Neither rich, famous, nor notorious, Whiting was a loyal officer in the U.S. Army for three decades during the middle of the 19th century. His career began in the time of Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun and coincided with a period in American history when the country was moving West in those tumultuous years of Manifest Destiny.

The history of the Old West has deep roots in South Texas where the Wild Horse Desert was a lawless land controlled by no authority. The western region of South Texas, from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, stretching west and south to the Rio Grande, was the birthplace of the big cattle ranches, the cattle barons, rustlers, hide thieves, outlaws, and bad men operating on both sides of the border. Murphy Givens brings the stories of the Old West to life in "Great Tales From the History of South Texas"

Recollections Of Other Days is a compilation of memoirs of early settlers of Corpus Christi and the Nueces Valley of South Texas. The great value of their accounts, both written down and told-to, lies in the fact that they lived through the times they recalled. Some had first-hand knowledge of Corpus Christi in the 1850s when it was a struggling frontier outpost. Robert and William Adams tended their flocks in the early years of the great sheep industry of South Texas. Anna Moore Schwien, daughter of a slave, Andrew Anderson, son of a bay pilot, and Eli Merriman, a doctor's son, shed light on...

It is finally here. For years readers have been asking of a collection of Murphy Givens history articles. Columns 2009 - 2011 is a compilation of nearly 100 newspaper columns written by Murphy Givens about the history of Corpus Christi, the Nueces Valley and South Texas. The columns document the people who strove to make South Texas their home. Adventurers, outlaws, settlers, cowboys, ranchers and entrepreneurs from the United States, Europe and Mexico all came to the Coastal Bend of Texas, struggling against nature and their fellow man to make their homes and livelihoods. Columns includes...

Murphy Givens' historical articles in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times are collected by many readers. This volume, Columns II, is compiled from more than 100 columns published in 2012 and 2013. They are about the pioneers and settlers who tamed the wild land and made South Texas their home. They were adventurers, outlaws, cowboys, ranchers and entrepreneurs, from all over the United States, Europe and Mexico. They lived in dangerous times and left a lasting legacy. This second book of Givens' collected newspaper columns includes 193 photographs and maps, source notes and a full index.