Fort Davis: Outpost on the Texas Frontier

If you're visiting Fort Davis National Historic Site in West Texas, and if you'd like to know more than what the Park Service tells you at the site, this pamphlet is a good place to start. It's only about 50 pages, and an easy read. (Wooster has also written a longer book if you'd like more depth.) The pamphlet follows the topics you'd expect - - the problem of the frontier, US exploration in the region and establishment of the fort, a history of the military engagements, daily life in the fort, and the Buffalo Soldiers (African-American soldiers who made up most of the enlisted men at the fort). The book falls short in failing to look at the bigger picture. Why did the US expand westward in general, and into Texas in particular? Why were its conflicts with the Indians so different from the Mexican experience in the same region? Why did the Apaches and Comanches respond to the threat with raiding, as opposed to the other forms of resistance they might have tried? That might be asking too much for a pamphlet. But another five or ten pages setting the stage would have served Wooster well. Objections aside, it's a good background for your visit.