This study of 364 Hill Country men is modeled after "Webster's New Biographical Dictionary." Some of the entries are short, such as Frank Murara who appears only on the 1890 Veterans Schedule as a Union veteran, possibly an itinerant railroad worker staying at a hotel in Comfort. Some entries are longer, such as Thomas Ingenhuett who served in both Confederate and Union units and whose pension application describes the 1864 Battle of Las Rucias and his subsequent escape through Mexico. Some entries contain unexpected information, such as J. W. Manning whose 1926 burial ceremony included a cross of red roses--a gift of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

In Why Texans Fought in the Civil War, Charles David Grear provides insights into what motivated Texans to fight for the Confederacy. Mining important primary sources—including thousands of letters and unpublished journals—he affords readers the opportunity to hear, often in the combatants’ own words, why it was so important to them to engage in tumultuous struggles occurring so far from home. As Grear notes, in the decade prior to the Civil War the population of Texas had tripled. The state was increasingly populated by immigrants from all parts of the South and foreign countries. When the war began, it was not just Texas that many of these soldiers enlisted to protect, but also their native states, where they had family ties.