Texas A&M University Press

On the River with Lewis and Clark
Verne Huser

On their remarkable journey across the North American continent,
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's "Corps of Discovery"
traveled almost ten thousand miles, about nine thousand of them
on rivers—the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Jefferson, Beaverhead,
Clearwater, Snake, Columbia, and Yellowstone—or their
associated forks, creeks, and tributaries.

With an expert's eye, Verne Huser tells us what it was like
to mount and carry out such an expedition. From the construction
of the boats in 1803 to the negotiation of the last miles home
three years later, the explorers were tied inextricably to the river
systems that carried them west into uncharted territory and back
again. From the Ohio River to the Columbia, they rowed, paddled,
pulled, poled, sailed, and portaged their way into history—
mapping, collecting, and recording a country's first glimpse of
its Western wealth.

Huser has canoed, rafted, or cruised much of the expedition's
route. He brings to the famous story his knowledge of the "ways
of wind and water," giving readers a rare, first-hand look at the
benefits and hazards of river travel as they might have been
experienced by the thirty-three explorers—some boatmen, some
not—on the river with Lewis and Clark.
_________________________________________________________
VERNE HUSER has been a river guide for more than forty years
and is the author of seven books on rivers and river recreation,
including Rivers of Texas, published by Texas A&M University
Press in 2000. A retired English teacher who lives in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, Huser has also worked as an archivist, a national
park ranger and naturalist, and an environmental mediator. He is a
member of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

Number Nineteen: Environmental History Series

1-58544-320-4
cloth
$40.00s1-58544-344-1
paper
$17.95LC 2003015224
6 1/8x9 1/4. 224 pp.
52 b&w photos.
4 line drawings.
1 map. Bib. Index.
American History.
Natural History.
Environmental History.
APRIL 2004

W. Dale Nelson

When interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian fur
trader living among the Hidatsas, and his Shoshone Indian wife,
Sacagawea, joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, they
headed into country largely unknown to them, as it was to Thomas
Jefferson’s hand-picked explorers. There is little doubt as to the
importance of Sacagawea’s presence on the journey. She has
become a near-legendary figure for her role as interpreter, guide,
and “token of peace.” Toussaint, however, has been maligned in
both fiction and nonfiction alike—Lewis himself called him “a man of
no peculiar merit.” W. Dale Nelson offers a frank and honest portrayal of Toussaint,
suggesting his character has perhaps been judged too harshly. He
was indeed valuable as an interpreter and no doubt helpful with his
knowledge of the Indian tribes the group encountered. For
example, Toussaint proved his worth in negotiations with the
Shoshones for much-needed horses, and with his experience as a
fur trader, he always seemed to strike a better bargain than his
companions. During the expedition Sacagawea gave birth to a son, Jean
Baptiste. With her death in 1812, Clark assumed custody of her son
and Toussaint returned to his life on the upper Missouri. Surviving
his wife by almost three decades, Toussaint worked under Clark
(then superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis) as an interpreter
for government officials, explorers, artists, and visiting dignitaries.
Jean Baptiste traveled the Rocky Mountains as a mountain man,
was a scout during the Mexican American War, and served as
mayor and judge for the San Luis Rey Mission.

What people are saying about this book

“Quite useful to scholars and lay people alike as an enthusiastic
public seeks the best biographies available on the men and women
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Nelson incorporates many fine
primary sources and gives the reader a sense of Charbonneau, the
person, lacking in present treatments.”—William Swagerty, editor,
Scholars and the Indian Experience

“An epic story of a family that is involved in a broad spectrum of
Western history in the first two-thirds of the 19th century. It is
amazing just how many prominent explorers, artists, European
visitors, military figures, etc. that they encounter. This is the kind of
history that used to be written when people read history for fun.”
—R. David Edmunds, author, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian
Leadership

W. DALE NELSON spent forty years with the Associated Press,
first in western bureaus and then in Washington, D.C., where he
was honored with the Aldo Beckman Award, given annually by the
White House Correspondents Association for excellence in
reporting about the presidency. He is the author of two books and
holds a master’s degree in library science from the University of
Washington. He lives in Laramie, Wyoming.

1-57441-165-9
$24.95
6x9. 192 pp.
22 b&w illus.
2 maps.
Notes. Bib. Index.
AUGUST 2003
The University of North Texas Press

Ray A. Billington
Foreword by W. Turrentine Jackson

In this little classic, first published in 1977, Ray A. Billington
outlines the three-century-long process of westering that forged the
American characteristics of resourcefulness, individualism and
democracy, and upward social mobility.

"The American Frontiersman" looks at the mountain men of the
fur trade who succumbed to the wilderness world in which they
found themselves and in which they were forced to begin the climb
upward to civilization once more. In "The Frontier and American
Culture" the author suggests that although many backwoodsmen
seceded from civilization, others made a heroic effort to perpetuate
their culture. And in "Cowboys, Indians, and the Land of Promise"
Billington reviews the worldwide myths of the American West—
its violence and lawlessness on the one hand and its ripe
abundance on the other.

