Ernest Wallace chronicles the little-known attempts by radical reconstructionists to divide the state, a move their critics derisively referred to as the ""howling of the coyotes."" He traces the interplay of the division issue with partisan politics and with other controversies in the reconstruction convention. His analysis gives not only new information about the almost successful division movement, but also a dramatic new explanation of the convention's delays in completing a constitution and thus of Texas' tardy readmission to the Union.