Nathan Greene is the Revolutionary Warfare general most associated with unconventional warfare. The historiography of the southern campaign of the revolution uniformly agrees he was a guerrilla leader. Best evidence shows, however, that Nathanael Greene was completely conventional -- that his strategy, operations, tactics, and logistics all strongly resembled that of Washington in the northern theater and of the British commanders against whom he fought in the south. By establishing that Greene was within the mainstream of eighteenth-century military science this dissertation also challenges the prevailing historiography of the American Revolution in general, especially its military aspects. The historiography overwhelmingly argues the myth of the valiant few -- the notion that a minority of colonists persuaded an apathetic majority to follow them in overthrowing the royal government, eking out an improbable victory. Broad and thorough research indicates the Patriot faction in the American Revolution was a clear majority not only throughout the colonies but in each individual colony. Far from the miraculous victory current historiography postulates, American independence was based on the most prosaic of principles -- manpower advantage.

This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.

The subject of this manuscript is the Texas Rangers “clean-up” of San Augustine, which was undertaken between late January 1935 until approximately July 1936 at the direction of then newly-elected Governor James V. Allred, in response to the local “troubles” that arose from an near decade long “crime wave.” Allred had been elected on a platform advocating dramatic reform of state law enforcement, and the success of the “clean-up” was heralded as validation of those reforms, which included the creation of – and the Rangers’ integration into – the Texas Department of Public Safety that same year. Despite such historic significance for the community of San Augustine, the state, and the Texas Rangers, no detailed account has ever been published. The few existing published accounts are terse, vague, and inadequate to address the relevant issues. They are often also overly reliant on limited oral accounts and substantially factually flawed, thereby rendering their interpretive analysis moot in regard to certain issues. Additionally, it is a period of San Augustine’s history that haunts that community to this day, particularly as a result of the wide-ranging myths that have taken hold in the absence of a thoroughly researched and documented published account. Concerns …

The Texas Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of Texas public land in exchange for construction of the monumental red granite Capitol that continues to house Texas state government today. The Capitol project and the land went to an Illinois syndicate led by men influential in business and politics. Austin's statehouse is a recognizable symbol of Texas around the world. So too, the massive Panhandle tract given in exchange -- what became the "fabulous" XIT Ranch -- has come to, for many, symbolize Texas and its role in the nineteenth century cattle boom. After finding sales prospects for the land, known as the Capitol Reservation, weak at the time, backed by British capital, the Illinois group, often called the Capitol Syndicate, turned their efforts to cattle ranching to satisfy investors until demand for the land increased. The operation included a satellite ranch in Montana to which two-year-old steers from Texas were sent for fattening, often "over the trail" on a route increasingly blocked by people and settlement. Rather than a study focused on ranching operations on the ground -- the roundups, the cattle drives, the cowboys -- this instead uncovers the business and political side of the Syndicate's …

Of the roughly 3,500 volunteer regiments and batteries organized by the Union army during the American Civil War, only a small fraction has been studied in any scholarly depth. Among those not yet examined by historians was one that typified the western armies commanded by the two greatest Federal generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. The Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry was at Fort Donelson and Shiloh with Grant in 1862, with Grant and Sherman during the long Vicksburg campaign of 1862 and 1863, and with Sherman in the Meridian, Atlanta, Savannah, and Carolinas campaigns in the second half of the war. These Illinois men fought in several of the most important engagements in the western theater of the war and, in the spring of 1865, were present when the last important Confederate army in the east surrendered. The Forty-fifth was also well connected in western politics. Its unofficial name was the “Washburne Lead Mine Regiment,” in honor of U.S Representative Elihu B. Washburne, who used his contacts and influences to arm the regiment with the best weapons and equipment available early in the war. (The Lead Mine designation referred to the mining industry in northern Illinois.) In addition, …

This dissertation examines the gay rights movement occurring in Dallas, Texas, from the mid-twentieth century to present day by focusing on the work of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance (DGLA), previously known as the Dallas Gay Political Caucus and the Dallas Gay Alliance. Members of that group utilized a methodology they called "the Dallas Way" that minimized mass protests and rallies in favor of using backroom negotiations with the people who could make the changes sought by the movement. The fact that most of the members of the DGLA were white, professional men aided in the success of their methodology. Particularly useful in this type of effort is the use of legal action. The Dallas community supported several lawsuits that attempted to overthrow various versions of sodomy laws in the Texas Penal Code that criminalized an entire population of gay men and lesbians in the state.

During the Progressive Era in the United States, social hygiene reformers underwent a fundamental change in their stance toward women accused of prostitution or promiscuous behavior. Rather than viewing such women as unfortunate victims of circumstance who were worthy of compassion, many Progressives deemed them as predatory villains who instead deserved incarceration, forced rehabilitation, and non-consenting medical interference. Texas, due to the many military bases within its borders, became a key battleground in this moral crusade against women as the carriers and proliferators of VD. "Promiscuous" women were seen as not only dangerous to the soldiers but also as a threat to the nation's security, creating an environment that led Texas Progressives to suppress women's civil liberties in the name of protecting soldiers. The catalyst for this change in attitude was World War I. The Great War brought to the forefront an unpleasant reality facing a significant percentage of America's fighting men: venereal disease. While combating sexually transmitted diseases was a serious medical and manpower concern for the military in the era before penicillin, the sole focus on women as the carriers and proliferators of VD led to a nationwide campaign against the "social evil" that demonized women and led …