The idea of the West conjures exciting images of tenacious men 
and women, huge expanses of unclaimed territory, and feelings of 
both adventure and lonesome isolation. Located astride 
communication lines linking San Antonio, El Paso, Presidio, and 
Chihuahua City, the United States Army's post at Fort Davis 
commanded a strategic position at a military, cultural, and 
economic crossroads of nineteenth-century Texas. Using extensive 
research and careful scrutiny of long forgotten records, Robert 
Wooster brings his readers into the world of Fort Davis, a place of 
encounter, conquest, and community.

    The fort here spawned a thriving civilian settlement and served 
as the economic nexus for regional development. Frontier 
Crossroads schools its readers in the daily lives of soldiers, 
their dependents, and civilians at the fort and in the surrounding 
area. The resulting history of the intriguing blend of Hispanic, 
African American, Anglo, and European immigrants who came to 
Fort Davis is a benchmark volume that will serve as the standard to 
which other post histories will be compared.

    The military garrisons of Fort Davis represented a rich mosaic of 
nineteenth-century American life. Each of the army's four black 
regiments served there following the Civil War, and its garrisons 
engaged in many of the army's grueling campaigns against 
Apache and Comanche Indians. Characters such as artist and 
officer Arthur T. Lee, William "Pecos Bill" Shafter, and Benjamin 
Grierson and his family come alive under Wooster's pen.

Frontier Crossroads will enrich its readers with its careful 
analysis of life on the frontier. This book will appeal to military 
and social historians, Texas history buffs, and those seeking a 
record of adventure.

_________________________________________________________

ROBERT WOOSTER is the Joe Frantz Professor of History at 
Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, where he teaches U.S., 
Civil War, military, and Texas history. His earlier works on the 
military and the U.S. frontier have won several awards. His 
Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army was a 
History Book Club selection.


Number Seven: Canseco-Keck History Series


What people are saying about this book

". . . should serve as a model of how good military history should be 
written. . . . a masterful account of a post which served as a place of 
'encounter, conquest, and community' (ix)."—Southwestern Historical 
Quarterly

". . . a model microhistory of a frontier outpost and its environs in the 
west Texas desert . . . Although Wooster does an altogether 
admirable job of detailing the numerous patrols that the army 
launched against its swift striking foes and the dozens of 
nameless skirmishes that they fought, the principal value of this 
book lies in its contributions to the social history of the West, 
recreating through exhaustive research and in elegant style, the life 
of a frontier community and the day to day routine of the officers 
and men of the fort and of the civilians—brown, black, and white—
who found protection in its shadow and employment in its many 
enterprises."—Military History, October 2006

"This is an excellent book. Wooster's extensive research is 
complemented by his gift for using excerpts from primary sources 
to bring the story to life . . . Wooster moves past the exceptionalist 
view of the Anglo-American frontier experience and focuses on the 
fort's history as 'a place of encounter, conquest, and community,' 
including information abou various ehtnic groups, women, and the 
communities that developed to support the fort. Historians of 
Texas, military historians, and general readers alike will enjoy this 
book."—Military History of the West, V. 36, 2006

"Frontier Crossroads will enrich its readers with its careful analysis 
of life on the frontier. This book will appeal to military and social 
historians, Texas history buffs, and those seeking a record of 
adventure."—Texas Illustrated Magazine, May 2006

"Certainly no historian today knows more about Fort Davis than 
Robert Wooster. . . . All previous attempts to chronicle the history 
of the post pale in comparison to what Wooster has produced."
—Jerry Thompson, author, Civil War in the Southwest

"This is the best history written on a Texas fort and will be the 
benchmark standard by which to judge all the others. . . . It is 
more than just a fort history, it is a complicated tale of human 
interaction, of triumph and failure in an unforgiving environment, 
and it is a model for all scholars of the frontier experience."
—Thomas T. Smith, author, The U.S. Army and the Texas Frontier 
Economy, 1845–1900