In Texas historiography the "Sterne Diary" is well known for its richness of material, its vividness of description, and its many incisive and human comments about the dramatis personae of the Republic of Texas.

The diarist, Nicholas Adolphus Sterne, was born in Cologne, Germany, on April 5, 1801, and migrat­ed to America sixteen years later as a fugitive from the oppressions of his native land. Settling first at New Orleans, he later moved to the Texas-Mexican frontier town of Nacogdoches where he remained until his death in 1852. Here he became an urbane, sophisticated...