John S. "Rip" Ford - O'Neal, Bill

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Résumé :
Rip Ford was a bold, fearless combat leader, an expert pistoleer, and a master tactician who led hard-hitting cavalry charges against foes with far greater numbers. Ford was a ferocious warrior against the enemies of his beloved Texas, and from his first arrival in the Lone Star Republic, he volunteered eagerly for militia companies. During the Mexican War, he battled his way through the jungles and mountains of Mexico as a regimented adjutant alongside fellow Texians. During the 1850s, Rip Ford was called upon to lead Rangers in defense of frontier Texas. Usually, he campaigned against raiders and stock thieves along the Rio Grande, but in 1858, he planned and executed a dangerous attack north into Comancheria against horseback war parties. Ford defended the Rio Grande and its valuable cotton trade during the Civil War. He formed a rugged regiment known as the Cavalry of the West, and he led his men to a Confederate victory in the final battle of the Civil War - one month after Lee's surrender. But Old Rip did not confine himself to soldiering. He was a man of many parts, a Renaissance man of early Texas. He came to Texas from Tennessee as a young physician. He read for the law in San Augustine and learned the surveyor's trade. He became a journalist, sharing his strong views as the owner-editor of several Texas newspapers. He was elected to the State of Texas's legislative bodies and the Lone Star Republic. He was mayor of Austin and of Brownsville. He served as the innovative superintendent of the Texas Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. Ford wrote a lengthy account of nineteenth-century Texas history, and he was a founding member of the Texas State Historical Association. But this giant of a Texian (a term he embraced) is increasingly overlooked in the twenty-first century. Hopefully, the readers of this book will become better acquainted with an adventurous, heroic Texian. Eakin Press is honored to have John S. Rip Ford - Texian Hero, accepted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum's Texas Ranger Bicentennial? Publications Program. For more information, visit www.TexasRanger.org.

Biographie:
Bill O'Neal was appointed State Historian of Texas by Governor Rick Perry, and during his six-year tenure he traveled tens of thousands of miles across the Lone Star State as an ambassador for Texas history. He is a past president and fellow of both the East Texas Historical Association and the West Texas Historical Association, and he has been a member of the Texas State Historical Association for over half a century. Bill is the author of more than fifty books. He was awarded the A.C. Greene Literary Award at the 2015 West Texas Book Festival in Abilene. In 2012 Bill received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Wild West Historical Association, and in 2007 he was named True West Magazine's Best Living Non-Fiction Writer. His account of Wyoming's Johnson County War won a book of the year award.Bill has appeared on TV documentaries on TBS, The History Channel, The Learning Channel, CMT, A&E, and the American Heroes Channel. During a long career at Panola College in Carthage, Texas, his most prestigious teaching award was a Piper Professorship, presented in 2000.In 2013 Panola's new dormitory was named Bill O'Neal Hall, and in that same year he received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from his alma mater, Texas A&M University-Commerce. Bill's four daughters all have entered the field of education, and he is the proud grandfather of seven grandchildren.