Robert E. Lee in Texas introduces a little known phase of the great General's career-his service in Texas during the four turbulent years just preceding the Civil War. "It should be read by everyone who wants to understand the forces that made Lee the man he was. I can recall no supplement to American History as important, as Robert E. Lee in Texas."-Erskine Caldwell in The Atlanta Journal. In this account Carl Coke Rister, a leading historian of the West, takes us with Lee to his lonely posts on the border, and we share with him the hazardous and often fruitless chases after renegade Indians and Mexican bandits. We see through the eyes of the "Academy man" the raw life on the frontier and hear from his lips his impressions of the country and people. These were critical years for the nation and for the future military leader of the Confederacy. When Lieutenant Colonel Robert Edward Lee was transferred from the uperintendency of West Point to Camp Cooper on an Indian frontier, where isolation, rawness, inconvenience, deprivation, and even death were commonplace, it seemed to him and to some of his friends that his military career was coming to a dead end. Nevertheless, while he was "lost on the frontier," he gained strength, wisdom, and maturity. He worked with, and for the most part commanded, the famous Second Cavalry, many of the officers of which became either Northern or Southern field commanders in the Civil War. To know these officers, their points of strength and weakness, their whims and caprices, and their likes and dislikes served him well later in military crises. He had opportunity during the long days and nights to consider his own dilemma in case of war; and there is little doubt that his Texas experiences helped him to make his decision, for his intense feeling for his family, his home, and Virginia was fully realized in these years. When in 1861 Lee came from the Texas wilderness to report to General Winfield Scott, he was prepared.