I hope you had a chance to watch “Texas Rising” on the History Channel over the last month and a half. It was entertaining. I know that some characters in the series were fictional or their stories were highly fictionalized, so this summer I will try to find the real stories of their lives, starting with Emily D. West, Jack Hays and Erastus (Deaf) Smith. I was also intrigued by Juan Seguin and the other Hispanic residents of Texas who fought with Houston against the Mexican Army. These were my takeaways from “Texas Rising.” I am grateful to the History Channel for the project, but the armchair historian in me always appreciates the real stories behind the fictional ones.
Texas History Notebook 