Dennis "Joe" Connole was an ordinary soldier. He spent four years, three months, and seventeen days in the U.S. Army during World War II. From March 1942 until December 1943, he was a member of the 26th "Yankee" Division on Coast Patrol duty in Maine. In early 1944, Joe Connole shipped out to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), where he joined the 36th "Texas" Division as a replacement: thus, a "Yankee" in the "Texas Army." In June 1944, he received a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds inflicted in Italy.

Historians have been unkind to the 26th Division of the U.S. Army during World War I. Despite playing a significant role in all the major engagements of the American Expeditionary Force, the “Yankee Division,” as it was commonly known, and its beloved commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Clarence Edwards, were often at odds with Gen. John J. Pershing. Subsequently, the Yankee Division became the A.E.F.’s “whipping boy,” a reputation that has largely continued to the present day. In The Yankee Division in the First World War, author Michael E. Shay mines a voluminous body of first-person accounts to set forth an accurate record of the Yankee Division in France—a record that is, as he reports, “better than most.” Shay sheds new light on the ongoing conflict in leadership and notes that two of the division’s regiments received the coveted Croix de Guerre, the first ever awarded to an American unit. This first-rate study should find a welcome place on military history bookshelves, both for scholars and students of the Great War and for interested general readers.

The complete narrative of the expedition.

Within hours of the strike against Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military sprang into action to implement a "contingency plan" previously drawn up to protect the coast against a full-scale German invasion or incursions by Nazi espionage agents and saboteurs. The War Department placed the 26th "Yankee" Division (YD) under the jurisdiction of the 1st Coast Artillery District, a subdivision of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps. Military leaders charged the division with securing the coast of New England and Long Island, later expanding its area to include the entire eastern seaboard. Focusing primarily on the unit's work in "home defense" from January 1942 through November 1943, this history begins with prewar activation and training and recounts in detail the two highly publicized incidents of saboteurs coming ashore in June 1942. Also included are reports of U-boat sightings and encounters with subversive agents by veterans of the YD while on patrol. Firsthand accounts by members of the division provide a look at day-to-day operations. Appendices contain a number of previously unpublished historical documents. Many period photographs complete this history of a previously undocumented chapter of World War II history.

Describes what happened during the siege at the Alamo in 1836, as experienced by young Enrique Esparza and his family, and includes a script and instructions for staging a theatrical performance of this adventure.

In 1863 the Union capture of Texas was viewed as crucial to the strategy to deny the Confederacy the territory west of the Mississippi and thus to break the back of Southern military force. Overland, Texas supplied Louisiana and points east with needed goods; by way of Mexico, Texas offered a detour around the blockade of Southern ports and thus an economic link to England and France. But Union forces had no good base from which to interdict either part of the Texas trade. Their efforts were characterized by short, unsuccessful forays, primarily in East and South Texas. One of these, which left New Orleans on October 26, 1863, and was known as the Rio Grande Expedition, forms the centerpiece of this book. Stephen A. Townsend carefully traces the actions—and inaction—of the Union forces from the capture of Brownsville by troops under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, through the advance up the coast with the help of Union Loyalists, until General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the abandonment of all of Texas except Brownsville in March 1864. Townsend analyzes the effects of the campaign on the local populace, the morale and good order of the two armies involved, U.S. diplomatic relations with France, the Texas cotton trade, and postwar politics in the state. He thoughtfully assesses the benefits and losses to the Northern war effort of this only sustained occupation of Texas. No understanding of the Civil War west of the Mississippi—or its place in the Union strategy for the Deep South—will be complete without this informative study.

Texans are fiercely proud of their “Lone Star” flag. It has flown from foxholes, been displayed at military bases around the world, and even been to space. Most Americans don’t even know that the state has had a grand total of fifty-nine different flags over the course of its great history. Texas and Her Fifty-Nine Flags explores the standards for a different approach to a history of Texas. Throughout each chapter, the author provides a story taken from history texts, research and anecdotes collected during his teaching and travels, which took fifteen years. This unique history of Texas will captivate the reader from the first Spanish flag through revolutions and pirates, to the “Bonnie Blue Flag” of the Civil War.

Texas was the South's frontier in the antebellum period. The vast new state represented the hope and future of many Southern cotton planters. As a result, Texas changed tremendously during the 1850s as increasing numbers of Southern planters moved westward to settle. Planters brought with them large numbers of slaves to plant, cultivate and pick the valuable cash crop; by 1860, slaves made up 30 percent of the total Texas population. No state in the South grew nearly as fast as Texas during this decade, and as the booming economy for cotton led the economic development, the state became increasingly embroiled in the national debate about whether slavery should exist within a democratic republic dedicated to the freedom and independence of man. This work is centered on the role played by the town of Chappell Hill during this portion of Texas history. It offers details about the area's pre-war prosperity as a center of wealth, influence and aristocracy and describes the angry fervor of the period leading up to the war. Men of this small town played a role in many of the major campaigns and battles of the war, and their motivations for enlisting and their tales of duty are included here. Through excerpts from their correspondence and journals, the book emphasizes personal experiences of the soldiers. Post-war adventures are also offered as the author explores Texas resistance to Federal occupation, the town's yellow fever epidemic and a period of reconciliation as aging veterans gather at Blue-Gray reunions to reunite the nation.

Tempest Over Texas: The Fall and Winter Campaigns, 1863–1864 is the fourth installment in Dr. Donald S. Frazier’s award-winning Louisiana Quadrille series. Picking up the story of the Civil War in Louisiana and Texas after the fall of Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Tempest Over Texas describes Confederate confusion on how to carry on in the Trans-Mississippi given the new strategic realities. Likewise, Federal forces gathered from Memphis to New Orleans were in search of a new mission. International intrigues and disasters on distant battlefields would all conspire to confuse and perplex war-planners. One thing remained, however. The Stars and Stripes needed to fly once again in Texas, and as soon as possible.

This guide to more than 2,500 Texas roadside markers features historical events; famous and infamous Texans; origins of towns, churches, and organizations; battles, skirmishes, and gunfights; and settlers, pioneers, Indians, and outlaws. This fifth edition includes more than 100 new historical roadside markers with the actual inscriptions. With this book, travelers relive the tragedies and triumphs of Lone Star history.