author
Robert Goldthwaite Carter
1845–1936
A Medal of Honor recipient and career cavalry officer, he turned his firsthand experience of the Civil War and the western frontier into vivid historical writing. His books are especially valued for their direct, eyewitness perspective on the U.S. Army and the Texas frontier.
1 Audiobook
On the Trail of Deserters; A Phenomenal Capture
by Robert Goldthwaite Carter
About the author
Born in Maine in 1845, he graduated from West Point during the Civil War era and went on to serve in the U.S. Army through the Civil War and the Indian Wars. He is best known in military history for receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions in Texas in 1871.
Later in life, he became an author whose work drew heavily on his own service. His books include On the Border with Mackenzie; or, Winning West Texas from the Comanches, Record of the Military Service of First Lieutenant and Brevet Captain Robert Goldthwaite Carter, U.S. Army, 1862–1876, and Officers of the Army and Navy (Regular) Who Served in the Civil War.
What makes his writing stand out is its closeness to the events it describes. Rather than writing as a distant historian, he wrote as someone who had been there, giving readers a personal window into nineteenth-century military life, frontier campaigns, and the people who shaped them.