Fearless in her opposition to lynchings, Wells documented hundreds of these atrocities. Wells became a public figure in Memphis when, in 1884, she led a campaign against racial segregation on the local railway. In 1889, she became co-owner and editor of Free Speech, an anti-segregationist newspaper based in Memphis on Beale Street. She also published in 1892 her famous pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases. This pamphlet, along with her 1895 The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, documented her research on and campaign against lynching. In 1892, Wells went to Great Britain at the behest of British Quaker Catherine Impey. An opponent of imperialism and proponent of racial equality, Impey wanted to be sure that the British public was informed about the problem of lynching. After her retirement, Wells wrote her autobiography, Crusade for Justice (1928). Her other works include Mob Rule in New Orleans (1900).

     Young men, like John C. Duval and his brother, Burr, flocked to Texas to aid the revolution against the Mexican government. Duval and his brother had formed a volunteer company called the “Mustangs” and headed straight to the heat of action. The initial chapters of his book Early Times in Texas cover this expedition, including when the Goliad Massacre where Duval’s brother was killed and from which he only just escaped from. Later the book covers Duval’s life in the Republic of Texas when it was a wild land and men risked life and limb to make their fortune. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Texas and the lives of some of the early pioneering men and women who attempted to make it their home. John C. Duval’s writings justify his being called the first Texas man of letters. Early Times in Texas was published serially in Burke's Weekly at Macon, Georgia, in 1867, although it did not appear in book form until 1892. This book has subsequently become a Texas classic. Duval passed away in 1897.

    But there is nothing to be said. What word of mine could add to the interest that inheres in this unpretentious record of a troubled and bloody period? The chronicle speaks for itself, especially to those who remember something of those wonderful days of war. It has the charm and the distinction of absolute verity, a quality for which we may look in vain in more elaborate and ambitious publications. Here indeed, is one of the sources from which history must get its supplies, and it is informed with a simplicity which history can never hope to attain.We have here reproduced in these records, with a faithfulness that is amazing, the spirit of those dark days that are no more. Tragedy shakes hands with what seems to be trivial, and the commonplaces of every-day life seem to move forward with the gray battalions that went forth to war.It is a gentle, a faithful and a tender hand that guides the pen—a soul nerved to sacrifice that tells the tale. For the rest, let the records speak for themselves.Joel Chandler Harris

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.