Download or read book Early Times in Texas, Or, The Adventures of Jack Dobell written by John Crittenden Duval and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1835, Texas offered young men like John C. Duval a chance for action and glory. That year he and his brother, Burr, the sons of a former governor of Florida, organized a volunteer company called the "Mustangs." Like Davy Crockett, they were fired up "to give the Texans a helping hand on the road to freedom" from Mexican rule. The first chapters of Early Times in Texas lead up to the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday 1836, in which Burr (referred to as Captain D?) was killed. John was luckier. After a hair-raising escape from Goliad, he wandered across the countryside, dodging the Mexicans and living by his wits.ø ø The diary that Duval kept during these exciting months was the basis for Early Times in Texas, which was published more than fifty years later, in 1892. In the intervening years he was a Ranger known as "Texas John" and later was recognized as one of Texas's first men of letters, the author of The Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace