Captain Jeff; or, Frontier life in Texas with the Texas Rangers

A raw and vivid account of Texas frontier life, written by one of the men who lived it.

Originally published in 1906, Captain Jeff; or, Frontier Life in Texas with the Texas Rangers preserves the memories of William J. Maltby, known as “Captain Jeff,” a frontiersman, Confederate veteran, and captain in Company E of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers.

This remarkable memoir follows Maltby through years of danger, pursuit, hardship, and survival on the Texas frontier. From Civil War service and postwar turmoil to Ranger patrols, frontier settlements, raids, scouting expeditions, and the long pursuit of the Kiowa leader known as Big Foot, the book offers a firsthand window into a violent and unsettled period of American history.

More than a simple adventure story, this volume captures the mindset, language, conflicts, prejudices, courage, brutality, and contradictions of the nineteenth-century frontier. It is an important historical document for readers interested in the Old West, Texas history, Native American frontier conflicts, the Texas Rangers, and the personal narratives of those who shaped—and were shaped by—the borderlands of the American Southwest.

This Arcadia Press edition makes available a rare frontier narrative for modern readers, collectors, and students of Western American history.