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Review of Call To Glory,
The Life & Times of a Texas Ranger,
Infantry Magazine:
Few writers of
historical fiction have the resources and expertise to
draw upon their own genealogy as source materials, but
Michael and Marilyn Gilhuly have done so admirable in this
account of the three Wiley brothers’ lives and adventures
in the years shortly before and after the Civil War. The
three lived and f ought in Texas during those tumultuous
decades beginning in 1862 and lasting until the Texas
Rangers became the guardians of peace and stability on
what was to be a dangerous frontier until the late 1800’s.
The book opens in
March 1862, with an account of the battle for possession
of the strategically critical Glorieta Pass east of Santa
Fe, New Mexico Territory. In this action, the 2nd,
4th, & 7th Texas Mounted Rifles were
facing an assault by Federal troops under the command of
Colonel (later General) Edward R. S. Canby.
Michael Gilhuly,
West Point, ’68, is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and his
accounts of the unfolding battle are seen through the eyes
and laid down in the words of a soldier who has endured
combat.
The characters are credible, unembellished
Americans dealing with circumstances they neither sought
nor avoided, but instead faced and dealt with in the best
traditions of the Republic of Texas and the American
character. Readers of this superb book will understand the
evolution of the toughness that characterized those on the
frontier, at a time when danger was far more imminent and
death more violent than at almost any time in our nation’s
history. The
resourceful, self-reliant frontiersman of today’s screen
was a reality in the middle of the 19th
Century, when the traits we now point to with such pride
spelled the difference between success and failure and –
literally – life and death.
The war behind
them, our characters were faced with the transition from
tactical decisions and operations to the establishment of
a society in which settlers, merchants, and former
soldiers could resume the routing of their lives. During
that period, violence and those accustomed to employing it
were ever-present, and the Texas Rangers responded as the
only force available to provide stability.
The plot’s dialog
tends to decelerate occasionally, and indeed the interplay
between characters, just as in life, has its slow moments
but this is not a major flaw, nor does it impair the
readability of this fine book.
If you would learn
about the nature of the Civil War in the West, devoid of
charts and maps, this is the book to read, for it is
history seen over the shoulders of the men and women who
lived – and died – in writing it.
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