Regents Professor of History, Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi, Texas. Author of The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the West, 1783β1900 (2009), Frontier Crossroads: Fort Davis and the American West (2006), and numerous other publications on early U.S. military history in America's western region.
As the fledgling nation looked west to the land beyond the Appalachian Mountains, it turned to the army to advance and defend its national interests. Clashing with Spain, Britain, France, Mexico, the Confederacy, and Indians in this pursuit of expansion, the army's failures and successes alternately delayed and hastened western migration. Roads, river improvements, and railroads, often constructed or facilitated...
The idea of the West conjures exciting images of tenacious men and women, huge expanses of unclaimed territory, and feelings of both adventure and lonesome isolation. Located astride communication lines linking San Antonio, El Paso, Presidio, and Chihuahua City, the United States Armyβs post at Fort Davis commanded a strategic position at a military, cultural, and economic crossroads of nineteenth-century Texas. Using extensive research and careful scrutiny of long forgotten records, Robert Wooster...
