A Ranger’s six years, remembered after the frontier changed.
Gillett wrote from service rather than from an imagined West. His recollections follow a young Ranger through patrols, pursuit and the violence of the Texas borderlands.
On June 1, 1875, eighteen-year-old James Gillett enlists in Company D of the Frontier Battalion. Ahead lie days in the saddle, the pursuit of cattle thieves and murderers, fights with Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, and later the office of city marshal of El Paso.
The memoir is a veteran’s later reconstruction. Its immediacy should be read beside the distance between the events of 1875–81 and their publication in 1921.
Explore the life and work
Origins and early years
Born in Austin in 1856, he worked with cattle before joining the Frontier Battalion in 1875.
The course of a life
Six years with the Rangers led to policing in El Paso and a later life in ranching. His record includes both the pursuit of outlaws and actions whose legality was disputed.
The literary work
The book organises a working life into memorable episodes. It preserves the Ranger’s understanding of duty, danger and the boundary between pursuit and retribution.
The legacy
Gillett’s value as a witness comes with his standpoint. The Texas he describes is a contested borderland seen through the service of one armed institution.
