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The
four ships of “The First Texas Navy” served the Republic during the
Texas War of Independence and the Republic’s first years.
More than the Texian Army, they were responsible for Texas
maintaining its independence. These
ships starved the Mexican army of supply while feeding the Texian forces
with cargoes from ships they captured.
They kept Mexico - which immediately repudiated Santa Anna’s
grant of Texas independence - from renewing the conflict on land.
The
early history of the Texas Navy is a tangle and uncertain skein. The
paperwork associated with them [early ships] is fragmentary.
Powers does a magisterial job of untangling the threads.
He re-examined the existing primary sources, and cleared away many
myths associated with the Texas Navy.
One example: The William
Robbins, which later became the Texas Navy warship Liberty, was never – as often reported – a privateer.
The
book is extensively footnoted – a serious study of the Texas Navy will
find that invaluable – yet is both readable and entertaining.
Powers steers through shoals of information with a steady hand.
The First Texas Navy is a fine addition to the canon about the
Republic’s Navy.
Mark Lardas, Galveston, Texas
in The Daily News (1
October 2006) |
2007 Kate Broocks Bates Award finalist for
historical research, Texas State Historical Association.
Judge
John Powers’ The First Texas
Navy is a remarkable compilation of data on the fabled first Texas
Navy, which plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from 1835 to 1837.
[The book] contains a wealth of detailed information, all woven into a
fascinating story that most Texans have never known – the story of the
fight for Texas independence at sea.
Highlighting
the importance of maritime commerce to the suffering Texas colonists…
Powers’ explanations of naval procedures and warfare during the
twilight of the Age of Sail give the scholar and general reader a level
of detail unmatched in any previous work.
Judge
Powers, a long-time Texas court of appeals jurist, brings to modern
scholarship the critical eye of a man familiar with the process of
piecing together fragmentary evidence into a story that will appeal to a
lay audience. The result is
an indispensable record of the wooden walls that protected the fledgling
republic during its darkest, most uncertain years.
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Jonathan
W. Jordan, Atlanta, Georgia
in
East Texas Historical Journal
(Spring
2007)
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