RAY A. BILLINGTON served as the first president of the Western
History Association and was a teacher of history for many years.
He was the author of a number of other works, including Frederick
Jackson Turner, Allan Nevins on History, America’s Frontier
Story, and Westward Expansion.
Number Three: Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and
Southwest

+ 1-58544-263-1
LC 77-89510
paper
$14.95
5 1/2x8. 108 pp.
New in paper
MARCH 2003

Ernest Wallace, David M. Vigness, and George B. Ward

"The first edition of Documents of Texas History had 126 primary
documents, ranging from a report of the first Spanish exploration
of Texas to the official meteorological report on Hurricane Carla in
1961. The 320-page revised edition offers fifteen additional
documents, from material on the Kennedy assassination to the
Dallas Cowboys. Documents of Texas History contains a lot of
useful primary source material"”—Mike Cox, More Basic Texas
Books

Documents of Texas History, a valuable reference work for
students, teachers, scholars, and history aficionados, provides an
in-depth, firsthand understanding of Texas history. The 141
documents selected for this book are accounts of significant events
in Texas history, beginning with Cabeza de Vaca’s 1528
expedition and ending with the national influence of the Dallas
Cowboys ("America’s Team") and their Super Bowl victory. In
between these two events, separated by more than four centuries,
are scores of documents on a broad range of social, cultural, and
political events which have shaped the history of Texas and often
affected the nation. Fascinating to read, they relate history as it was
lived by the participants and their contemporary observers.
The documents are drawn from a great number of sources:
archives, historical periodicals, rare books, government
publications, and newspapers. They are arranged in chronological
order and each document is prefaced by an introduction that
provides background and interpretation of the event or topic at
hand. The editors’ careful selections provide an excellent overview
of Texas history in all its depth and diversity.

This updated edition of the classic Documents of Texas History
presents Texas history as told by the men and women who lived it
and watched it unfold. The Texas past comes alive in this superb
reference volume, a valuable addition to libraries and an
indispensable supplement to any work of Texas history. Selected
as one of the 1990s’ best Texas books, Documents of Texas
History was one of 126 Texas classics included in Mike Cox’s
More Basic Texas Books.

ERNEST WALLACE (1906–1985), author of numerous works on
the history of Texas, was a fellow and president of the Texas State
Historical Association. DAVID M. VIGNESS (1922–1979),
chairman of the Department of History at Texas Tech University
from 1961–1978, taught and wrote about Texas and Latin America.
GEORGE B. WARD, who has written about Texas and the
American West, is the assistant director of the Texas State
Historical Association and managing editor of the Southwestern
Historical Quarterly.
Number Twenty-one: Fred H. and Ella Mae Moore Texas History
Reprint Series
Documents of Texas History
0-87611-188-6
LC 94-12996
paper
$24.95
8 1/2x11. 338 pp.
FEBRUARY 2003

Simón Bolívar’s Quest for Glory

Richard W. Slatta and Jane Lucas De Grummond

Earning glory on the fields of battle, Simón Bolívar, who fought to
free South America from Spanish rule from 1810 to 1826, was one
of the most influential figures in Latin American history. Richard
W. Slatta and Jane Lucas De Grummond bring forth the entire
story of Bolívar, with special attention to the ups and the downs of
his military career.

Bolívar’s life contained all the makings of an epic war hero:
repeated comebacks from defeat, flashes of military genius,
tremendous mood swings, dogged persistence, a near-manic quest
for glory, and fall from political grace. Egomaniacal, he strived for
military might and political power.
Drawing from an immense corpus of writings left behind by
Bolívar, his allies, and his enemies, the authors transport the reader
back to the life and times of "the Liberator." The first biography to
suggest that Bolívar suffered from bipolar disorder, Simón
Bolívar’s Quest for Glory shows how the conflicts he faced during
the independence era set a political pattern followed by much of
Latin America for the next century.

RICHARD W. SLATTA teaches history at North Carolina State
University in Raleigh. JANE LUCAS De GRUMMOND was the
first woman to teach history at Louisiana State University.
Following her death and at her brother’s request, Slatta updated
and revised the book to its present form.

Number Eighty-six: Texas A&M University Military History
Series
Simón Bolívar’s Quest for Glory
1-58544-239-9
$39.95
6 1/8x 9 1/4. 336 pp.
JUNE 2003

Stephen Howard Browne

"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any
among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its
republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the
safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason
is left free to combat it."
Widely celebrated in its own time, Thomas Jefferson’s first
inaugural address commands the regard of Americans from across
the political spectrum. Delivered as the young nation found itself
embroiled in bitter partisan struggles, the speech has been hailed
as the Sermon on the Mount of good government.
Curiously, this masterpiece—the full text of which is reproduced
in this volume—has never received sustained analysis. Here,
Stephen Howard Browne describes its origins, composition,
meaning, and delivery.
His well-crafted argument and accessible prose offer a model of
analysis for rhetorical scholars and students and an added
dimension to the history of the early republic and the understanding
of American political thought.

STEPHEN HOWARD BROWNE is a professor of communication
arts and sciences at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.
The Library of Presidential Rhetoric
Jefferson’s Call for Nationhood
1-58544-251-8
cloth
$29.95s
1-58544-252-6
paper
$14.95
5 1/2x8 1/2. 192 pp.
JUNE 2003