Reviews and Recent Publications

REVIEWS AND RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Following the Indian Wars, The Story of the Newspaper Correspondents Among the Indian Campaigners. By Oliver Knight. (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1960, xv + 348 pp., $5.95)

The definitive history of the period known in Western history as the Indian Wars, 1866-1891, is still unwritten, despite the valuable efforts of such scholars as Paul Welliman to give us surveys of the whole ground. Scattered in letters, journals, reminiscences, government documents, and newspaper files from New York to California, the data are immense and so overlaid with legend as to present extraordinarily complex problems to the conscientious scholar. Mr. Knight's book goes a long way toward a solution, for it really offers an objective analysis of one large segment of the evidence — the newspaper stories written by the reporters who rode along on many of the campaigns.

In most instances these "war" correspondents were participants rather than eyewitnesses, and they were therefore at once more immediate and more restricted in their accounts than their modern descendants. Sometimes they shared the commander's inmost counsels; sometimes their coverage was so critical of his strategy that he would have nothing to do with them. Oddly, secrecy was so unimportant in this struggle with an enemy who cared little for such civilized fripperies as the printed page that the correspondents often commented on battle plans with impunity. Pens were laid aside for pistols and rifles when actual combat began, for these struggles of relatively tiny armies permitted no immunities, and the ensuing accounts are thrilling but rarely comprehensive. The net result is a body of corking yarns that infuse bright color into an already colorful era. I might suggest to authors of TV scenarios who are weary of the stereotype of largely mythical "shoot-outs" on hamlet streets that here is a reservoir of fresh and vastly more exciting material.

The Modoc trouble, for example, found Edward Fox of the New York Herald riding alone into hostile country in order to interview the murderous chief known as Captain Jack. Fox got his story, but not before he had been seized as a hostage and forced to watch one Indian carefully stroking a scalp of curly brown hair: the reporter had his own long hair cut off at the first opportunity upon returning to civilization. Mark Kellogg of the Bismarck Tribune was less fortunate, for he elected to cover the campaign against the Sioux and died at the Little Big Horn beside the "hottest copy" of the era, Colonel George Custer.

Although Mr. Knight tells us that his interest is in studying the history of war correspondence and of the men who write it, his book actually fits itself into the story of the events of which they told. After all, the very relationship of these reporters with their papers was extremely tenuous. Some sold their work to several sheets. Others received an outfit and a commission from a newspaper to which their stories were sold, but the precarious conditions under which communication had always to be carried on meant inevitably that the correspondent was completely on his own. Hence one gets no sense of the journalistic milieu or of larger policy patterns into which these stories can be placed. In contrast, their individual contributions to our knowledge of die Indian Wars are in-

PHILIP C. STURGES

University of Utah

Indians, Infants and Infantry: Andrew and Elizabeth Burt on the Frontier. By Merrill J. Mattes. (Denver, The Old West Publishing Company, 1960, 304 pp., $5.95)

Echoes are still heard of the furor occasioned by the recent order to bring home military dependents from abroad to help stop the flow of American gold into foreign countries.

This fascinating book is a reminder that it is not new for wives and children to accompany American military officers on long and sometimes dangerous missions. Elizabeth Burt, who spent some forty years with her Civil War hero husband while he was in the nation's service, was one wife who all but defied official orders by insisting she go wherever Captain (later Colonel) Andrew Burt was assigned. And she kept diaries of her experiences and observations at the isolated outposts along the early-day trails. Unfortunately, these diaries are not available to historians today, but in 1912 Mrs. Burt wrote the story of her life with Andrew Burt, drawing heavily from the diaries. This monumental document of a husband-wife career on the frontier served as the framework of this readable work.

This is not just another story of the Indian wars. It is a splendid account of frontier life by a warm and human person who had a flare for the dramatic. Mrs. Burt was the only resident of old Fort Bridger (in Wyoming 125 miles east of Salt Lake City) during the transitional year of 1866 who recorded the events there of that historic time in history. She was the only resident at remote and mysterious Fort C. F. Smith (38 miles south of present Hardin, Montana) to leave a record of events there which long were hidden by clouds of speculation. Her writings throw light on life at Forts Laramie, D. A. Russell, Washakie, Bidwell, and Missoula, as well as Forts Omaha and Robinson. She wrote personally of Chief Washakie of the Shoshones, whom she admired, Chief Iron Bull of the Crows, and Red Cloud of the incorrigible Sioux. Such military luminaries as Crook, Sheridan, Bourke, and King, and such celebrities as Mark Twain and Owen Wister were her guests.

