The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 67, July 1963 - April, 1964 Page: 300

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

views as the reason for the failure of the Freedmen's Bureau in
Texas was that it "interfered with relations between the employer
and his Negro employees, to the detriment of the workers de-
pendability," (p. 135-136) one finds a citation to the description
of a semi-share crop system in South Carolina, the value of the
citations becomes questionable, to say nothing of the judgements
themselves. Some statements by Professor Nunn, of great im-
portance not only to the history of Texas but to that of Recon-
struction as a whole, go completely unsupported by citation. Pro-
fessor Nunn says in connection with the Davis-Coke controversy,
"had an armed collision occurred, military government with
all the humiliation incident to it would have been reimposed,"
(p. 132); if this is true, much of what has been said about the
Grant policy toward the southern states by 1874 is wrong. One
can only wish that Professor Nunn had given a citation for this
important judgement.
Finally, the title of the book deserves some comment. As
James R. Norvell, among others, has pointed out; there were
only two men who held "a high responsible governmental posi-
tion in Texas during the Reconstruction period who could pos-
sibly be classified as a carpetbagger in the technical sense."
There is no historical justification for the title; Texas was never
controlled by carpetbaggers. In short, Professor Nunn has gone
into great detail, but he has done little to fill the crying need
for fresh insight into and evaluation of this most important era
in the history of the state and the nation.
JAMES V. REESE
Texas Technological College
The Francklyn Land & Cattle Company: A Panhandle Enterprise,
I882-957. By Lester Fields Sheffy. Austin (University of
Texas Press), 1963. Pp. xvi-+-,369. Illustrations, maps. $6.50.
In 1961, the University of Texas Press initiated the M. K.
Brown Range Life Series with a publication subsequently ac-
claimed as a major contribution to western history, 6,ooo Miles
of Fence: Life on the XIT Ranch of Texas, by Cordia Sloan Duke
and Joe B. Frantz. The gratifying reception accorded this work
invited a second successful effort the following year, Twilight on
the Range: Recollections of a Latterday Cowboy, by Wallace

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