This study examines the social and economic characteristics of the men who joined the Confederate Fourteenth Texas Infantry Regiment during the Civil War and provides a narrative history of the regiment's wartime service. The men of the Fourteenth Infantry enlisted in 1862 and helped to turn back the Federal Red River Campaign in April 1864. In creating a portrait of these men, the author used traditional historical sources (letters, diaries, medical records, secondary narratives) as well as statistical data from the 1860 United States census, military service records, and state tax rolls. The thesis places the heretofore unknown story of the Fourteenth Texas Infantry within the overall body of Civil War historiography.

The effect of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the southern planter elite remains a topic of interest to historians. Did the war ruin the planter class? Or, did they maintain economic, geographic, or social persistence? This study focuses on the persistence from 1850 to 1880 of five East Texas large planter families who owned one hundred or more slaves in 1860. An analysis of data primarily from county, state, and federal records formthe basis of this study. Four families persisted as wealthy influential members of their postbellum communities. One family remained geographically persistent but not wealthy. The experiences of these families suggest that large East Texas planter families found it possible to persist in spite of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

This thesis examines the letters, proclamations, and addresses of the four presidents of the Republic of Texas, David G. Burnet, Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Anson Jones, to determine how these men faced the major crises of Texas and shaped policy regarding land, relations with Native Americans, finances, internal improvements, annexation by the United States, and foreign relations. Research materials include manuscript and published speeches and letters, diaries, and secondary materials.

In late 1861, the Confederate Texas government commissioned Joseph W. Speight to raise an infantry battalion. Speight's Battalion became the Fifteenth Texas Infantry in April 1862, and saw almost no action for the next year as it marched throughout Texas, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. In May 1863 the regiment was ordered to Louisiana and for the next seven months took an active role against Federal troops in the bayou country. From March to May 1864 the unit helped turn away the Union Red River Campaign. The regiment remained in the trans-Mississippi region until it disbanded in May 1865. The final chapter quantifies age, family status, wealthholdings, and casualties among the regiment's members.

Many historians have acknowledged the temptation to portray people as they see themselves and wish to be seen, blending history and ideology. The result is "mythistory." Twentieth century Texas writers and historians, remarking upon the exceptional durability of the Texas mythistory that emerged from the nineteenth century, have questioned its resistance to revision throughout the twentieth century. By placing the writing of Texas history within the context of American and European intellectual climates and history writing generally, from the close of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, it is possible to identify a pattern that provides some insight into the popularity and persistence of Texas mythistory.