The National Guard in America began in the Revolutionary War. The Texas units resulted from the earlier concept and emerged in 1835 to resist Mexican oppression. Following achievement of statehood, Texas militiamen served in the Mexican War, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. As the twentieth century began, Texans had a long history of service in reserve military organizations in spite of a prevailing attitude of contempt for citizen soldiers held by influential regular army officials.

The practice of altering Shakespeare's plays, begun during the Restoration and continued throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth, originated in continuously evolving literary and dramatic principles that went much deeper than the capricious whims of individual dramatists. Thus, each Shakespearean alterations in, perhaps, a century's time, a comparative study can provide some insight into the changing rules of dramatic valuation in the eighteenth century. Such a study is the purpose of this work, in which are examined the Shakespearean alterations of John Phillip Kemble. The sheer breadth of Kembles Shakespearean repertoire, his reputation among contemporary Shakespeare scholars and his renown for a quarter of a century as England's foremost Shakespearean dramatist and actor at both Drury Lane and Covent Garden all serve to emphasize the validity of such an undertaking.