"The nineteenth-century Texas Hill Country functioned as a kind of borderland within the larger borderland of Texas itself, a vast and fluid area where the slaveholding South and the nominally free-labor West collided. And as in many borderlands, it was a place marked by violence, as one set of peoples, states, and systems eventually triumphed over others. This book trace the role of violence in the region from the eve of the Civil War, through the crisis of secession and the Indian wars, and into the Reconstruction period, ultimately showing how patterns of violence both defined and revealed the priorities of white settlers in the Hill Country--most importantly, the advancement of market integration and state-building in the broader Southwest"-- Provided by publisher.

Introduction -- The Texas Hill Country on the eve of the Civil War -- The Hill Country in antebellum politics and the secession crisis -- From secession to the Nueces River -- Indians, inflation, and bushwhackers -- Civil War and political violence -- Reconciliation and the incorporation of the Texas Frontier -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. Indian raiding deaths during the Civil War -- Appendix B. Casualties of Civil War violence, 1862--1865 -- Appendix C. Indian raiding deaths after the Civil War.