The author-editor, Mr. Mattes, an authority on American frontier history, bolstered Elizabeth's story with the fruits of his own extensive research, giving it continuity, depth and drama. Mr. Mattes, historian for Region Two of the National Park Service, embracing ten states of the Plains and Rockies, has personally been over much of the ground described.

The author is conviced that Mrs. Burt's greatest contribution is to the gaps she filled in the limited literature of frontier army wives. Almost every aspect of garrison and camp life came in for documentation by her pen. She gave birth to three children while following the Indian fighters, and their childhood was spent within stockades or parade ground enclosures. One child was born at old Fort Sanders, just south of the present site of Laramie, Wyoming, and through the cracks in the only wooden building at the post at the time she saw materials being hauled to build the Union Pacific Railroad.

One of the highlights of the sojourn at Fort Bridger was a trip to Salt Lake City with a small party, including her young son. The trip over the narrow, dangerous roads was made in an Army ambulance, drawn by four mules, for lack of better means of transportation.

She was curious about polygamy and wondered if the women who served the party with "a simple and well-cooked supper" in a house "built substantially of stone" were wives of the proprietor of the roadside house, but "we had no opportunity of acquainting ourselves with any items of the family life."

The party finally reached Camp Douglas which Mrs. Burt found "luxurious" after having not seen anything allied to city life at Fort Bridger.

"Many temptations presented themselves at the stores of Salt Lake City, where all necessities and many of the luxuries of life were purchasable, at rates high enough to more than cover transportation by ox-team from the Missouri. It was a pleasure to visit the stores, but a greater one to go into the gardens and orchards, and above all to feast upon delicious fruits and vegetables, of which we had been deprived for so long. Peaches, apples, pears, quinces and grapes here grew in abundance in the gardens. . ."

The most important chapter may be about old fort C. F. Smith on the Bozeman Trail, of which Major Burt was the last officer in command. The post was abandoned after the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 which ended "Red Cloud's War." Close calls with hostile Indians, incredible ordeals and deprivation are glossed over in the Ohio gentlewoman's story. The floor of the Burt quarters was of dirt beaten hard and covered with gunny sacks. The winter was cold, but spirits were generally high.

This reviewer shares Author Mattes' disappointment that Mrs. Burt was silent about some matters that clamor for attention. She left no opinion as to whether General Bradley was overly timid at the time of the historic Hayfield fight, as had been alleged. She recorded nothing about General Crook, who stayed with the Burts at Fort Laramie, and others on whom she could have shed important light for historians of today.

Mrs. Burt was not writing for history. She wrote for her own enjoyment and for her children and relatives. She told what interested her, leaving out what did not and that which she did not think proper for an officer's wife to comment upon. Fortunately, most of what she did say is of signal historic value. And Mr. Mattes makes the best of it.

ERNEST H. LINFORD

Salt Lake Tribune

From St. Louis to Sutter's Fort, 1846. By Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and Edited by Erwin G. and Elisabeth K. Gudde. (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1961, xix + 204 pp., $3.95)

The above is the journal of Heinrich Lienhard, one of five young Swiss and German emigrants, who in 1846 traveled together from St. Louis to Sutter's Fort over the Hastings Cutoff ahead of the Donner party.

Because this journal was written and published in German and distributed in Germany and Switzerland, it was almost unknown in this country for a great many years. When it was finally discovered, the part which covered the trail from Fort Bridger to the Humboldt, was translated by Dale L. Morgan and reprinted in West from Fort Bridger (Utah Historical Quarterly, XIX, 1959) by J. Rodney Korns, as edited by Morgan. The present translation covers the entire trail from St. Louis to Fort Sutter. While the Morgan translation is more literal, the present translation is apparently accurate. It is easy reading, and not copiously footnoted.

