The study of family history strengthens our feeling of connection to long ago events that might otherwise seem remote and irrelevant. It gives us a long view of the human condition and its cycle of life, struggle and death. Stories heard at his grandfather's knee about his father's life as a Texas Ranger and frontier doctor sparked the author's childhood fascination with that era. This aroused the author's curiosity about how his ancestors lived, which ultimately inspired this absorbing narrative of our nation as it was experienced by the first ten American generations of his Wright family. Chapters include: Philadelphia Freedom, Carolina Bound, The Spirit of '76, In the Land of Cotton, Secession and Reconstruction, Joining Captain McNelly, The Battle at Palo Alto Prairie, The Raid on Las Cuevas, Keeping the Peace in Nueces Country, Gone to Texas, The San Diego Years, and, Harry Lee Wright and John Wesley Wright, Jr. An Epilogue; Chapter Notes; Selected Bibliography; an index to full-names, places and subjects; and dozens of illustrations add to the value of this work.