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by Daniel Webster Roberts (Author), Luvenia Roberts (Author), Michelle M. Haas (Editor)
"After the war between the states, the citizens of Texas realizing that the state was overrun with Indians and outlaws, following in the wake of war, found that the battles of its first great pioneers would have to be, in a measure, fought over again. Not for the independence of a republic, but, for the life and liberty of her people, guaranteed by the constitution, and compact of states."
So begins Captain Dan Roberts memoir of his seven years of life in the field as a Texas Ranger.
During the Civil War, the frontier, which for four score and seven years had moved ever westward across the continent, halted in Texas. In some parts it even moved backwards. By 1874 it was high time for that territory to be re-won and for the frontier to be marching on.
Captain Roberts and the men of Company D - Frontier Battalion formed one of the most active Texas Ranger units in that forward march and were at the vanguard of the Rangers' transition from Indian fighting to law enforcement.
Indians, rustlers, outlaws, and murderers, the Texas Rangers went after them and Captain Roberts gives you a vivid narrative of all he experienced.
"A man named Jackson was riding on the left, thumb on the hammer of his gun, and I knew he was a bad hombre. I rode up nearly to his side... and almost quick as lightning, I jerked my pistol and shoved it against him, telling him to turn that gun loose or I would kill him. Jackson was stubborn and held to his gun until he could almost feel my bullet, then his hands limbered and his courage likewise."
Shortly after being named commander of Company D, Captain Roberts married Miss Luvenia Conway. Her honeymoon suite was a tent in the ranger camp on the San Saba near Menard.
Mrs. Roberts would spend the first six years of her married life in the field with her husband and came to be referred to as the Assistant Commander of Company D. She rode and shot as well as any man in the company, and did it sidesaddle while never showing an inch of ankle.
In 1928 she wrote her own memoir of those days. It's scarce today and fetches a couple hundred dollars at auction. We've included it in The Ranger Life, so you are getting two volumes between these covers. Mrs. Roberts tells you all about life in a frontier camp and gives you an inside look at Ranger society, how they lived and played.
