Of the 174 delegates to the Texas convention on secession in 1861, only 8 voted against the motion to secede. James Webb Throckmorton of McKinney was one of them. Yet upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army and fought in a number of campaigns. At war's end, his centrist position as a conservative Unionist ultimately won him election as governor. Still, his refusal to support the Fourteenth Amendment or to protect aggressively the rights and physical welfare of the freed slaves led to clashes with military officials and his removal from office in 1867.
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Does Texas's experience as a republic make it unique among the other states? In many ways, Texas was an ""accidental republic"" for nearly ten years, until Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States after winning independence from Mexico. Beginning with the Texas Revolution, Single Star of the West examines the emergence of a Texas identity.

Explores the life of John Jackson ""Jack"" Helm, whose main claim to fame has been that he was a victim of man-killer John Wesley Hardin. That he was, but he was much more in his violence-filled lifetime during Reconstruction Texas.