Books: Blue-bellied Yank

GONE TO TEXAS—John W. Thomason.

Jr.—Scribners ($2.75).

Neither during the Civil War nor in Reconstruction times were the successes of the Union forces in Texas anything to brag about. In fact, with its post-Civil War collection of desperate Southern aristocrats, filibusterers and assorted bad men, their plots and generally seditious hell-raising, Texas looked like just the sort of a place for another rebellion to cut loose. Against this hot-blooded, nearly forgotten background, Texas-born U. S. Marine Major John W. Thomason Jr. (Fix Bayonets!, Jeb Stuart), grandson of Longstreet’s Chief of Staff, spins the yarn of Gone to Texas, a pleasant, fast-moving romance about an unpleasant, fast-moving period of U. S. history. Readers will like Author Thomason’s numerous pen & ink illustrations; those who liked Gone With The Wind should like the story as well.

”Full of apple toddies and discontent” for two years after Appomattox,blond 24-year-old Edward Cantrell, veteran of nine campaigns with the Army of the Potomac, lit out in 1867 to join the 29th Infantry at Fort Camden, Tex. He was not long in getting involved with a colorful crew of filibusterers. The first step was when he fell for a beautiful “rebel hellcat” named Brandon Hawkes who led him on only long enough to frame him for the murder of a carpetbagger. The real murderer was her cousin Ranee Hawkes, chief gunrunner and suitor for a rich, fabulous Texas beauty named Vashti Silver, who had been commissioned by old Sam Houston to carry on his fight to annex Mexico. Released. Cantrell set out to get Ranee and Brandon—in different ways.

His dangerous trail led him to death’s door and over the Mexican border, to rescue his enemy; when at last it doubled home, Brandon came halfway to meet him, was willing to go further than that to keep her “blue-bellied Yank” for good.