From the Foreword
by
M. Hunter Hayes, General Editor
Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life
Texas A&M University Press

Since its inception, the Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life has sought to present works that examine all facets of the communities in and around East Texas. Encompassing an expansive geographical area that stretches roughly from the Red River to the Gulf Coast, this region’s history and ways of life coalesce around what might seem at first to be a paradox: adherence to traditions, particularly customs of the deep South, and an iconoclastic spirit akin to that found in nineteenth-century pioneers.  It is appropriate, then, that Philip Caudill’s engaging study of William Berry Duncan should be included in the Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life.

In Moss Bluff Rebel: A Texas Pioneer in the Civil War, Caudill combines meticulous research and an adroit sense of narrative to portray Duncan’s life in all its complexity. Caudill describes Duncan’s evolution from “a pioneer Anglo-Texas Everyman,” one equally skilled in wrangling cattle, managing finances, and acquiring real estate, through his service as a cavalry officer during the Civil War, to the hardships he faced during Reconstruction. By drawing from Duncan’s diary among other sources, Caudill gives readers a critical and penetrating look at a man whose experiences reflect in part those of his region and of Texas. Additionally, Caudill examines those people around Duncan who had great impact on the life of this cattleman-turned-cavalry officer: Duncan’s wife and children; Ashley Ward Spaight; his slaves (later freedmen), such as Sabine and Texas, all of whom figure prominently into the court of Duncan’s life during and after the Civil War. Just as Moss Bluff Rebel reads at times like a historical novel with Duncan as its complicated protagonist, these other men and women resemble well-drawn characters that refuse to accept their roles as secondary figures. Their lives are, of course, more than fiction and legend, even while they remain inextricably linked to Duncan’s, and Caudill is to be applauded for his deft handling of such profitable source material. Indeed, Moss Bluff Rebel is in many respects a composite story, as Caudill makes clear in his epilogue.

It is a pleasure to include both Caudill and Moss Bluff Rebel in the Rayburn Series. Founded at Texas A&M University-Commerce in collaboration with Texas A&M University Press, the Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life has since 1997 intended to present works that challenge and augment the cultural history of a region that is in its own right a mosaic. Philip Caudill’s skill as a writer – his astute command of historical detail as well as his gifts for engrossing readers in a compelling narrative – further expand our understanding of this tumultuous period and its impacts in and beyond Texas.