The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 363
528 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
tion" (p. 114). All the chapters contain interpretive as well as narrative
and documentary material.
Some critics will undoubtedly castigate Moorhead for not utilizing more
anthropological and archeological studies, for not bringing in the "Indian
viewpoint," and for failing to compare Spanish presidios with nineteenth-
century United States garrisons. However, this would be to critique a book
Moorhead did not intend to write. Such viewpoints and comparisons are
outside his established scope and purpose. He set out to review and explain
the presidial system as it was viewed and intended by the Spanish govern-
ment in Mexico and he has done this.
There are, inevitably, some minor slipups. Occasionally the data, gathered
from different sources, seem confusing and even contradictory. On page 73,
for example, Moorhead notes from the Hugo O'Conor report of 1777 that
the "total frontier force amounted to 2,311 officers and men" while on
page 91, he reports "a total force of 1,908 troops." One can only assume
that the second report did not include Indian scouts and militiamen, as
did the first. The text is sometimes repetitive, as for example in the discus-
sion of payroll abuses and attempted reforms included in chapter 2 and
chapter 8. This is nitpicking! This is a well documented study with a
generally impressive bibliography (despite some obvious omissions such as
Morfi's Diario y Derrotero, 1777-1781) and an adequate index. Included
are five maps and twenty-one excellent reproductions from the Urrutia
Collection in the British Museum.
Like Moorhead's previous books and articles, The Presidio is thoroughly
researched and documented yet interpretive and readable. It would make
an excellent text or supplementary reading for courses in southwestern or
borderlands history. It is a major contribution to the history and under-
standing of Spain's northern borderlands.
The University of Texas at Arlington SANDRA L. MYRES
Plow-Horse Cavalry: The Caney Creek Boys of the Thirty-fourth Texas.
By Robert S. Weddle. (Austin: Madrona Press, Inc., 1974. Pp. 210.
Index. $9.)
Obviously a labor of love on the part of the author, this small work is
based in large part on letters exchanged between his maternal grandparents
during the Civil War. Despite ties of kinship, however, Weddle retains a
high degree of objectivity in weaving the correspondence into an interesting
narrative. Supplementing his thread of correspondence, the author has
made extensive use of army official records and county histories.363
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976, periodical, 1975/1976; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101203/m1/408/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.