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No, I'm talking about the book I'm looking at right now on my bookshelf about four feet away. Age of the Gunfighter, by Joseph G. Rosa, University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. I don't own the book you speak of, that I can remember, but Rosa is the author of more than one book. Once he starts on a topic is seems loathe to leave it, having at least three books about Wild Bill, that I can remember off the top of my head.

Thanks all. I just started reading A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West by James Donovan.

It's interesting and will take me a while. Thought I'd poll the learned here to see if there are some I should be on the look out for in the future.

Triggernometry by Eugene Cunningham.

A lot of these titles are great books. I've read some of them. If you want a comprehensive look at the subject though, go with the Time Life books. Even the first five will really get you a good feel for it.

This is a bit later, but it's an interesting read considering the author: Lazy B by Sandra Day O'Connor and H. Alan Day. Tough people growing up on those western ranches.

Bury my heart at wounded knee, Dee Brown.

I live in Green Valley,Az a little south of Tucson. I live here by choice made many years ago and greatly influenced by writings of two men. The writings of Jack O'Conner who greatly influenced my going to Gunsmith school and J. Everts Haley who wrote 'Jeff Davis Milton - A Good Man With A Gun' which is one of the most honest depictions of western history as you can probably find. Milton did it all,he was a cowboy,ranger,Border Patrolman,Lawman and above it all gunfighter and man of impeccable character. It was from University of Oklahoma Press and from about 1950's so don't know if it is still in print.I have a soft cover edition published about 20 years ago. It is definitely worth finding and reading. Haley is one of the finest western historians I know and anything he writes is worth reading.

I second this recommendation, Milton was an early Tx Ranger, and may have been the first Border Patrolman (official title: "Mounted Hindu Inspector")

Sycamore

This is really a great book and written from the documents collected over the years by Walter Mason Camp, who compiled eyewitness accounts from survivors of the battle, both Indian and Cavalry.

It is interesting to see how the curators at the Little Bighorn Battlefield Museum, give little credibility to Donovan's work yet his research is based more on actual recorded depositions of battle survivors.

The Museum isn't without it's agenda either as they won't recognize the forensic work of Henry Weibert's collection of battlefield artifacts and what importance they play in the reconstruction of the battle.

Regardless of all the drama surrounding the battle, this is still one of the better books to read on Western History, as there has not been a single battle or individual more written about than George Custer and the Little Bighorn battle...

The true old west.........began with the Lewis & Clark expedition and was soon followed by REAL MEN such as John Colter and Jim Bridger and Fitzpatrick and Jedediah.

Kit Carson was a wuss who came much later. So were the indian fighters of 1840+.

Try 'Give Your Heart to the Hawks' by Winfred Blevins in order to fully understand this.

Not so fast SBH.



I think Smith only started in 1822, so he was 7 years ahead of Carson as a Mountain Man, and only 3 years ahead of him on the way to California. I'm not taking anything away from Smith, and Dale Morgan's book was a good one, but some of the stuff Carson pulled off was incredible.

Sycamore

I have a signed edition of the J Evetts Haley book, Cur. He and his wife were patients of mine for many years until their passing. Now that was one man who bemoaned the passing of the old ranching ways and loved the smell of cow schitt and and a hot iron on cowhide.

They have a library / museum in Midland dedicated to the old west. He also was a sworn enemy of LBJ, particularly after his book, 'A Texan Looks at LBJ'.

His son still has his old spread out west of Kermit where I hunted quail years ago.

He told me that the IRS audited him every year until either LBJ died or left office (I can't now remember which).


To the OP- I would also recommend 'The Oregon Trail'.

For sure 'Journal of a Trapper'

Out of print but Pistol Pete is good. The Little Britches series...at least the ones out west.

Another great book is 'The Original History of John Colter' by Burton Harris.

