Bøker av Alwyn Barr

The first comprehensive history and analysis of the Siege of Bexar in early nineteenth-century Texas.While the battles of 1836the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacintoare well-known moments in the Texas Revolution, the battle for Bexar in the fall of 1835 is often overlooked. Yet this lengthy siege, which culminated in a Texan victory in December 1835, set the stage for those famous events and for the later revolutionary careers of Sam Houston, James Bowie, and James W. Fannin.Drawing on extensive research and on-site study around San Antonio, Alwyn Barr completely maps the ebbs and flows of the Bexar campaign for the first time. He studies the composition of the two armies and finds that they were well matched in numbers and fighting experiencerevising a common belief that the Texans defeated a force four times larger. He analyzes the tactics of various officers, revealing how ambition and revolutionary politics sometimes influenced the Texas army as much as military strategy. And he sheds new light on the roles of the Texan and Mexican commanders, Stephen F. Austin and Martn Perfecto de Cos.As this excellent military history makes clear, to the famous rallying cry ';Remember the Alamo!' ';Remember Goliad!' should be added: ';And dont forget San Antonio!'';Will most likely remain for some time the standard work on this battle. Outstanding scholarship and research are reflected in the book, including on-site study of the locale.... This is an important military history, and as such, it should be in all Texana collections.' Review of Texas Books';This is a significant contribution to the study of Texas history. Texans in Revolt will be the standard work on this campaign.' Ralph A. Wooster, Associate Vice President and Regents Professor, Lamar University

For three years during the American Civil War an oddly assorted brigade of Texans served the Confederacy in the Trans-Mississippi theater and then, for one hundred years, disappeared from history. Some five thousand men, raised largely from the communities and farmsteads of North Texas, served in cavalry and infantry units, and were commanded for part of that time by the only foreign general of the Confederacy, Prince Camille de Polignac. This group of soldiers fought in numerous skirmishes from Missouri to Louisiana. They endured a fearfully cold winter march through Indian Territory, were bombarded by gunboat shells along the banks of the Mississippi, Ouachita, and Red Rivers, and engaged in a stand-up, no-quarter fight along Yellow Bayou. By the summer of 1864, the brigade was engaged in little fighting, and in 1865 returned to Texas, where it was disbanded in May. More than a hundred men had been killed on the battlefields, and many others had died of disease and cold. "Our trail," wrote one brigade member, "was a long graveyard." First published in 1964 by the Texas Gulf Coast Historical Association, Alwyn Barr's study of this previously little-known brigade not only detailed an aspect of the less-studied war in the West, but also showed in stark, first-person accounts the toll of war at the level of the common fighting man. Available again after only a limited print run in its first edition, this little masterpiece of Civil War history now includes a new preface by Barr that updates what is known of the brigade and its significance to the Trans-Mississippi campaign.