The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 295

Book Reviews

might both be described in modern-day jargon as "border characters."
They met at Eagle Pass, Texas, where the younger man (Warren)
transcribed from 1902 to 1906 some 20o,ooo words of the reminiscences
of the elder, covering a period of sixteen years.
For more than half a century copies of the manuscript reposed
in the University of Texas Archives, a few other libraries, and some
private collections. Then a third Eagle Pass citizen with an interest
in history entered the picture. Ben E. Pingenot has capably edited
and thoroughly annotated the Sumpter-Warren manuscript to bring
it out in this handsomely designed book. The result should prove to
be a lasting contribution to the history of the border country.
As J. Frank Dobie pointed out in his brief article on Harry War-
ren (included in the front matter), the Sumpter narrative is con-
cerned mostly with the "bloodletting" in the early years of Eagle Pass.
It runs from the establishment of Fort Duncan at Eagle Pass in 1849
through the Civil War, a period during which bloodletting was ram-
pant, no less on the Texas-Mexican border than elsewhere. While
Sumpter "felt he never had occasion to demand the life of another
man," he rubbed elbows with plenty who did.
Pingenot's copious notes admirably serve his twofold purpose: to
highlight and supplement the narrative and to provide "a stepping
stone for further historical exploration of this region." Among other
accomplishments, he identifies many extant historical landmarks which
figured in the narrative. The notes are drawn from a bibliography
of select published material, as well as several manuscript sources,
county records, and personal interviews.
Future historians of the Eagle Pass region will do well to emulate
this type of research-and probably will find their efforts corner-
posted by Paso del Aguila.
University of Texas Press ROBERT S. WEDDLE
Country Music, U.S.A. By Bill C. Malone. (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1969. Pp. xii+422. Illustrations, bibliography, index.
$7.50).
Country music now claims more fans than ever before. It seems
most appropriate that Professor William Malone's fine book-Country
Music, U.S.A.-should appear in the midst of this boom, because he
does an excellent job of tracing country music from its Anglo-Celtic
origins to its present great popularity.

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