Why Texans Fought in the Civil War

College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2010. N4 - A first edition (stated) hardcover book SIGNED and inscribed by Charles David Grear to previous owner on the half-title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket has some wrinkling on the edges and corners, dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. Number Twenty: Sam Rayburn Series of Rural Life, Sponsored by Texas A&M University-Commerce, M. Hunter Hayes, General Editor. "It was a cherished ambition with me to aid in redeeming my native State . . . . That dream has fled." 9.5"x6.25", 239 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. SO WROTE SAMUEL BELL MAXEY in an 1862 letter to his wife at their home in Paris, Texas. Maxey was serving with Confederate general Braxton Bragg, whose campaign to secure Maxey's home state of Kentucky for the Confederacy had just collapsed. Why was Maxey fighting a battle so far from his home and family? Why, in fact, did thousands of Texas men leave their homesteads - some at the risk of exposing their hard-won holdings to the depredations of Comanches and Union invasion - to fight in places like Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and even on the distant western frontier of New Mexico? In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources - including thousands of letters and unpublished journals - he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants' own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home. As Grear notes, in the decade prior to the Civil War the population of Texas had tripled. The state was increasingly populated by immigrants from all parts of the South and foreign countries. When the war began, it was not just Texas that many of these soldiers enlisted to protect, but also their native states, where they had family ties. Defining "hearth and home" as a collection of attachments that people develop throughout their lives, Grear reveals that for those leaving Texas to fight elsewhere, such attachments included a profound allegiance to Southern birthplaces and kidnap ties. Why Texans Fought in the Civil War adds a deep layer of understanding of the motivations of the men who left Texas to take part in the struggle that defined a nation. Civil War readers and scholars will not want to miss this important book.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.