The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 191

Book Reviews

he went over every document and item again. He turned up con-
siderable documentary material not heretofore made use of by
any writer, and a great deal of secondary material that had not
been exploited. He traveled over the territory that he dealt with
and spent weeks in the Albany-Fort Griffin region, interviewing
every person who by the remotest chance might contribute some-
thing to the study.
The recorded history of the Clear Fork of the Brazos country
began nearly two decades before there was a Fort Griffin. The
author started his story with the first border contacts, and dealt
with the Comanches, their wars, their pow-wows, their first agent,
the intrepid Jesse Stem, and their short lived reservation on the
Clear Fork. He sketched the story of Camp Cooper, the first mili-
tary post in the region, and its commanders, among them Robert
E. Lee.
The history of Fort Griffin is bifurcated. There is the narra-
tive of the military, of the men who planned campaigns and set
out on war trails that did not end until the fierce and proud
Kiowas and Quahada Comanches had ceased resistance and re-
turned as suppliants to their reservation.
With equal skill and gusto the author has written of the town
of Fort Griffin ("the Flats"), of its bad men and men of the law,
and those who teetered on the brink of lawlessness. This is the
fullest account yet published of the vigilantes of the region, the
men who even hanged a former sheriff. Thorough and most
interesting also is the story of the buffalo hunters and the last
short boom they gave the town.
This book is as nearly definitive as a study on such a subject
can be. It is interestingly written and in every respect in keeping
with the high standard of workmanship Carl Coke Rister set
for himself. RUPERT N. RICHARDSON
Hardin-Simmons University
Bibliography of Texas, 1795-1845, Part II, Mexican Imprints
Relating to Texas, 1803-1845. Compiled by Thomas W.
Streeter. Cambridge (Harvard University Press), 1956.
xxiv+83. Appendix and index. $io.oo.
This is the second part of a projected three-part bibliography

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