The young daughter of an English-born U. S. infantry officer on the post-Civil War frontier, Mary Leefe Laurence had the childhood of an army nomad, accompanying the regiment from south Texas to the Canadian border. In faithfully recording her travels, she offers extensive and unique insight into life as a child and adolescent in the twilight of the Indian-fighting army. Thomas T. Smith is a regular army lieutenant colonel of infantry assigned to Fort Bliss, Texas. He is the editor of A Dose of Frontier Soldiering (Nebraska 1996).

In "The Old Army in Texas," U.S. Army officer and historian Thomas "Ty" Smith presents a comprehensive and authoritative single-source reference for the activities of the regular army in the Lone Star State during the nineteenth century. Beginning with a series of maps that sketch the evolution of fort locations on the frontier, Smith furnishes an overview with his introductory essay, "U.S. Army Combat Operations in the Indian Wars of Texas, 1849-1881." Reprinted from the "Southwestern Historical Quarterly," Smith's essay breaks new ground in an innovative analysis of the characteristics of...

Seventy million dollars in fifty-five years. From Texas' annexation in 1845 until the turn of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army pumped at least that much or more into the economy of the fledgling state, a fact that directly challenges the popular heritage of Texas as the state with roots of pioneer capitalism and fervent independence. In The U.S. Army and the Texas Frontier Economy, 1845-1900, Thomas T. Smith sheds light on just who bankrolled the evolution of Texas into viable statehood. Smith draws on extensive research gathered from both government archives and Texas army posts in order...

"Our mission continues . . . Until They Are Home!"--Motto of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command At the end of the Vietnam War--or American War, as it is called in Hanoi--2,585 Americans were unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. In 1992, a joint task force was established to continue the work of recovery, and its members became the first U.S. government representatives to return full-time to Vietnam. Army Lt. Col. Thomas ("Ty") Smith arrived in Hanoi a decade later, in 2003. "Until They Are Home" is both a heartfelt memoir and a fascinating inside look at his tour of duty in Vietnam, "a place...