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With The Border Ruffians
In the summer of 1831, Robert Hamilton Williams was born to the family of a country clergyman – yet he was not destined to continue the religious tradition of his father and the quiet life in England never called him. Starting as a Liverpool seaman aged seventeen, enduring brutal captains, a dislocated shoulder and a near fatal bout of scurvy, he remained undaunted in his pursuit of adventure on the high seas.
After a period of hospitalisation in Cork and a short farming apprenticeship, he departed for Adelaide and then Virginia, where his journey truly began.
On arrival in Western Virginia, he encountered farmers living in near total isolation, leading a pastoral life, far from the cities and towns he grew up with. Clothes were spun and food was hunted, but this simple life didn’t hold Williams for long as he was always chasing his next voyage.
He then found himself in the wildest of the Wild West, fighting for his life in Kansas in the prelude to the Great War of Secession where murder and lawlessness prevailed. He was forced to commit acts which would change his outlook forever.
Witnessing the gold rush, ranch life in Texas, fighting with the Commanchés, the fierce Indian tribes practising scalping warfare in the Indian country, his story ends in 1865 with the close of the American Civil War.
With the Border Ruffians is a remarkable true tale of courage and discovery from a time of frontier gun-slinging, now lost to the past. It is the life of a youth thirsting for adventure who became a man during one of the most exciting and transformative times in American history.
Robert Hamilton Williams was a lieutenant in the Kansas Rangers and went on to become a captain in the Texan Rangers.
After a period of hospitalisation in Cork and a short farming apprenticeship, he departed for Adelaide and then Virginia, where his journey truly began.
On arrival in Western Virginia, he encountered farmers living in near total isolation, leading a pastoral life, far from the cities and towns he grew up with. Clothes were spun and food was hunted, but this simple life didn’t hold Williams for long as he was always chasing his next voyage.
He then found himself in the wildest of the Wild West, fighting for his life in Kansas in the prelude to the Great War of Secession where murder and lawlessness prevailed. He was forced to commit acts which would change his outlook forever.
Witnessing the gold rush, ranch life in Texas, fighting with the Commanchés, the fierce Indian tribes practising scalping warfare in the Indian country, his story ends in 1865 with the close of the American Civil War.
With the Border Ruffians is a remarkable true tale of courage and discovery from a time of frontier gun-slinging, now lost to the past. It is the life of a youth thirsting for adventure who became a man during one of the most exciting and transformative times in American history.
Robert Hamilton Williams was a lieutenant in the Kansas Rangers and went on to become a captain in the Texan Rangers.
516 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 18, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 28, 2020
I love primary source history, and this is first rate.
Telling the story of an immigrant to American from England in the 1850's who settled first in Western Virginia, before migrating to Kansas during the turbulent time prior to statehood, and then to the Texas frontier during the Civil War, this story gives an outstanding picture of life in three different areas of the United States during the mid 1800's.
Recommended
Telling the story of an immigrant to American from England in the 1850's who settled first in Western Virginia, before migrating to Kansas during the turbulent time prior to statehood, and then to the Texas frontier during the Civil War, this story gives an outstanding picture of life in three different areas of the United States during the mid 1800's.
Recommended
Displaying 1 of 1 review