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Adventures And Recollections Of Walter P. Lane, A San Jacinto Veteran, Containing Sketches Of The Texian, Mexican, And Late Wars, With Several Indian Fights Thrown In. WALTER P. LANE

Adventures And Recollections Of Walter P. Lane, A San Jacinto Veteran, Containing Sketches Of The Texian, Mexican, And Late Wars, With Several Indian Fights Thrown In.

WALTER P. LANE

Other works by WALTER P. LANE

Publication: Tri-Weekly Herald Job Print, 1887, Marshall, Texas

First Edition. Original Wrappers bound in Three-Quarter Leather with raised bands on the spine. 114pp. Errata. Frontispiece Illustration. Basic Texas Books: "One of the best military memoirs, this is also a prime source on the period from the Texas Revolution through the Civil War. No Texas military hero spent more time in the thick of the action than Lane, and his memoirs are meaty with anecdotes and incidents relating to the revolution, the Indian campaigns, the Mexican War, and the Civil War...A native of County Cork, Ireland, Walter P. Lane was brought with his immigrant family to Maryland in 1821, and thence to Ohio and Texas. He served at San Jacinto with great valor, being wounded and singled out for special commendation and battlefield promotion. In 1838 he was one of four out of twenty-five to escape alive, though wounded, at the Battle Creek Indian Fight. In the 1840's he served in the Texas Ranger campaigns under Jack Hays and as an officer under Hays in the Mexican War, participating in the siege of Monterey and at Buena Vista, again receiving battlefield commissions for valor. In 1849 he went to California among the first gold rushers. In the Civil War he served in numerous battles, was wounded at Mansfield, and received numerous citations and promotions for bravery in action, ending his service in the Confederacy as a brigadier general." "Lane's narrative is salty and pure Texian. Writing of the skirmishes on the evening before the San Jacinto battle , he states: "We got in half a mile of their line, when their cavalry came out to interview us, [yelling insults and inviting attack]. We did...Charge! rang out, and we went through them like a stroke of lightning...My horse--a powerful animal--had got excited, and having more zeal than discretion, took the bit in his teeth and ran me headlong into the midst of the enemy, much to my disgust. The order was given to retreat. I was unanimously in favor of it, but my horse wanted to go through...Just then a big Mexican lancer charged me in the side, running me through the shoulder with his lance...and knocked me ten feet off my horse. I fell on my head, stunned and senseless. Gen. [Mirabeau B.] Lamar rode up to succor me, shot the Mexican, and thinking I was dead, fell back on the command. My comrades had got some forty yards, when I regained conciousness and my feet at the same time. Twenty Mexicans were round me when I rose, but it so surprised them to see a dead boy rise to his feet and run like a buck, that I got ten steps before they fired at me..." Eberstadt 115-957--"A rare and authentic narrative, a prime source for Texas history from the struggle for independence to the close of the Civil War." Graff 2384--"the book contains exciting and unusual personal accounts, especially the 'Indian fights thrown in'." Original wrappers have been professionally reinforced and show chipping to edges. Text block is clean and tight. Beautifully bound in three-quarter red leather by Sangorski & Sutcliffe of London, England. Binding in Fine condition.

Inventory Number: 50755

$6,500.00