Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald cover art

Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald

Frances B. Vick Series

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Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald

By: Harold J. Weiss Jr.
Narrated by: Scott Frick
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Captain Bill McDonald (1852–1918) is the most prominent of the "Four Great Captains" of Texas Ranger history. His career straddled the changing scene from the 19th to the 20th centuries. In 1891 McDonald became captain of Company B of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. "Captain Bill" and the Rangers under his command took part in a number of incidents from the Panhandle region to South Texas. In all these endeavors, only one Ranger lost his life under McDonald's command. McDonald's reputation as a gunman rested upon his easily demonstrated markmanship, a flair for using his weapons to intimidate opponents, and the publicity given his numerous exploits. His admirers rank him as one of the great captains of Texas Ranger history. His detractors see him as an irresponsible lawman who accepted questionable information, precipitated violence, hungered for publicity, and related tall tales that cast himself in the hero's role. Harold J. Weiss, Jr., seeks to find the true Bill McDonald and sort fact from myth. McDonald's motto says it all: "No man in the wrong can stand up against a fellow that's in the right and keeps on 'a-comin'."

The book is published by University of North Texas Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2009 Harold J. Weiss (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks
Americas Politicians Politics & Activism State & Local United States Old West Wild West
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Critic reviews

“Veteran Ranger readers…will thoroughly enjoy this…accurate account of McDonald's still-remarkable exploits…” (Paul N. Spellman, author of Captain J. A. Brooks, Texas Ranger)

“Weiss' book sorts truth from legend about a man credited for one of the Rangers' prime myths, the ‘One Riot, One Ranger' story.” (Mike Cox, author of The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900)

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