Lienhard's descriptions of the many human frailties he noted along the trail, not excepting many in his own group of five, are very interesting. While it is common to think of certain prominent emigrant parties as being cohesive all the way across the continent, Lienhard shows that such was not the case. Various wagons left their original groups and drove ahead to join other parties or remained behind to join those in the rear. This was an everyday occurrence, and though we presently speak of the Donner party or the Harlan-Young party, their personnel changed from day to day so that such names do not always indicate the same identical group.

Lienhard started out with the Harlan party, which was later joined by the Youngs, and he traveled in the vicinity of this group most of the way. Lansford W. Hastings was guiding the Harlan-Young party, who were several days ahead of the more famous Donner party. But Lienhard's record shows diat Hastings passed back and forth along the line of wagons, between Weber River and Skull Valley, several times, and was a great deal more active than has heretofore been realized. After guiding the Harlan-Young party down Weber Canyon, he returned and advised Lienhard's group to take what later became known as the Mormon trail. Since that trail had never been traveled by wagons, however, the party ignored the advice and continued down Weber Canyon, passing Devil's Gate by driving down the stream bed.

This book is particularly interesting because previously there has been almost no day-by-day information of the difficulties suffered on the Hastings Cutoff. While this record was written in its present form over thirty years after his trip, Lienhard had kept an accurate journal, and the revised journal is quite reliable as to dates and mileages.

For personal reasons the Lienhard journal is especially interesting to this reviewer. In 1929 while doing research for Salt Desert Trails, I crossed the Great Salt Desert by car and on foot, following Lienhard's exact route, and at that time recovered a large number of relics. Lienhard's description of that desert country is very accurate. The book is a must for all students of early Utah history.

CHARLES KELLY

Salt Lake City, Utah

The Utah Story. By Milton R. Hunter. (Salt Lake City, Wheelwright Lithographing Company, 1960, 436 pp., $6.75)

As is stated in the Preface, The Utah Story is designed for young people of junior high school age. The book gives a sweep of the history of Utah and a picture of the culture of her people, beginning with the Pueblo Indian culture and ending with the space age. Considerable space is devoted to the study of the social, economic, and political life with some emphasis on the modern period.

The book is large, beautiful, with the colored photograph of the State Capitol on the front cover and the Great White Throne of Zion's Canyon on the back. The text is printed in pleasing, legible type, and the illustrations — 77 colored photographs, 250 duotones, several maps, tables and charts — are artistically arranged throughout. A comprehensive set of problems and questions, entitled "Thinking, Remembering, and Discovering" appears at the end of each chapter.

The table of contents is very complete, but such listings can never take the place of a good reliable index. In fact, this is a major criticism, for without an index a book is practically useless as a reference tool.

The conversational style used in the book gives this reviewer, at least, a feeling of talking "down" to the students. One wonders, is it necessary to use that technique on boys and girls of junior high school age? Despite these critical comments, it goes without saying that the appearance of The Utah Story is welcome. There has long been a need for a good text on Utah history for the lower grades.

Nebraska Place-Names. By Lilian L. Fitzpatrick, including selections from the Origin of the Place-Names of Nebraska, by J. T. Link. Edited, with an Introduction, by G. Thomas Fairclough. (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1960, 227 pp., $1.50)

"What is the difference between a stream and a creek ? When is a hill a butte? Who decides what to name a town? How do names happen anyway?" The monographs in this edition bring together the most significant work that has been done in the study of Nebraska placenames. The Fitzpatrick and Link books complement each odier in an interesting way. Miss Fitzpatrick was concerned with the names of Nebraska communities — places of human settlement and governmental divisions. Link set out on a more inclusive quest: to record and find the origin and meaning of every name then appearing on the map of Nebraska, and of some names (chiefly from Indian languages) which were no longer used. His investigation included approximately 10,000 place names in the state, names of the counties, townships and precincts, cities, villages, post offices, forts, reservations, state parks, recreation grounds, and so forth. Nebraska is the only state that has its place names worked out in such detail. Such studies are a valuable educational contribution.

