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Book Review
Taming Texas:
Captain William T. Sadler’s
Lone Star Service
By Stephen L. Moore
Review by Robert Nieman
Stephen L. Moore,
Taming Texas: Captain William T. Sadler’s Lone Star Service
(Austin, Texas: State House Press, 2000). 387 pp. numerous photographs
and maps, extensive bibliography and notes, index. ISBN 1-880510-68-5.
$34.95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback.
The
Dispatch is pleased to have Steve Moore as a regular contributor.
He is a leading scholar in pre-Civil War Texas Ranger history, the author
of Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and The
Texas Independence Campaign and Savage Frontier: Rangers, Riflemen,
and the Indian Wars in Texas – 1835-1837, volume I.
Personal connection
often plays a role in what historians will research. Moore is a direct
decedent of William Sadler. If he were not, Sadler’s place in
Texas history probably would remain a mere footnote—which would
be a lot more than he wanted. If he were alive today, this extraordinarily
modest Texas hero would probably disapprove of this focus on his life.
In a letter to relatives, Sadler left instructions that “the world
would not be notified of my death.” Thankfully for Texas history,
Sadler’s grandson thought his life should be honored.
Traveling with
Mirabeau Lamar, the future Republic of Texas president, Sadler arrived
in Texas from Georgia in 1835. From that time until his death in 1884,
he served unselfishly for the Lone Star state as a Texas Ranger, soldier,
politician, and citizen. He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto and,
in the ensuing years, helped protect East Texas against marauding Indians.
This defense was a job he found particularly satisfying considering
his wife and infant daughter were killed in the Edens-Madden Massacre
near Augusta, Houston County, in 1838. Sadler also served as congressman
in the government of the Republic of Texas and as a state representative
in the state of Texas legislature. By the time the Civil War started,
the sixty-four-year-old Sadler served as a member of Terrell’s
Texas Cavalry.
Moore provides
insightful portraits of men that Sadler served with and fought against:
Cherokee Chief Bowles, James Box, and Kelsey Harris Douglass. He also
gives us glimpses of towering figures in Texas history with whom Sadler
became intimate during his years as a Ranger and politician: Sam Houston,
Thomas Jefferson Rusk, Sidney Sherman, Mirabeau Lamar, and David Burnet,
to name but a few.
As expected from
Moore’s previous works, he provides exhaustive muster rolls, land
records, bibliography, and endnotes. This book is an absolute must for
Texas historians, whether your interest is Texas Rangers in particular
or Texas history in general.
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