Revolutionary War general Thomas Posey (1750-1818) lived his life against the backdrop of one of the most dramatic periods in American history. Posey, who played a minor role in the actual War for Independence, went on to participate in the development and foundation of several states in the transappalachian West. His experiences on the late 18th- and early 19th-century American frontier were varied and in a certain sense extraordinary; he served as Indian agent in Illinois Territory; as Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, as U.S. Senator from Louisiana, and as Governor of Indiana during its transition from territorial status to statehood.
His biographer speculates on the contrasting influences of Thomas's ne'er-do-well father, Captain John Posey, and the family's close friend, General George Washington. Posey's progress is then followed as he raises his own family in the newly formed nation. Of particular interest is an appendix containing a detailed analysis of evidence available to support popular 29th-century speculation that Thomas Posey was, in fact, George Washington's illicit son.

At the start of the Civil War, Dr. William McPheeters was a distinguished physician in St. Louis, conducting unprecedented public-health research, forging new medical standards, and organizing the state's first professional associations. But Missouri was a volatile border state. Under martial law, Union authorities kept close watch on known Confederate sympathizers. McPheeters was followed, arrested, threatened, and finally, in 1862, given an ultimatum: sign an oath of allegiance to the Union or go to federal prison. McPheeters "acted from principle" instead, fleeing by night to Confederate territory. He served as a surgeon under Gen. Sterling Price and his Missouri forces west of the Mississippi River, treating soldiers' diseases, malnutrition, and terrible battle wounds. From almost the moment of his departure, the doctor kept a diary. It was a pocket-size notebook which he made by folding sheets of pale blue writing paper in half and in which he wrote in miniature with his steel pen. It is the first known daily account by a Confederate medical officer in the Trans-Mississippi Department. It also tells his wife's story, which included harassment by Federal military officials, imprisonment in St. Louis, and banishment from Missouri with the couple's two small children. The journal appears here in its complete and original form, exactly as the doctor first wrote it, with the addition of the editors' full annotation and vivid introductions to each section.

An adventure story from the wilds of early America, The Land between the Rivers recreates the journeys of the English botanist Thomas Nuttall, one of American history's most well-traveled scientists.

During the early nineteenth century, Nuttall explored the waters, valleys, plains, and mountains of the Great Lakes, Ohio River, Mississippi River, as well as the Missouri, Arkansas, Red, and Canadian river valleys of the former Louisiana Territory.

In this fascinating account of Nuttall's travels through the wilderness of the middle west, author Russell Lawson-using Nuttall's own journal-captures the sense of excitement of the early wanderer. As much a delight for the mind as the senses, The Land between the Rivers details the unremitting weather and rugged geography of uncharted lands within the Louisiana Territory. A sense of discovery pervades the narrative as Nuttall's odyssey builds to its climax in the prairie wilderness of what is now Oklahoma. Sickened by "ague"-in his case, malaria-Nuttall at times was barely able to go on; yet he continued to search for and catalog plants and animals.

The Land between the Rivers expands our knowledge of the work of one of the country's earliest botanists. We also learn a great deal about the early explorers, the inhabitants of the unsettled land, and about the land and culture of the times.

Life beyond the Boundaries explores identity formation on the edges of the ancient Southwest. Focusing on some of the more poorly understood regions, including the Jornada Mogollon, the Gallina, and the Pimería Alta, the authors use methods drawn from material culture science, anthropology, and history to investigate themes related to the construction of social identity along the perimeters of the American Southwest.

Through an archaeological lens, the volume examines the social experiences of people who lived in edge regions. Through mobility and the development of extensive social networks, people living in these areas were introduced to the ideas and practices of other cultural groups. As their spatial distances from core areas increased, the degree to which they participated in the economic, social, political, and ritual practices of ancestral core areas increasingly varied. As a result, the social identities of people living in edge zones were often—though not always—fluid and situational.

Drawing on an increase of available information and bringing new attention to understudied areas, the book will be of interest to scholars of Southwestern archaeology and other researchers interested in the archaeology of low-populated and decentralized regions and identity formation. Life beyond the Boundaries considers the various roles that edge regions played in local and regional trajectories of the prehistoric and protohistoric Southwest and how place influenced the development of social identity. 

