Juan Seguin - Robert Hollmann

Juan Seguin.

By Robert Hollmann.

Durban House, 2007. Frontier Legends Series. Paperback, 112 pages. ISBN 1-9300754-95-7 www.durbanhouse.com

This Hollmann, http://www.lonestarlegends.org/., volume follows his Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Seguin was indeed one of the essential people in his time. Unlike his previous time-trunk and friendly dog companion, Hollmann uses a more direct device – a life-long friend of Seguin to provide the framework of the biography. And as a childish extra, Hollmannn injects the juvenile competitiveness for racing as a recurring option. The reader is introduced to Seguin’s family, long established in Texas, and within pages finds Seguin meeting Stephen Austin and a line of colonial notables important to the Texas Revolution.

Seguin and his associates are concerned about Santa Anna’s aggressive manner and throw in with the developing stronger democratic tradition of the times, unlike the Seguin family’s support of the counter-revolution against Las Casas in 1811. Bowie becomes one of the favorites because of his ties to San Antonio and his marriage into the Veramendi family. Seguin commands the scouts looking for Santa Anna’s arrival.

Eventually, his men become a part of the Alamo garrison, but he is detailed specifically as messenger to Sam Houston and is ultimately spared from the Alamo soldiery’s bloodbath. But Seguin continues on to become an officer at the Battle of San Jacinto after convincing Houston that his Tejano troops have earned the right to battle. After the battle, Houston asks Seguin to superintend the burial of the Alamo defenders.

The volume ends there without reference to his government service thereafter or the later tragedy of Seguin’s demise partly due to prejudice. Seguin died in 1890.

To Become a Texian ed. by Ann M. Peel

To Become a Texian – The Letters and Journeys of Caroline Cox Morgan and Her Family 1839 – 1857.

Edited by Ann Macklin Peel. Frankfort, KY: the author, 1997. Paperbound $20.00 8 ½ X 10 183 pp. 6 pp photos. 2 maps. Afterword. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Rev. by Donna Beth Shaw / P. O. Box 630231 / Houston 77263.

Ann Peel’s collection of old letters (now archived at the University of Kentucky) and notes chronicle real events of a family traveling and living between Kentucky and Texas and back, and their family relations in the mid-1800’s. Their intimate records reveal how ancestors might have been thinking. Peel, a descendant of James Morgan received a shoe box of letters from her aunt, and after years of deciphering and interviewing, the book emerged. The volume is virtually out of print. Digitization of the book will provide its availability on the University of North Texas Portal To Texas History by summer, 2007. This book is an excellent source of both local and national history, with first-hand accounts of the way things were, forming the foundation for further historical understanding.

Peel presents the letters in an organized, chronological manner. Narrations are provided between the letters, filling in gaps in time, and detailing the value of the family connections and their views.

The letters comment on more than foods and clothes; they also contain lengthy essays on local and national political events written by an active, literate, educated family. Social customs such as the first Christmas on the Texas south coast enrich the personal letters and document the lives of James Morgan and his family, Sidney Sherman, the Harris family and other known political characters of the Republic and post-Republic era.

They wrote to each other about the government, elections, weather and farming/ranching trends – providing contemporary observations of the times. Profound insights were offered on then-current events, written by citizens, regular people who lived generations ago. Caroline Cox's marriage to Kos Morgan, son of James Morgan, the land agent and employer of Emily D. West, is the focus of the family connections provided in the letters.

Historical narration between the chapters acquaints the reader/researcher with details of events summarized in other works but known as daily dynamics for individuals who experienced them in early Texas and Kentucky. Some chapter titles include: ‘Caroline becomes a Texian’, ‘A Texas Christmas’, ‘The gold road to El Paso’, and cover topics such as religion of the times, travel conditions, family challenges, Cornelius Cox and his Reminiscences and Diary, and comments on activities of James Morgan, a key figure in early Texas’ economy.