From 1875 to 1881, James B. Gillett served as one of the Texas Rangers, the lawmen of the Old West. Looking back 40 years later, he tells of his numerous clashes with Native American warriors in the West Texas borderlands, of the Mason County War and the Horrell-Higgins feud, and of dangerous missions into Mexico. Originally published in 1921.

Fifty Years on the Trail is the true story of John Young Nelson (1826-1903), an early frontiersman, military scout, interpreter, guide, and saloon owner. Nelson ran away from home as a young teenager to adventure in the west. He worked on farms, served as a cabin boy on a Mississippi steamer, and became an apprentice with a group of traders traveling west from Missouri. After meeting a band of Sioux, he got himself adopted into the tribe, learned how to live off the land and became a Sioux warrior.

Thomas Horn Jr. was an infamous figure in the 19th-century American Old West. Cowboy, soldier, government scout, translator, and gunman, Horn’s storied life has become an important part of western folklore. In 1902, he was convicted for murdering a 14-year-old boy after a run-in during a feud with a cattle rancher. The Life of Tom Horn is his life story in his own words, written from prison before he met his fate at the gallows the following year.

A reliable history of Texas's original families with accounts of battles, wars, adventures, forays, murders, massacres, etc., etc, together with biographical sketches of many of the most noted Indian fighters and frontiersmen of Texas. "A historical treasure trove" of the founders of the great state of Texas.

An accurate and personal record from one of America's first breed of mountain men, giving a detailed description of many the lands he passed through and the habits and character of the various tribes encountered.

John McCorkle was a young Missouri farmer of Southern sympathies. After serving briefly in the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard, he became a prominent member of William Clarke Quantrill's infamous guerrillas, who took advantage of the turmoil in the Missouri-Kansas borderland to prey on pro-Union people. McCorkle displayed an unflinchingly violent nature while he participated in raids and engagements including the massacres at Lawrence and Baxter Springs, Kansas; and Centralia, Missouri.

Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son, Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

During the fall of 1864 when General Sherman and his army invaded Georgia, the young Eliza Frances Andrews and her sister Metta fled from their home in Washington, Georgia, to safety in the southwest of the state. Eliza kept a diary that reflects the anger and despair of Confederate citizens during the final months of the Civil War.

The Cotton Kingdom recounts his daily observations of the curse of slavery: the poverty it brought to both black and white people, the inadequacies of the plantation system, and the economic consequences and problems associated with America’s most “peculiar institution.” Disproving the opinion that “cotton is king”, Olmsted examined the huge differences between the economies of the northern and southern states, contrasting the more successful, wealthy, and progressive North with the South, which was stubbornly convinced of the necessity of slavery.

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides - the Apaches and the white invaders - blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout Apache Kid.

Was Billy the Kid really shot to death by Sheriff Pat Garrett on a July night in 1881? At the midpoint of the last century, an old man comes forth seeking a pardon for crimes committed. He says that he wants to die a free man - and that he is Billy the Kid. The incident leads to this examination of new facts, new interpretations, and new contradictions. It is the story of "Brushy" Bill Roberts, a man who laid claim to a legend. Originally published in 1955 by University of New Mexico Press.

They came on foot and by horseback, in wagons and on rafts, singly and by the score, restless, adventurous, enterprising, relentless, seeking a foothold on the future. European immigrants and American colonists, settlers and speculators, soldiers and missionaries, fugitives from justice and from despair-pioneers all, in the great and inexorable westward expansion defined at its heart by the majestic flow of the Ohio River. This is their story, a chronicle of monumental dimension, of resounding drama and impact set during a pivotal era in our history: the birth and growth of a nation.

James Marsh's Four Years in the Rockies gives brilliant insight into the life of Isaac P. Rose, a man who forged his own path in the wilderness of the far west. This thrilling account of one mountain man's life at the height of the 19th-century fur industry follows Rose as he overcomes adversity, learns from those around him, and becomes one of the most successful trappers of the Rockies. Four Years in the Rockies is essential listening for anyone interested in the 19th-century fur trade and the adventurers who risked their lives to be part of it.

Wallace picked up the name "Big-Foot" while in a Mexican prison, because the prison attendants couldn’t find a boot large enough to fit him. Not only was he large of foot but also of deeds. Big-Foot Wallace was an Indian-fighter, hunter, and Texas Ranger. Few men have witnessed as many stirring incidents, had more hair-breadth escapes, or gone through more of the hardships and perils of a border life than Big-Foot Wallace.