Buck Barry in Texas - Personalized Limited Edition

Who was James Buckner "Buck" Barry (1821-1906)?

That depends on where you put your finger on the timeline of his long life.

Buck Barry was a farmer. And a school teacher. Hunter. Soldier. Sheriff. And for a big chunk of years, a Texas Ranger.

Buck Berry was also a writer.

He wrote about his life and adventures. Thousands and thousands of words. But he never put them in the form of a book.

So how is it we have the story of his life, in his own words, in book form?

Thank James K. Greer.

Dr. Greer was the first-ever recipient of a Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas.

Back in the early 1930s, he pored through Buck Barry's papers, which had been left to the university, combining the ranger's manuscript reminiscences, his diaries, and letters.

He wove them into what many in the know consider the best Texas Ranger memoir of the middle decades of the 19th century.

Buck was born in the Tar Heel State. At twenty-three he set out for the untamed heart of Texas, in the waning days of the republic when the winds of change roared with cyclone force. 

He found himself in Austin in 1846, where the convention was meeting to vote on annexation to the United States.

"The members were camping out, sleeping on their blankets. There was a company of Rangers there to keep the Indians from scalping the delegates... although each member was heavily armed and a first class Ranger himself."  

Before long Buck was fighting in Mexico with Jack Hays where he was wounded at Monterey.

Yet, it's the period from 1847 to 1867 that consumes the lion's share of his memoirs, a time when he donned the hats of sheriff, Indian fighter, and Texas Ranger. 

"When he gave an order we knew he meant it. He was a man of very quick and accurate decision; his coolness in engagements was remarkable." 

- Charles Goodnight

A colonel of the Rangers during the Civil War, he commanded a hardy band that stood as the last line defending the western expanse of Texas from an Indian reconquista.

"We were perhaps in more fights than any other Confederate regiment. . . I served all during the war and never saw a Yankee soldier."

It's not just the battles that Barry recounts. Everyday existence on the fringes of civilization fills the pages.

For instance, he traded a four-dollar watch purchased back east, a simple timepiece, for a piece of land at the Bosque's forks – such were the transactions of life on the edge.

"He was one of the best men that ever lived when he was treated right, but if a man didn't want to do the right thing, or wanted a scrap, he could get it out of Buck any time." 

- R. W. Aycock

But it's Buck Barry's hunting stories you just might find are your favorite.

He hunted bear, deer, buffalo, turkey, and even wrestled alligators. Lead was too precious to waste, so when he made a kill, he retrieved his bullet for reuse. Sometimes his didn't even bother to use his rifle.

Buck once chased a panther up a tree with just his Bowie knife, but the growl of the big cat made him change his mind about the wisdom of the pursuit, saying, "I knew he was telling me the truth, so I climbed back down." 

As Buck Barry saw it, life was a perilous dance on the precipice of the unknown, where every moment held the promise of adventure and adversity in equal measure.

Here's what's inside: 

• Boyhood in North Carolina
• "Gone to Texas!"
• Enlisting with Hays's Rangers
• With the Texas Rangers to Mexico
• Panther, Bear, and Deer Hunting
• Sheriff of Navarro County
• Life of a Texas Settler in the 'Fifties
• Stock Farming and Indian Attacks
• "The Reservation War"
• Trailing Horse Thieves
• War: The Northwestern Frontier
• Scouting With The Texas Mounted Rifles
• The Texas Frontier Regiment versus Indians
• Those Tonkawa
• A Transfer and an Indian Invasion
• The Dove Creek Fight
• Last Scouting: The End of the War
• Reconstruction and The Later Years

It is our privilege to bring Buck Barry in Texas back to life for today's Texans.

This limited edition is just 254 copies, one for each county in Texas.