JOHN "RIP" FORD

John "RIP" Ford arrived in Texas from Tennessee a practicing physician. A young man entering an even younger nation, Ford rubbed shoulders with Sam Houston and all the principals who formed the Lone Star Republic.

Ford throughout his varied career proved a man of many talents. He became a lawyer, a journalist, a Texas Ranger, a Confederate officer, a general in a Mexican army endeavoring to create a new country, mayor of both Austin and Brownsville, and a senator in the Texas legislature among many other occupations. He was the original Mil Usos.

When he wasn't shooting Indians, outlaws, Yankees and Mexicans, he devoted his free time to his artistry. He received his nickname writing letters to families detailing the deaths of their fathers and sons who had fallen under his command.

He regretted in later life that he didn't accumulate more property and money, but he could never resist the urge to write. He owned and managed newspapers, contributed to journals and penned his memoirs. RIP FORD's TEXAS is a 500-page tour de force. This is a fascinating snippet from his work regarding Mexico:

"Revolutions were fomented, battles fought, governments established and overthrown. In the end there were men in Mexico who were revolutionists by profession and practice. Their names, figured on one side or the other, in every popular outbreak.

"The patriotism of the masses--and no people love their country more devotedly than the Mexicans--was skillfully manipulated to produce internal dissensions and bloodshed. They were misled by the cry of 'reform' and seduced into thrusting daggers into the bosom of their beloved Mexico, in unconscious ignorance of the crimes they were perpetrating."