In 1849, a young German bride and her husband stepped off a ship in Corpus Christi Bay to establish their home in the new frontier settlement. For the next three decades Maria von Blucher wrote letters home describing the hardships of droughts and Indian and bandit raids, the chaos of the American Civil War, the discomforts of pioneer living, the joys and heartbreaks of family life, and the development of a town that her descendants would help to build into a thriving city. Her letters record above all the woman's side of pioneer life. Although they offer insight into political events and...

"Texas, by God " cried notorious killer John Wesley Hardin when he saw a Colt .45 pointed at him on a train in Florida. At the other end of the pistol stood Texas Ranger John B. Armstrong. Hardin's arrest assured Armstrong a place in history, but his story is larger, fuller, and even more important-and until now it has never been told. As Elmer Kelton notes in his afterword to this book, "Chuck Parsons's biography is a long-delayed and much-justified tribute to Armstrong's service to Texas." Parsons fills in the missing details of a Ranger and rancher's life, correcting some common...