War in East Texas: Regulators vs. Moderators. By Bill O'Neal. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2018. Pp. 206. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 978-157441-728-9.)
Life on the frontier often was marked by, to borrow from the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, "continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." This characterization generally reflected life in the infant Republic of Texas and was specifically demonstrated in conditions in the traditional boundary zone between Texas and Louisiana. The region had attracted outlaws, thieves, rogues, scoundrels, and misfits for more than a century. Serving as a refuge for all wishing to dodge French, Spanish, British, and United States authority, the land between Natchitoches, Louisiana, and Nacogdoches, Texas, remained free of controlling officials. With the birth of the...