Adolphe Gouhenant tells the story of artist, revolutionary, and early North Texas resident Francois Ignace (Adolphe) Gouhenant (1804-1871). Gouhenant was selected by well-known Icarian communist Etienne Cabet to lead an advance guard from France to settle a utopian colony in North Texas. The community, beset by hardships, ultimately scapegoated Gouhenant, accused him of being a French agent, and expelled him. He then journeyed first to Fort Worth to teach the federal soldiers French and art, and next to Dallas, where he founded the town’s first arts establishment in the 1850s. Gouhenant set up shop as a daguerreotypist and photographed the town’s early residents. His Arts Saloon was the scene of many exhibitions and dances but ultimately became the high stake in a nasty battle among Dallas’s leading citizens, setting legal precedent for Texas homestead law.

Wyatt Earp is one of the most legendary figures of the nineteenth-century American West, notable for his role in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Some see him as a hero lawman of the Wild West, whereas others see him as yet another outlaw, a pimp, and failed lawman. Roy B. Young, Gary L. Roberts, and Casey Tefertiller, all notable experts on Earp and the Wild West, present in A Wyatt Earp Anthology an authoritative account of his life, successes, and failures. The editors have curated an anthology of the very best work on Earp—more than sixty articles and excerpts from books—from a wide array of authors, selecting only the best written and factually documented pieces and omitting those full of suppositions or false material. Earp’s life is presented in chronological fashion, from his early years to Dodge City, Kansas; triumph and tragedy in Tombstone; and his later years throughout the West. Important figures in Earp’s life, such as Bat Masterson, the Clantons, the McLaurys, Doc Holliday, and John Ringo, are also covered. Wyatt Earp’s image in film and the myths surrounding his life, as well as controversies over interpretations and presentations of his life by various …

This anthology collects the eleven winners of the 2018 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, an event hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. First place winner: Kale Williams, “The Loneliest Polar Bear” (The Oregonian), relates the tale of Nora, a baby polar bear raised by humans in a zoo after being abandoned by her mother. Second place: Patricia Callahan, “Doomed by Delay” (Chicago Tribune), reveals the experiences of Illinois families with children diagnosed with Krabbe—a deadly disease that healthcare professionals could have screened for at birth, and ultimately treated, if it weren’t for government bureaucracy. Third place: Christopher Goffard, “Dirty John” (Los Angeles Times), is an investigative story that explores the dynamics of domestic violence with a nuanced, psychologically complex narrative of family and survival. Runners-up include John Woodrow Cox, “Twelve Seconds of Gunfire” (The Washington Post); Tom Hallman Jr., “His Heart, Her Hands” (The Oregonian); Jenna Russell, “The Last Refugee” (The Boston Globe); Lisa Gartner and Zachary T. Sampson, “Wrong Way” (Tampa Bay Times); Casey Parks, “About a Boy” (The Oregonian); Jennifer Emily, “Hope for the Rest of Us” (The Dallas Morning News); …

This is the WWI memoir of Ward Schrantz, a National Guard officer and machine gun company commander in the Kansas-Missouri 35th Division. He extensively documents his experiences and those of his men, from training at Camp Doniphan to their voyage across the Atlantic, and to their time in the trenches in France’s Vosges Mountains and ultimately to their return home. He devotes much of his memoir to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in which the 35th Division suffered heavy casualties and made only moderate gains before being replaced by fresh troops. Schrantz also describes the daily life of a soldier, including living conditions, relations between officers and enlisted men, and the horrific experience of combat. Editor Jeffrey Patrick combines his narrative with excerpts from a detailed history of the unit that Schrantz wrote for his local newspaper, and also provides an editor’s introduction and annotations.

Phantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War—a unique, tactical perspective of the “guy in back,” or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen’s service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies. Thorsen endured the tough Platoon Leaders Course at Quantico and barely earned a commission. He underwent aviation and intercept training while suffering airsickness issues—and still earned his wings. Thorsen joined the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the VMFA-232 Red Devils in southern California, as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam. In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his …

As a boy growing up in New York City, Kevin P. Gilheany had two dreams: to join the Coast Guard and to play the bagpipes. But by the time he finished high school he was overweight, had a drinking problem, and couldn’t swim. Undeterred by the doubts of the folks at home, he decided to enlist in the Coast Guard anyway. With great determination and some divine intervention, he passed the swim test and graduated from boot camp, thus beginning an eventful and diverse twenty-year career in the 1980s and 1990s Coast Guard. He set a goal for himself to get command of his own patrol boat, and along the way he was involved in capturing drug smugglers, rescuing hundreds of Haitian migrants at sea, recovering Space Shuttle Challenger debris, surviving a “hooligan navy” experience on a Coast Guard workboat, coordinating search and rescue during the famed “Perfect Storm,” and leading armed boardings of ships following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When he was asked by one of his men, who was dying from brain cancer, to play bagpipes at his retirement ceremony, Kevin started down a new path to have bagpipers officially recognized as part of the Coast Guard. …

In Beyond the Quagmire, thirteen scholars from across disciplines provide a series of provocative, important, and timely essays on the politics, combatants, and memory of the Vietnam War. The essays pose new questions, offer new answers, and establish important lines of debate regarding social, political, military, and memory studies. Part 1 contains four chapters by scholars who explore the politics of war in the Vietnam era. In Part 2, five contributors offer chapters on Vietnam combatants with analyses of race, gender, environment, and Chinese intervention. Part 3 provides four innovative and timely essays on Vietnam in history and memory.

During the late 1880s, the Cornett-Whitley gang rose on the Texas scene with a daring train robbery at McNeil Station, only miles from the capital of Texas. In the frenzy that followed the robbery, the media castigated both lawmen and government officials, at times lauded the outlaws, and indulged in trial by media. At Flatonia the gang tortured the passengers and indulged in an orgy of violence that earned them international recognition and infamy. Private enterprises, such as Wells Fargo, the railroads, and numerous banks, joined forces with law enforcement to combat them. Lawmen from cities and counties combined with federal marshals and the Texas Rangers to further cement what would become the “brotherhood of the badge.” These efforts succeeded in tracking down and killing or capturing a good number of the gang members. Readers of the Old West and true crime stories will appreciate this sordid tale of outlawry and the lawmen who put a stop to it.

James L. Freaner was one of America’s first war correspondents covering General Winfield Scott’s campaign during the Mexican War. His letters appeared in newspapers under the byline “Mustang,” and his reports from the front included publication of complete casualty lists (long before official reports became public), detailed battle descriptions, and observations on postwar Mexico. Freaner’s greatest contribution was persuading Nicholas P. Trist, negotiator with Mexico, to ignore his recall and conclude a peace treaty that added California, Nevada, Utah, and other territory to a growing country. From the Halls of the Montezumas is a complete compilation of Freaner’s Mexican War reporting. Editors Alan D. Gaff and Donald H. Gaff annotated the text with footnotes identifying people, places, and events, also adding pictures of key figures and maps.