The Frontier Partisans Podcast

A British Loyalist & Iroquois force conducted a major deep-penetration raid into the Wyoming Valley in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1778. A pitched battle with American militia forces would result in what has gone down in history as the Wyoming Massacre.

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Music: Height of Land by Hawken Horse

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Further reading:

Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the Iroquois by Glenn F. Williams.

Savage and Bloody Footsteps Through The Valley: The Wyoming Massacre in the American imagination by William R. Tharp.

 

 

The Mohawk Valley in western Upstate New York was a savage theater of war — a civil war within the larger Revolutionary War. It kicked off in earnest with the deadliest battle of the Revolution — in fact, one of the deadliest battles in American military history — the Battle of Oriskany, fought in a heavily wooded ravine at the western end of the Mohawk Valley on August 6, 1777.

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Height of Land by Hawken Horse

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Further reading:

Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier by Richard Berleth

Wilderness War on the Ohio: The Untold Story of the savage battle for British and Indian Control of the Ohio Country during the American Revolution by Alan Fitzpatrick

Joseph Brant, 1743-1807: Man of Two Worlds by Isabel Kelsay

The slow-burning powder train that led to the explosion of the American Revolution in 1775 is usually traced back to the Stamp Act of 1765. But there was another protest that took place in 1765 — in the Pennsylvania backcountry; land that had been a bloody battleground in the French & Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion. The conflict involved frontier settlers, traders, and British officials in a year-long stand-off. Unlike the Stamp Act protests, this conflict led to actual shooting.

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Height of Land by Hawken Horse

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Further reading:

Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776 by Patrick Spero

War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire by Gregory Evans Dowd

 

 

The frontier theater of the American Revolution is often seen as a sideshow of a greater conflict that birthed a new nation and fundamentally changed people’s relationship to government. But in a very real sense, the frontier was the decisive theater, both in creating the conditions and circumstances of rebellion and war, and in determining what kind of nation would come out of the conflict.

 

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Height of Land by Hawken Horse

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Pontiac’s War

Warren Angus Ferris spent six years as a Mountain Man — and left behind a vivid account of his days in the Rocky Mountains.

Further reading:

Life in the Rocky Mountains: A Diary of Wanderings on the Sources of the Rivers Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado, 1830-1835

Land is the Cry!: Warren Angus Ferris, Pioneer Texas Surveyor and Founder of Dallas County — Susanne Starling

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Man of the Mountain Land by Hawken Horse

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

In 1842, Texans staged a punitive expedition down to the Rio Grande, in retaliation for a Mexican incursion into San Antonio. Things went badly. Very badly.

Further reading:

Soldiers of Misfortune: The Somerville and Mier Expeditions, by Sam W. Haynes

Intro music: Dead Man Walking, Justin LaPoint, Uppbeat

https://www.patreon.com/frontierpartisans

Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

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

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

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

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

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