Mounted Warfare Tradition in Frontier Texas, 1822-1865

This thesis demonstrates that Nathan A. Jennings has published a coherent and original body of research that meets the standards for the Ph.D. by published works at the University of Kent. Consisting of a peer-reviewed book and six peer-reviewed articles, the selected works explore how Anglo-Texans, as intervening settlers in a competitive military environment along the North American Great Plains during the early 19th century, adapted tactically and strategically as they developed a distinctive mounted warfare tradition over a forty year period. In order to enrich the analysis, the study incorporates aspects of regional influences, ethnic competition, environmental impacts, political and economic affairs, technological developments, disease and attrition factors, 19th century military theory, and concepts of masculinity and nationalism. Drawing on expansive primary and secondary source research, it employs way of war theory to integrate findings into a coherent narrative that explains the tensions and evolutions of the Texas military experience.