerpted and annotated by Miller's great-grandson, John Miller Morris, provide the grist of a remarkable story—a tale of true crime and punishment set against...
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Deconstructing myths and reconstructing realities, this gritty, day-to-day portrayal, written by Private A. T. Miller, Company B, Frontier Battalion, yields a complex vision of the passing West and its lawmen. A Private in the Texas Rangers takes the reader on a tumultuous ride along the fading Texas-Oklahoma frontier. Three diaries, excerpted and annotated by Miller's great-grandson, John Miller Morris, provide the grist of a remarkable story—a tale of true crime and punishment set against the scenic backdrops of the Rolling Plains, the Panhandle, and Old Greer empires. With Company B's newest recruit, readers saddle up for the wild Texas and Oklahoma trails, ride the new iron rails crossing the Great Panhandle from Fort Worth to Denver, watch meteor showers, flirt with the ladies, and encounter some of Texas' most famous lawmen, ranchers, and trail bosses. Miller's Texas tolerated prostitutes in town but not guns, and death by morphine suicide was often more likely than death by gunfight. Contrary to the dominant legends of sensational frontier violence and lawlessness, Miller's daily journal entries bring to life law and order, decent people and indecent towns, chases and arrests, and stabbings and shootings, while highlighting the long periods of effort and sometimes fruitless activity preceding the capture of an outlaw. Historians, regional scholars, and anyone interested in Texas and the Old West will enjoy this insider's view of how Rangers worked together—building loyalty and trust, their lives possibly forfeit if teamwork failed—and yet endured the loneliness and frustration of life on the American frontier.About the Author:John Miler Morris is an associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Author of the award-winning El Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, 1536-1860, Morris lectures widely on topics in geography and history. Frederick Wilkins "The only extensive, first person, day-to-day account of the life of a Ranger private in 1887-1888, or any other period, for that matter. What emerges is a struggle to keep warm, find enough to eat, cross harshly county in any weather, fight boredom, yet be constantly alert. This is NOT the Ranger life of the Wild West novels. This is Ranger life as it was!"--Frederick Wilkins
List of IllustrationsixAcknowledgmentsxiPrologue31"What Now Shal Be My Fate?": Winter of 1887 (January 1, 1887, to March 22, 1887)132Quanah Crime and Punishment: Spring of 1887 (March 23, 1887, to June 22, 1887)593Distant Thunder: Summer of 1887 (June 23, 1887, to September 23, 1887)1174The Locomotive of Justice: Autumn of 1887 (September 24, 1887, to December 22, 1887)1525"Cold as Whis": Winter of 1888 (December 23, 1887, to March 25, 1888)1856The Maroon Diary: Spring and Summer of 1888 (March 26, 1888 to July 23, 1888)217Epilogue: The Boys of Company B251Appendix ARed Diary Addenda291Appendix BBlack Diary Addenda293Notes297Bibliography313Index325
\ Frederick Wilkins"The only extensive, first person, day-to-day account of the life of a Ranger private in 1887-1888, or any other period, for that matter. What emerges is a struggle to keep warm, find enough to eat, cross harshly county in any weather, fight boredom, yet be constantly alert. This is NOT the Ranger life of the Wild West novels. This is Ranger life as it was!"—Frederick Wilkins\ \ \ \ \ Frederick Wilkins"The only extensive, first person, day-to-day account of the life of a Ranger private in 1887-1888, or any other period, for that matter. What emerges is a struggle to keep warm, find enough to eat, cross harshly county in any weather, fight boredom, yet be constantly alert. This is NOT the Ranger life of the Wild West novels. This is Ranger life as it was!"--Frederick Wilkins\ \ \
