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Fort Bascom - Soldiers, Comancheros, and Indians in the Canadian River Valley (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,006
Discovery Miles 10 060
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Fort Bascom - Soldiers, Comancheros, and Indians in the Canadian River Valley (Hardcover)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Motorists traveling along State Highway 104 north of Tucumcari, New
Mexico, may notice a sign indicating the location of Fort Bascom.
The post itself is long gone, its adobe walls washed away. In 1863,
the United States, fearing a second Confederate invasion of New
Mexico Territory from Texas, built Fort Bascom. Until 1874, the
troops stationed at this site on the Eroded Plains along the
Canadian River defended Hispanic and Anglo-American settlements in
eastern New Mexico and far western Texas against Comanches and
other Southern Plains Indians. In Fort Bascom, James Bailey
Blackshear presents the definitive history of this critical outpost
in the American Southwest, along with a detailed view of army life
on the late-nineteenth-century western frontier. Located in the
middle of what General William T. Sherman called ""an awful
country,"" Fort Bascom's hardships went beyond the army's efforts
to control the Comanches and Kiowas. Blackshear shows the
difficulties of maintaining a post in a harsh environment where
scarce water and forage, long supply lines, poorly constructed
facilities, and monotonous duty tested soldiers' endurance. Fort
Bascom also describes the social aspects of a frontier assignment
and the impact of the Comanchero trade on military personnel and
objectives, showing just how difficult it was for the army to
subdue the Southern Plains Indians. Crucial to this enterprise were
logistics, including procurement from civilian contractors of
everything from beef to hay. Blackshear examines the strong links
between New Mexican Comancheros and Comanches, detailing how the
lure of illegal profits drew former military personnel into this
black-market economy and revealing the influence of the Comanchero
trade on Southwestern history. This first full account of the
unique challenges soldiers faced on the Texas frontier during and
after the Civil War restores Fort Bascom to its rightful place in
the history of the U.S. military and of U.S.-Indian relations in
the American Southwest.
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