Rangers and Pioneers of Texas. With a Concise Account of the Early Settlements, Hardships, Massacres, Battles and Wars, by which Texas was Rescued from the Rule of the Savage and Consecrated to the Empire of Civilization.

San Antonio, Texas: Shepard Bros. & Co., Printers and Publishers, 1884. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Original terracotta cloth stamped in gilt and blind with gilt pictorial on front cover. Light wear to boards. Front inner hinge shows mild cracking, but is still firm. Previous owner's name on ffep and at head of ch. 2. Light colored-pencil scribbles on copyright page and in the margins of page 18. Some instances of minor page soiling, else generally clean. Nine in-text illustrations. pp. [2], 411, [5 blank]. [Jenkins BTB 192, Howes S801, Graff 3909]. An important primary source for Texas Indian Wars and pioneer history, written by Andrew Jackson ''Jack'' Sowell (1848-1921), who had served as a Texas Ranger and was also the son of a Texas Ranger. Per the historian, bibliographer, and former ABAA president, John H. Jenkins, this is ''one of the basic sources on the vicissitudes of the pioneer settlers in Texas, this work contains numerous accounts gathered from participants, as well as one of the best of all first-person ranger campaign narratives.'' The legendary Western Americana specialist and rare book seller Edward Eberstadt considered it ''one of the most important and authentic accounts of the Indian Wars in Texas.'' The volume is divided into three sections: the first presents a historical narrative that documents an extended series of Indian troubles and violent encounters, as related to Sowell by participants; the second relates to the adventures of members of the Sowell family in Texas in the 1830s and 1840s and includes material on the Texas Revolution and republic; and the third section, comprising about 200 pages, is Sowell's own account of the Texas Rangers' campaign to the Wichita Mountains, 1870-1871. The previous owner of the book, whose 1888 signature appears on the ffep, was Gould Ely Jones (1875-1957), a draftsman and surveyor from Wisconsin whose older brother, James Mills Jones, served as the Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, 1896-1900.