James Pike

Before he became an author, he worked as a printer's assistant in Ohio and Missouri and then headed to Texas, where he joined the Rangers in 1859. Historical accounts describe him as a soldier and scout whose experiences on the frontier and during the Civil War later became the basis of his writing.

His best-known work is The Scout and Ranger (1865), a firsthand-style memoir of service in Texas and in the Union army's western campaigns. The book helped preserve one version of life as a ranger, scout, and spy in the mid-19th-century Southwest and South.

He died in 1867. Some later historical commentary notes that parts of his story have been debated, but his book remains an interesting window into how adventure, war, and memory were told in his time.