The Frontier Partisans Podcast

Episode 59 — Tales of the Rangers — Part IX — Bigfoot & Conan

In 1932, Robert E. Howard created his most enduring and popular character — Conan the Cimmerian. Part of Conan’s DNA came from the legendary Texas Ranger Bigfoot Wallace. This episode explores that connection: 

Further reading:

Beyond the Black River by Robert E. Howard

On An Underwood No. 5 — Bigfoot vs. Bigfoot: Biggest Bout of the 19th century! Or…The Four Deaths of Chief Bigfoot by Ben Friberg

Beyond the Black River — Is It Really Beyond the Brazos River, Part 1 by John Bullard

Part 2

Part 3

 

Texas Indian Fighters — AJ Sowell

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https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 58 — Tales of the Rangers Part VIII — Captain McNelly and the Las Cuevas War

Captain Leander H. McNelly and 26 Texas Rangers crossed the Rio Grande to recover a herd of stolen cattle in November of 1875. They were defying the odds — and international law. McNelly had a mission, and he was willing to risk his own life, the lives of his Rangers, and war with Mexico to accomplish it.

Further reading:

Texas Seizes Large Sanctuary Island in Campaign Against Cartels

Taming the Nueces Strip, by George Durham

Follow Me To Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice, by Tom Clavin

Cult of Glory: The Bold And Brutal History of The Texas Rangers, by Doug J. Swanson

https://thoughtsfromafar.blog/2018/08/26/the-red-raid-1875/

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 57 — Tales of the Rangers Part VII — War on the Nueces Strip

Leander McNelly — a “puny” consumptive with exceptional drive and martial prowess — recruited 41 men to form a Special Force of Texas Rangers to take on rampant banditry in the Nueces Strip in South Texas in 1875. It was more a counterinsurgency mission than a law enforcement operation, and it would make him and his men Frontier Partisan legends.

 

Further reading:

Taming the Nueces Strip, by George Durham

Follow Me To Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice, by Tom Clavin

https://thoughtsfromafar.blog/2018/08/26/the-red-raid-1875/

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 56 — Tales of the Rangers, Part VI — The Road to Mexico City

In 1847, General Winfield Scott landed an American Army at the port of Veracruz and pushed west to take Mexico City. The Texas Rangers under Col. John Coffee Hays were tasked with counter-guerrilla operations to keep the vital supply line between Veracruz and Mexico City open.

Sources:

Mixed Blessing: The Role of the Texas Rangers in the Mexican War, 1846-1848, Masters Thesis by Major Ian B. Lyles

Cult of Glory: The Bold & Brutal History of the Texas Rangers by Doug J. Swanson

Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers by Robert M. Utley

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 55 — Tales of the Rangers, Part V — Ben McCulloch

Ben McCulloch was a Tier 1 Frontier Partisan — a highly capable scout and spy, and an outstanding combat leader. He was also an ardent pro-slavery Southern patriot, who died in battle in service of the Confederate States of America. All that makes him... complicated... for folks in the 21st Century, but he’s a man who should be remembered.

(Note: I know that there’s a weird repeat at the end. Couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it, and it doesn’t do any harm, so there it is, is, is).

Sources: Ben McCulloch and the Frontier Military Tradition by Thomas W. Cuttrer

The Filibusters — Spawned by the Frontier (Frontier Partisans Podcast)

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 54 — Tales of the Rangers, Part IV — Mustang Gray

Mabry B. Gray — known to history and legend as Texas Ranger Mustang Gray — is the avatar of the dark side of the Ranging Way of War. If John Stark of Rogers Rangers represents the tough but honorable ideal of a Ranger, Mustang Gray represents the vicious, vengeful, natural-born killer element, giving rein to his darkest impulses in a deadly blood feud.

Sources: 

MIXED BLESSING: THE ROLE OF THE TEXAS RANGERS IN THE MEXICAN WAR, 1846-1848 A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE Military History by IAN B. LYLES, MAJ, USA M.A., University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, 2001

Irregulars: Guerrilla and Rancher egulars: Guerrilla and Ranchero Warfare in South T e in South Texas and exas and Northern Mexico during the Mexican - American War James Mills The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, james.mills@utrgv.edu

Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers By Doug J. Swanson

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 53 — Tales of the Rangers, Part III — Tougher Than Leather

Tougher than leather — that’s Cicero Rufus Perry. He started riding with the Texas Rangers in his teens, in the 1830s, when the new nation of Texas was locked in a two-front war with Mexicans along the border and Comanches to the west and north. He rode with many of the great men of that legendary Frontier Partisan force — Jack Hays, Ben McCulloch, Sam Walker.

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Episode 52 — Tales of the Rangers, Part II — The Captivity of John Stark

John Stark was a badass — a real-deal American hero, born and bred on the New England Frontier. He served as second-in-command of Rogers Rangers in the French and Indian War, led a frontier-bred contingent of New Hampshire militias to Boston, where they hammered the British Army with devastating volleys of accurate musket fire in the battle of Bunker Hill, and he beat a German contingent of the British Army in a standup fight at Bennington in the summer of 1777, setting up the key American victory at Saratoga. His gritty determination and his tactical acumen were on display early, when he was captured by Abenaki warriors in the spring of 1752...

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

 

Episode 51 — Tales of the Rangers — Lovewell’s Fight

The first in the series Tales of the Rangers recounts a savage firefight between a party of New England rangers led by Captain John Lovewell, and Abenaki warriors led by their renowned war captain, Paugus, in the Maine woods on May 8 or May 9, 1725. 

Sources:

Lovewell’s Fight: War, Death and Memory in Borderland New England — Robert E. Cray

The Maine Story: Lovewell’s Fight by Pat Higgins

The White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery, And Vengeance in Colonial America by Stephen Brumwell

Episode 50 — The Mexican Game of Thrones, Part VI — Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

Behind my office chair at The Nugget is a large poster portrait of Emiliano Zapata. The Mexican Revolutionary’s hard eyes gaze out over the snowdrift of papers on my desk, his magnificent mustache bristling, haloed by his massive sombrero, a bandolier of cartridges across his chest. Most folks who come into my office don’t pay much attention to him; those who do often mistake him for Pancho Villa. Occasionally someone asks who he was and why he’s there. He’s there because I admire him.

This episode is an introduction to the bold, tragic, and inspiring story of the truest of the Mexican Revolutionaries.

Support The Frontier Partisans Blog and Podcast through Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative