The Frontier Partisans Podcast

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

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

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

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.

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

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...

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

 

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

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.

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

In 1920, after a decade of revolutionary struggle, Pancho Villa surrendered. He retired to the hacienda of Canutillo in Durango, Mexico, with a bodyguard of his faithful Dorados. For three years, he lived a peaceful life. That life came to an end on July 20, 1923, when a hit squad shot up his 1919 Dodge Roadster as he drove through the city of Parral.

Head Games by Craig McDonald — mentioned in this episode — is a fantastic pulp caper novel based on the 100-percent true fact that somebody broke into Pancho Villa’s tomb in 1926 and stole his head. Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, the ghosts of the Mexican Revolution… What’s not to love?

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

In December 1914, Pancho Villa and his Division del Norte were the mightiest force in Mexico. By the summer of 1915, the Division del Norte had been smashed and Villa was reduced to guerrilla warfare against his hated rival Venustiano Carranza — and against the United States.

 

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

When Victoriano Huerta staged a coup and murdered President Francisco Madero in February 1913, Pancho Villa crossed the border with eight men, bent on revenge. Within weeks, he had built a powerful army that would storm down the rail lines and sweep Huerta from power.

 

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Music: Blue Frontier by Jim Cornelius

Graphics by Lynn Woodward, Woodward Creative

Pascual Orozco led Francisco Madero’s forces in the decisive 1911 victory at the Battle of Ciudad Juarez — a battle the vacillating Madero didn’t want to fight. The victory ensured the fall of the regime of Porfirio Diaz and the ascendency of Madero to the presidency of Mexico.

 

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