Captain Jack Helm

In Captain Jack Helm, Chuck Parsons explores the life of John Jackson “Jack” Helm, whose main claim to fame has been that he was a victim of man-killer John Wesley Hardin. That he was, but he was much more in his violence-filled lifetime during Reconstruction Texas. First as a deputy sheriff, then county sheriff, and finally captain of the notorious Texas State Police, he developed a reputation as a violent and ruthless man-hunter. He arrested many suspected lawbreakers, but often his prisoner was killed before reaching a jail for “attempting to escape.” This horrific tendency ultimately brought about his downfall. Helm’s aggressive enforcement of his version of “law and order” resulted in a deadly confrontation with two of his enemies in the midst of the Sutton-Taylor Feud. “Captain Jack Helm is more than a fine gunfighter biography: it is a vivid statement about the murderous violence of Reconstruction in Texas.”—Bill O’Neal, State Historian of Texas

The tally of Texas lawmen killed during the state’s first sixty-five years of organized law enforcement is truly staggering. From Texas Rangers the likes of Silas Mercer Parker Jr., gunned down at Parker’s Fort in 1836, to Denton County sheriff ’s deputy Floyd Coberly, murdered by an inmate in 1897 after ten days on the job, this collection accounts for all of those unsung heroes. Not merely an attempt to retell a dozen popular peace officer legends, Texas Lawmen, 1835–1899 represents thousands of hours of research conducted over more than a decade. Ron DeLord and Cliff Caldwell have carefully assembled a unique and engaging chronicle of Texas history.

In the tumultuous years following the Civil War, violence and lawlessness plagued the state of Texas, often overwhelming the ability of local law enforcement to maintain order. In response, Reconstruction-era governor Edmund J. Davis created a statewide police force that could be mobilized whenever and wherever local authorities were unable or unwilling to control lawlessness. During its three years (1870–1873) of existence, however, the Texas State Police was reviled as an arm of the Radical Republican party and widely condemned for being oppressive, arrogant, staffed with criminals and African Americans, and expensive to maintain, as well as for enforcing the new and unpopular laws that protected the rights of freed slaves. Drawing extensively on the wealth of previously untouched records in the Texas State Archives, as well as other contemporary sources, Barry A. Crouch and Donaly E. Brice here offer the first major objective assessment of the Texas State Police and its role in maintaining law and order in Reconstruction Texas. Examining the activities of the force throughout its tenure and across the state, the authors find that the Texas State Police actually did much to solve the problem of violence in a largely lawless state. While acknowledging that much of the criticism the agency received was merited, the authors make a convincing case that the state police performed many of the same duties that the Texas Rangers later assumed and fulfilled the same need for a mobile, statewide law enforcement agency.

?Nefarious gangs made up of families are famous in the Old West—the James Brothers, the Dalton Gang. This book includes the well known and the more obscure gangs connected through blood ties.