Customer Reviews

Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company D, 1874-1901

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This is a good book that provides the perspective of the Texas Rangers from the individual who served as one. It shares how they lived, "in tents or under the stars", the hard riding that was required, i.e. the importance of a good horse, the days and months of boredom followed by minutes of violence and terror, etc.

Some of the interesting items highlighted in this book are the following. (1) The importance of a good horse was highlighted time and again. In fact, the author emphasized the importance of the horse by mentioning the value of each Texas Rangers, horse, e.g. this one cost $75, and this one was the best in the group worth $120, etc. (2) The continual thriftiness and downright cheapness of the Texas government to the Texas Rangers. For example, although a Texas Ranger may have been paid $40 a month, they would only get 90% of that script. (They weren't paid in actual money but in paper script which they had to cash in at a local bank for less than it was worth.) Consequently, many Texas Rangers didn't stay one for long. There was continual turnover and even many of the officers left and returned a number of times. (3) There were a number of shootouts with the bad guys but mostly the job was about riding, riding, and riding some more to try to catch these guys in the wide open spaces and often not being successful. Also, the local authorities, i.e. County Sheriffs were continually asking for Rangers, and on the other hand, the Texas State government was continuing to reduce the budget causing the need to lay-off Texas Rangers. All in all, they were being asked to do more and more with less.

At times, there are the shoot-outs with the bad guys that liven up the book. Some examples are the shoot-out on Pirate Island with crooks where Captain Jones, in charge of company D, gets killed, the gun-fight between Ranger Fulghum and Charles Caroll where "Fulghum was no second place winner", the gunfight between Ranger McKidrickt, John Selman and Baz Outlaw, and the gunfight with Martin M'Rose, etc. Most of these gunfights occurred in the 1890s which appears to have been an especially violent decade in the life of the Texas Rangers.

All in all, this is a good book, highly recommended for any individual interested in the west. However, it really is not for the casual reader of the west.

Arrived in 1st class condition. I am reading it now and it is just what I expected it to be.Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company D, 1874?1901 (Frances B. Vick Series)