One Texan called them "blue-coated dogs of despotism." They were the federal army, and in Texas after the Civil War they were an army of occupation. Their role in carrying out Reconstruction in Texas was especially difficult because the state had a large voting majority of white former Confederates. The army was essential to the enforcement of loyalist policies and, more controversially, to the electoral success of the Republican party. How the military tried to achieve these ends varied over three major periods corresponding to the tenure of three chief officers: Generals Philip H. Sheridan, Charles Griffin, and Joseph J. Reynolds. Internal rivalries, the ability (or inability) to work with citizens, relations with state political leaders, and Texan hostility toward central authority all figured into the army's performance of its task. William Richter has mined much unused material in developing this uniquely thorough study of the military in Texas. Moving beyond the good-guy, bad-guy stereotypes, he demonstrates that the army was more competent and important than traditional Reconstruction history has taught. In spite of minimal numbers, the army exercised great political influence and left a legacy--and a reaction to that legacy--that largely shaped the post-Reconstruction constitution and party structure of the state and that "provided a convenient excuse for the denial of justice and equality to blacks without forcing whites to face up to the racism which made these goals unpalatable."

Presents an outline of a period in Texas history that has left a deep impress upon the later history, the political organization and the public mind of Texans.

Moneyhon looks at the reasons Reconstruction failed to live up to its promise.

A look at the agency’s attempts to deliver justice to the Texas black community following the Civil War. Drawing on a wealth of previously unused documentation in the National Archives, this book offers new insights into the workings of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the difficulties faced by Texas Bureau officials, who served in a remote and somewhat isolated area with little support from headquarters. “[The] episodes in Texas Reconstruction history that Mr. Crouch relates, perhaps do more than broad generalizations to explain why the Freedmen’s Bureau failed, and how we lost the peace after the Civil War.” —New York Times Book Review “Crouch skillfully presents the Freedmen’s Bureau as one of the most unique, misunderstood, and maligned ad hoc reform agencies ever devised by a democratic government in the name of social and political freedom and equality.” —East Texas Historical Journal “Breaks new ground in Reconstruction history. [Crouch’s] study is among the first on the bureau in Texas and the first to focus on the subdistrict agent, the subassistant commissioner.” —Journal of Southern History

The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. Many historians regard the Civil War as the defining event in American history. At stake was not only freedom for 3.5 million slaves but also survival of the relatively new American experiment in self-government. A very real possibility existed that the union could have been severed, but a collection of determined leaders and soldiers proved their willingness to fight for the survival of what Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope on earth." The second edition of this highly readable, one-volume Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction looks to place the war in its historical context. The more than 800 entries, encompassing the years 1844-1877, cover the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. An extensive chronology, introductory essay, and comprehensive bibliography supplement the cross-referenced dictionary entries to guide the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history. The dictionary concludes with a selection of primary documents. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. There was a very real possibility that the union could have been sundered, resulting in a very different American history, and probably world history. But the union was held together by tough and determined leaders and by the economic muscle of the North. Following the end of the war, the period of American history known as Reconstruction followed. This was a period construed in many different ways. While the states were once again 'united,' many of the postwar efforts divided different segments of the population and failed to achieve their goals in an era too often remembered for carpetbaggers and scalawags, and Congressional imbroglios and incompetent government. This one-volume dictionary, with more than 800 entries covering the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes in the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, is a research tool for all levels of readers from high school and up. The extensive chronology, introductory essay, dictionary entries, and comprehensive bibliography introduce and lead the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history.

In its essence, Texas history is military history. Comprehensive in scope, A Military History of Texas provides the first single-volume military history of Texas from pre-Columbian clashes between Native American tribes to the establishment of the United States Space Force as the newest branch of the nation’s military in the twenty-first century. Rather than creating new theories of what happened, author Loyd Uglow synthesizes competing views of Texas’s military past into a narrative that deals evenhandedly with different interpretations, and recognizes that there is a measure of truth in each one, even while emphasizing those that seem most plausible. Uglow ties the various engrossing aspects of Texas military history into one unified experience. Chapters cover topics of warfare in Texas before the Europeans; Spanish military activities; revolutions against Spain and then Mexico; Texas and Texans in the Mexican War; ante- and post-bellum warfare on the Texas frontier; the Civil War in Texas; the Texas Rangers; border warfare during the Mexican revolution of 1910-1920; Texas and the world wars; and the modern military in Texas. Brief explanations of military terminology and practice, as well as parallels between Texas military actions and ones in other times and places, connect the narrative to the broader context of world military history. Thoroughly documented, with an engaging narrative and perceptive analysis, A Military History of Texas is designed to be accessible and interesting to a broad range of readers. It will find a welcome place in the collections of amateur or professional military historians, devoted fans of all things Texan, and newcomers to military history.

This anthology brings together the late Barry A. Crouch's most important articles on the African American experience in Texas during Reconstruction. Grouped topically, the essays explore what freedom meant to the newly emancipated, how white Texans reacted to the freed slaves, and how Freedmen's Bureau agents and African American politicians worked to improve the lot of ordinary African American Texans. The volume also contains Crouch's seminal review of Reconstruction historiography, "Unmanacling Texas Reconstruction: A Twenty-Year Perspective." The introductory pieces by Arnoldo De Leon and Larry Madaras recapitulate Barry Crouch's scholarly career and pay tribute to his stature in the field of Reconstruction history.

This innovative study presents a new, integrated view of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the history of the western United States. Award-winning historians such as Steven Hahn, Martha Sandweiss, William Deverell, Virginia Scharff, and Stephen Kantrowitz offer original essays on lives, choices, and legacies in the American West, discussing the consequences for American Indian nations, the link between Reconstruction and suffrage movements, and cross-border interactions with Canada and Mexico. In the West, Civil War battlefields and Civil War politics engaged a wide range of ethnic and racial distinctions, raising questions that would arise only later in places farther east. Histories of Reconstruction in the South ignore the connections to previous occupation efforts and citizenship debates in the West. The stories contained in this volume complicate our understanding of the paths from slavery to freedom for white as well as non-white Americans. By placing the histories of the American West and the Civil War and Reconstruction period within one sustained conversation, this volume expands the limits of both by emphasizing how struggles over land, labor, sovereignty, and citizenship shaped the U.S. nation-state in this tumultuous era. This volume highlights significant moments and common concerns of this continuous conflict, as it stretched across the continent and throughout the nineteenth century. Publishing on the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, this collection brings eminent historians into conversation, looking at the Civil War from several Western perspectives, and delivers a refreshingly disorienting view intended for scholars, general readers, and students. Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.