It is 1842 -- a dramatic year in the history of Texas-Mexican
relations. After five years of uneasy peace, of futile
negotiations, of border raids and temporary, unofficial
truces, a series of military actions upsets the precarious
balance between the two countries. Once more the Mexican
Army marches on Texas soil; once more the frontier settlers
strengthen their strongholds for defense or gather their
belongings for flight. Twice San Antonio falls to Mexican
generals; twice the Texans assemble armies for the invasion
of Mexico. It is 1842 -- a year of attack and counterattack.
This is the story that Professor Nance relates, with a
definitiveness and immediacy which come from many years of
meticulous research. The exciting story of 1842 is a story
of emotions which had simmered through the long, insecure
years and which now boil out in blustery threats and
demands for vengeance. The Texans threaten to march beyond
the Sierra Madres and raise their flag at Monterey; the
Mexicans promise to subdue this upstart Texas and to teach
its treacherous inhabitants their place. With communications
poor and imaginations fertile, rumors magnify chance banditry
into military raids, military raids into full-scale invasions.
Newspapers incite their readers with superdramatic,
intoxicating accounts of the events. Texans and Mexicans
alike respond with a kind of madness that has little or no
method. Texas solicits volunteers, calls out troops, plans
invasions, and assembles her armies completely disregarding
the fact that her treasury is practically empty -- there is
little money to buy guns. Meanwhile, in Mexico, where gold
and silver are needed for other purposes, "invasions" of
Texas are launched -- but they are only brief forays more
suitable for impressive publicity than for permanent gains.
Still, the conflicts of threat and retaliation, so often
futile, are frequently dignified by idealism, friendship,
courage, and determina-
(Continued on back flap)
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(Continued from front flap)
tion. Both Mexicans and Texans are fighting and dying for
liberty, defending their homes against foreign invaders,
establishing and maintaining friendships that cross racial
and national boundaries, struggling with conflicting
loyalties, and -- all the while -- striving to wrest a
living for themselves and their families from the grudging
frontier.
Attack and Counterattack, continuing the account
which was begun in After San Jacinto (the first
of this three-volume series), tells from original sources
the full story of Texas-Mexican relations from the time of
the Santa Fe
Expedition through the return of the Somervell Expedition
from the Rio Grande. These books -- and a third volume still
to come -- examine in great detail and with careful accuracy
a period of Texas history that has not heretofore been
thoroughly studied and that has seldom been given unbiased
treatment. The source materials compiled in the notes and
bibliography -- particularly the military reports, letters,
diaries, contemporary newspapers, and broadsides -- will be
a valuable tool for any scholar who wishes to study this or
related periods.
The author is Head of the Department of History and Government
at Texas A. and M. University.
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS
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