Following the Drum: A Glimpse of Frontier Life

"A tough, weather-proof, Indian-rubber woman... who could travel over hundreds of miles of prairie on horseback, or follow the train for months on top of a baggage wagon"-that is how Teresa Viele described herself. A new bride, she accompanied her officer husband on assignment to Ringgold Barracks, Texas (near Rio Grande City), in 1851. Her account of life at that frontier post in the 1850s comments on everything from travel and landscape, flora and fauna, and food ("flavored with red ants [which] tasted something like caraway seed") to Mexican neighbors, Comanche raiders, and the filibuster Carbajal and his Merchants' War. "Vivacious, romantic, opinionated," Teresa Viele "provides us with a delightfully informative glimpse into the nineteenth-century Texas frontier as viewed by a unique personality. Following the Drum deserves a place among the classics of both frontier and women's history."-From the Foreword by Sandra L. Myres.