Contributors: Lewis Borck, Dale S. Brenneman, Jeffery J. Clark, Severin Fowles, Patricia A. Gilman, Lauren E. Jelinek, Myles R. Miller, Barbara J. Mills, Matthew A. Peeples, Kellam Throgmorton, James T. Watson

“Higginbotham has given to American historiography a microcosmic view of one of the earliest and most important outposts in the colonial new world. The Latin South can henceforth not be ignored.” —Alabama Historical Quarterly

This regimental history tells the story of the 28th Texas Cavalry (dismounted), a unit of Walker's Texas Division which campaigned throughout the Civil War in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Part of the division known as "Walker's Greyhounds" because of their amazing mobility and stamina, the men of the 28th, helped preserve Texas from Federal invasion. 1997 Winner of the Ottis Lock Award for the Best Book on East Texas History

The Plainview Paleoindian artifact style was first recognized in 1947, after numerous projectile points were found during excavations of a bison kill site near Plainview, Texas. In the decades that followed, however, Plainview became something of a catch-all category with artifacts from across the continent being lumped together based merely on gross similarities. This volume unravels the meaning of Plainview, detailing what is known about this particular technology and time period. Contributing authors from the United States and Mexico present new data gleaned from the reinvestigation of past excavations, notes, maps, and materials from the original Plainview site as well as reports from other Plainview Paleoindian sites across the Great Plains, northern Mexico, and the southwestern United States. 

A classic resource on the struggle for dominance in southern North America during the colonial period

This volume recounts the clashes and intrigues that played out over the landscape of the Old Southwest and across six decades as the Spanish, French, British, and ultimately Americans vied for control. Rivalry began soon after initial discovery, mapping, and exploration as the world powers, particularly England and France, competed for control of the lucrative fur trade in the Mississippi valley. The French attempted to establish trade networks stretching from the Atlantic Ocean inland to the Mississippi River and northward from ports on the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio River. But they found the British already entrenched there.

Verner Crane guides us through this multinational struggle and navigates the border wars and diplomatic intrigues that played crucial roles in the settlement of the South by Euro-Americans. In his new introduction, Steven Hahn places the work in the context of its time, sketches its publication history, and provides biographical information on Crane.

In 1798—more than five years before he led the epic western journey that would make him and Meriwether Lewis national heroes—William Clark set off by flatboat from his Louisville, Kentucky home with a cargo of tobacco and furs to sell downriver in Spanish New Orleans. He also carried with him a leather-trimmed journal to record his travels and notes on his activities.

In this vivid history, Jo Ann Trogdon reveals William Clark’s highly questionable activities during the years before his famous journey west of the Mississippi. Delving into the details of Clark’s diary and ledger entries, Trogdon investigates evidence linking Clark to a series of plots—often called the Spanish Conspiracy—in which corrupt officials sought to line their pockets with Spanish money and to separate Kentucky from the United States. The Unknown Travels and Dubious Pursuits of William Clark gives readers a more complex portrait of the American icon than has been previously written.

Bringing together the work of prominent scholars and rising stars in southern, western, and Indian history, A Whole Country in Commotion explores lesser-known aspects of one of the better-known episodes in U.S. history. While the purchase has been seen as a great boon for the United States, doubling the size of the new nation and securing American navigation on the Mississippi River, it also brought turmoil to many. Looking past the triumphal aspects of the purchase, this book examines the “negotiations among peoples, nations and empires that preceded and followed the actual transfer of territory.” Its nine essays highlight the “commotion” the purchase stirred up—among nations, among Louisiana residents and newcomers, even among those who remained east of the Mississippi. Many of these essays look at the portion of the Louisiana territory that would become Arkansas to illustrate the profound impact of the purchase on the diverse populations of the American Southwest. Others explore the woeful commotion brought to many thousands of lives as Jefferson’s “noble bargain” set the stage for the forced migration of native and African Americans from the east to the west of the Mississippi.

One of the most important volumes of short fiction published before the Civil War. The Wigwam and the Cabin represents William Gilmore Simms at his very best. It is the work that led Poe to say of Simms, ". . . in invention, in vigor, in movement, in the power of exciting interest, and in the artistical management of his themes, he has surpassed, we think, any of his countrymen." Praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic, The Wigwam and the Cabin focuses n the Southern frontier that Simms knew so well, a frontier whose vernacular, courage, humor, folklore, violence, injustice, and beauty are vividly brought to life through the strokes of his pen. "I have seen the life," Simms wrote, "—have lived it—and much of my material . . . is the planter, the squatter, the Indian, the negro—the bold and hardy pioneer, the vigorous yeomen—these are the subjects." Simms's portrayal of frontier life is the most realistic and graphic in all nineteenth-century American literature; and the Arkansas edition of The Wigwam and the Cabin, with Dr. Guilds's fine editing and informative introductin, brings back into print an invaluable contribution to the development of the short story in America.