The Border Rifles: A Tale of the Texan War

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Border Rifles, by Gustave Aimard
E-text prepared by Camille Bernard & Marc D'Hooghe (http://www.freeliterature.org)
In the series commencing with the present volume GUSTAVE AIMARD has entirely changed the character of his stories. He has selected a magnificent episode of American history, the liberation of Texas from the intolerable yoke of the Mexicans, and describes scenes quorum pars magna fuit . At the present moment, when all are watching with bated breath the results of the internecine war commencing between North and South, I believe that the volumes our author devotes to this subject will be read with special interest, for they impart much valuable information about the character of the combatants who will, to a great extent, form the nucleus of the confederated army. The North looks down on them with contempt, and calls them Border ruffians; but when the moment arrives, I entertain no doubt but that they will command respect by the brilliancy of their deeds.
Surprising though the events may be which are narrated in the present volume, they are surpassed by those that continue the series. The next volume, shortly to appear under the title of The Freebooters, describes the progress of the insurrection till it attained the proportions of a revolution, while the third and last volume will be devoted to the establishment of order in that magnificent State of Texas, which has cast in its lot with the Secessionists, and will indubitably hold out to the very last, confident in the prowess of its sons, whose fathers Aimard has so admirably depicted in the present and the succeeding volumes of the new series.
L.W.
The immense virgin forests which once covered the soil of North America are more and more disappearing before the busy axes of the squatters and pioneers, whose insatiable activity removes the desert frontier further and further to the west.
Flourishing towns, well tilled and carefully-sown fields, now occupy regions where, scarce ten years ago, rose impenetrable forests, whose dense foliage hardly allowed the sunbeams to penetrate, and whose unexplored depths sheltered animals of every description, and served as a retreat for hordes of nomadic Indians, who, in their martial ardour, frequently caused these majestic domes of verdure to re-echo with their war-yell.