Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-82) and index.

The days after the Civil War were tempestuous times in Texas. The Six-Shooter was both judge and jury as lawlessness ran rampant. Men with bodies and minds tattered by war, fortunes wasted in four years of desperation tried to rebuild their lives from a foundation of ashes. DeWitt County, Texas especially tasted the bitter dredges of this desolation and provided the backdrop for the "Sutton-Taylor Feud." Although the feud, now famous in the annals of Texas history, has been chronicled in the past, Robert C. Sutton, Jr., has recovered new material to amplify and elucidate on this fascinating "rincon" of Texana. Although written by a grand nephew of William E. Sutton, this book contains little in the way of traditional family accounts. Rather. the author has researched the various histories of the feud, contemporary newspaper articles, court records, private papers and material in the Archives Division of the Texas State Library in an attempt to cut through the haze of hearsay, legend and fiction which as always obscured the events of the DeWitt County wars of a century ago. This story of Texas during the years of Reconstruction will be of interest to the reader encountering it for the first time, to students and historians interested in the old regular troubles will find new material here as well as many corrected dates and some adjusted chronology. All sources have been carefully annotated in order to assist the researcher, but the primary aim of the author was to tell the story as it was. The result is a straight-forward story of action and conflict told by a man who has seen much action himself.--Jacket flap

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