Much more has been respected about Jim Bridger than Jedediah Smith. Little is written specifically about Jim's pard Thomas Fitzpatrick. Jed has received more written frontier history cuz he was an expedition leader, but that's all. Of this group.....I'm going with Bridger as the (almost) epitome of a great Mtn man who did and saw almost everything a man could do in those days. Lived to be 76........but nobody thought to interview him deeply and take down his stories. Shame, too.

But even more so than Bridger.........John Colter explored and trapped the Rockies........much of it all by his lonesome........a couple decades before Bridger and his buds showed up. Colter was a member of the original Lewis & Clark expedition......and left it to go back into the hills. Tough-ass man. Do a web search on 'The Colter Stone' for some interesting quick history.

These great characters of the ooooooolllllddd west were there fighting Blackfeet looooong before the Custer's, Cavalry, and Comanche fighters mentioned above. The Kit Carson's and Daniel Boone's don't even hit my radar compared to Colter and Bridger.

The portion of western history I find the most interesting is the amount of goings on that was occurring before Lewis and Clark. 17th and 18th century stuff. Like the Vilasur expedition to Nebraska in 1721. Mendoza expedition out of El Paso 1630 into Texas southern plains. And that scoundrel La Salle.

Some of the best reading are translations and books by Herbert Eugene Bolton. Circa 1914..

Kaywoodie,

along those lines, a good one is:

Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America

link

So many good suggestions here.

I would suggest getting a copy of Law West Of Fort Smith, A History of Frontier Justice in Indian Territory, 1834-1896." by Glenn Shirley, University of Nebraska Press, �1957 & �1968. It goes into great detail of one of the roughest and most dangerous areas of the Great American Frontier, up through the career of one of the most famous "lawmen" of that entire era, one Issac Charles Parker, aka "Hanging Judge Parker."

If you've read True Grit, by Charles Portis, or seen the two movies, True Grit, they'll come to mind often if you read this book.

Another would be The Arizona Story, Compiled From Original Newspaper Sources, by Joseph Miller, Hasting House Publs., �1952. Although the news stories re the Apaches are somewhat biased in today's light, there is no doubt that Arizona Territory for many, many years was a very dangerous place to live, not only because of marauding Indians, but desperados, bandits, freebooters, and cut throats.

Two others are Tularosa, Last Of The Frontier West, by C. L. Sonnichsen, Univ. of New Mexico Press, �1969 and �1980. Details the settlement of another very rough and dangerous area, southeastern New Mexico and portions of northwestern Texas from El Paso up into New Mexico.

A great read is Fifty Years On The Old Frontier, as Cowboy, Hunter, Guide, Scout, and Ranchman, by James H. Cook, Yale University Press, �1923. A truly fascinating read. Cook began "cowboying" when he was 14, trailing a herd of cattle from Texas up to Kansas, then Nebraska, and on to Wyoming. His exploits on the western frontier are incredible.

I also have the complete collection of the Time-Life western series and have always enjoyed reading of the many different types of people who came "out west" to settle the frontier. We often think of the old western frontier as just "cowboys, cattle drives, and injuns." So much more, especially all the various professions that helped open and settle the west.

So many marvelously interesting books out there, one can never read them all... but it's fun to try.

L.W.

Oh yes!!! Damn good stuff. The coolest thing about the later Spanish journadas is there were always two separate "official" journals kept of the trips. One military and one ecclesiastical. A cool check and balance. Things that meant nothing in a military light might be recorded elsewhere.

There was bunches of stuff going on. Not only by the Spanish and the French. But also by the British and Russians.

Spanish were actually scared schidtless of the Brits moving west of the Mississippi!! French were in Santa Fe in 1739 (Mallet Brothers) and Gil y Barbo captured a marooned English sailor from the orcoquisac Indians on Galveston bay in 1773.

I always felt the story of the Talon children from the ill-fated La Salle expedition would make an awesome movie!

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta60

KW,

So just exactly who gave horses to the northern plains indians?

Who knows??? mebbe they had em all along.