Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, with a Few Observations

by J. Frank Dobie

The fighting tradition is now giving way to the oil tradition. The Texas myth as imagined by non-Texans is coming to embody oil millionaires in airplanes instead of horsemen with six-shooters and rifles. See Edna Ferber's Giant (1952 novel). Nevertheless, many Texans who never rode a horse over three miles at a stretch wear cowboy boots, and a lot of Texans are under the delusion that bullets and atomic bombs can settle complexities that demand informed intelligence and the power to think.

As I have pointed out in The Flavor of Texas, the chronicles of men who fought the Mexicans and were prisoners to them comprise a unique unit in the personal narratives and annals of America.

Many of the books listed under the headings of "Texas Rangers," "How the Early Settlers Lived," and "Range Life" specify the fighting tradition.

BEAN, PETER ELLIS. Memoir, published first in Vol. I of Yoakum's History of Texas; in 1930 printed as a small book by the Book Club of Texas, Dallas, now OP. A fascinating narrative.

BECHDOLT, FREDERICK R. Tales of the Old Timers, New York, 1924. Forceful retelling of the story of the Mier Expedition and of other activities of the "fighting Texans." OP.

CHABOT, FREDERICK C. The Perote Prisoners, San Antonio, 1934. Annotated diaries of Texas prisoners in Mexico. OP.

DOBIE, J. FRANK. The Flavor of Texas, Dallas, 1936. OP. Chapters on Bean, Green, Duval, Kendall, and other representers of the fighting Texans.

DUVAL, JOHN C. Adventures of Bigfoot Wallace, 1870; Early Times in Texas, 1892. Both books are kept in print by Steck, Austin. For biography and critical estimate, see John C. Duval: First Texas Man of Letters, by J. Frank Dobie (illustrated by Tom Lea), Dallas, 1939. OP. Early Times in Texas, called "the Robinson Crusoe of Texas," is Duval's story of the Goliad Massacre and of his escape from it. Duval served as a Texas Ranger with Bigfoot Wallace, who was in the Mier Expedition. His narrative of Bigfoot's Adventures is the rollickiest and the most flavorsome that any American frontiersman has yet inspired. The tiresome thumping on the hero theme present in many biographies of frontiersmen is entirely absent. Stanley Vestal wrote Bigfoot Wallace also, Boston, 1942. OP.

ERATH, MAJOR GEORGE G. Memoirs, Texas State Historical Association, Austin, 1923. Erath understood his fellow Texians. OP.

GILLETT, JAMES B. Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1921. OP.