A Guide to the Care and Administration of Manuscripts. By Lucile M. Kane. (Bulletins of the American Association for State and Local History, Vol. II, No. 11, September, 1960, 54 pp., $1.00 members, $1.25 non-members)

The vast accumulation of primary materials (manuscripts) in historical societies and other historical agencies, in archival depositories, in research libraries, and in public and private libraries constitutes the large majority of the sources from which American history is written. In such documentary materials are buried the facts that reveal the past to the student of history. In collecting manuscripts and documents, therefore, a repository must assume the obligation to preserve and make them readily available to persons engaged in research. It is to aid in carrying out these obligations that this bulletin is directed. Contents include: "Establishing the First Controls," "Organizing the Collection," "Sorting," "Evaluation," "Preservation," "Cataloguing," and "Bibliography." Included in the illustrations are pictures of easy sort devices in the Library of Congress, cleaning processes, the laminator, and the steel fumigation tanks in the National Archives.

Down the Colorado with Major Powell. By James Ramsey Ullman. (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960)

First Through the Grand Canyon. By Steve Frazee. (Philadelphia, John C. Winston, 1960) [The expedition of Major John Wesley Powell written for young people]

Joseph Smith, Democracy's Unknown Prophet. By John J. Stewart. (Salt Lake City, Mercury Publishing Company, 1960)

The Mexican War. By Otis A. Singletary. (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1960)

Mormonism and the Negro. By John J. Stewart. (Orem, Utah, Community Press Publishing Company, 1960)

Peyotism and New Mexico. By C. Burton Dustin. (Santa Fe, Vergara Printing Company, 1960)

Some Folks Went West. By Donald L. Weismann. Foreword by Walter Prescott Webb. (Austin, Texas, Stock Company, 1960)

Utah Indian Stories. By Milton R. Hunter. (4th ed. revised, Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Company, 1960)

The Welsh in America. Letters from the Immigrants. Edited by Alan Conway. (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1961)

ROBERT M. LILLIBRIDGE, "Architectural Currents on the Mississippi River Frontier: Nauvoo, Illinois," Journal oj the Society of Architectural Historians, October, 1960.

RICHARD E. CROUTER and ANDREW F. ROLLE, "Edward Fitzgerald Beale and the Indian Peace Commissioners in California, 1851-1854," The Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, June, 1960.

FRANK A. SCHILLING, "Military Posts of the Old Frontier, Arizona-New Mexico," ibid.

ROY E. APPLEMAN, "Unsung Frontiersman [George Drouillard of Lewis and Clark Expedition]," Corral Dust, Potomac Corral of the Westerners, December, 1960.

CARL P. RUSSELL, "Blue-Eyed Men in Buckskin [Mountain Men]," ibid.

LEROY R. HAFEN, "Fremont vs. The San Juans," The Denver Westerners Monthly Roundup, August, 1960.

TED and CARYL HINCKLEY, "Overland from St. Louis to the California Gold Field in 1849: The Diary of Joseph Waring Berrien," Indiana Magazine of History, December, 1960.

SAMUEL C. BLESSING, "Colorado Catastrophe [Fremont's Expedition, 1848]," Montana, The Magazine of Western History, Winter, 1961.

RAY ALLEN BILLINGTON, "The West of Frederick Jackson Turner," Nebraska History, December, 1960.

"Major Powell and the Colorado," Nevada Highways and Parks, No. 2, 1960.

GLORIA GRIFFEN CLINE, "Peter Skene Ogden's Nevada Explorations," Quarterly of the Nevada Historical Society, July-September, 1960.

JOHN E. SUNDER, "Solomon Perry Sublette: Mountain Man of the Forties," New Mexico Historical Review, January, 1961.

ROBERT M. UTLEY, "Fort Union and the Santa Fe Trail," ibid.

CHRISTY G. TURNER, II and WILLIAM C. MILLER, "1960 Northeast Navajo Mountain Survey," Plateau, January, 1961.

ILENE H. KINGSBURY, "A Phantom Flotilla [Saltair]," SUP News, November-December, 1960.

ROBERT GARDNER, "The Greatest Mountain Man of Them All [Jedediah Smith]," True West, March-April, 1961.

MAURINE CARLEY, "Emigrant Trail Trek No. Ten," Annals of Wyoming, October, 1960.

THELMA GATCHELL CONDIT, "The Hole-In-The-Wall," ibid.

DALE L. MORGAN, "The Ferries of the Forty-Niners," Part III, Section 2, ibid.