Product Description

Because he has been criticized as a destroyer, a ruthless killer, and wastrel of a great game resource of a Nation, the buffalo hunter appeals to the bar of history for his vindication... Within four years we opened up a vast empire to settlement, and put the Indians forever out of Texas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #902060 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Review
". . . a must read for anyone interested in the West." -- Review of Texas Books

". . . a rare view of the buffalo hunters as they saw themselves." -- Journal of Arizona History

". . . a very good source for anybody interested in the frontier times of the Great Plains and Texas . . ." -- Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"Students of western Americana will find this slim volume provides enjoyable reading of an era never to be repeated." -- Gun Week

"This is an interesting book and a good present, and I recommend it." -- East Texas Historical Journal

"This work is a valuable contribution to the libraries of those interested in the settling of the American West." -- The Tally Sheet

"a fascinating read. . . . [Mooar's] experiences . . . provide keen and sometimes wincing insight to a different time and outlook." -- Outdoor News Bulletin

"a little gem . . . a thrilling tale." -- The Santa Fe New Mexican

"definitely worth the read!" -- DirtBrothers.org

"vividly descriptive." -- Glenn M. Busset, Manhattan Mercury

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Buffalo Days
Good personal reminiscence. Very good end notes. Certainly not politicaly correct but a very good view of the prevaling mind set of the nineteenth century buffalo hide trade.

Interesting little book on Buffalo hunting days, not the best one
I've read in several other books about the Mooar brothers, major figures in the Buffalo hunting/hide trade days, this is a selection of stories told by one of the brothers.
Mr. Mooar told a writer a few stories in 1933, I think he'd have been about 82 if my math is good, that were serialized in a magazine.
The stories are mostly about his own adventures but some give details about things that happened to others, interesting but not the most educational or detailed to my way of thinking. The man, even in his 80's, was absolutely unapologetic about the buffalo slaughter and seems to have had no use or even respect for the Indians he had contact with. You get to read some details about hunting, the buffalo hide & meat trade and Indian fighting, a little about the guns used and just a bit about the people Mooar met, including (he says)Billy the Kid.
I'm thinking that at 82 Mr. Mooar's memory was failing him, he describes a .50 cal. Sharps rifle variation that I've never heard of (even in Frank Seller's big book on the Sharps company), I think he might've meant a .45, not 50. His telling of the Adobe Walls Indian battle sounds both self promoting (he was there before the fight and did some Indian fighting that would've been linked to the battle itself)and a little bit unlikely (he says the infamous cracking ridgepole was a fraudulent story and that the pole itself was 2 1/2 feet thick- seems kind of unlikely that such a heavy log would be a ridge pole).
I liked reading the information I did get but consider "Life of Billy Dixon" by Olive K. Dixon (Billy Dixon, who actually did fight at Adobe Walls- and was mentioned by Mooar, was only 63 when he dictated his biography) to be a much better book for most students of the Buffalo Hunting days.