Book Reviews

Kidnapped from That Land: The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists.

By MARTHA SONNTAG BRADLEY (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993 xii + 260 pp

This book must be read with an appreciation of which people's history it is Over the years a series of fractures have created several unique and distinct groups, as well as "independents," that outsiders collectively call "Fundamentalist Mormons." They have common beliefs in plural marriage, United Order efforts, traditional temple or priesthood garments, and a division of priesthood and temporal religious authority; additionally, their histories and families intertwine However, there remain great differences Bradley's book is primarily a history of the group centered on the Utah/Arizona border, on the "Arizona Strip," in a community historically known as Short Creek.

Since 1935, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated many in the Short Creek congregation, that area has been an important center of the religious movement It provided an isolated safe haven for plural families and in the depression an opportunity to experiment with United Order efforts called the United Effort Plan.

The book begins with brief histories of plural marriage in the LDS church, the settling of the Short Creek area, and Mormon dissenters after the turn of the century For the most part these draw from sources readily available to diligent researchers. Bradley then moves through short summaries of Arizona prosecutions in Short Creek in 1935,which sent two men to prison She recounts a major federal-state "raid" of 1944 in both personal and legal narratives, describing each of the major appellate decisions from state and federal prosecutions.

The bulk of the book concerns the 1953 Arizona invasion of Short Creek where nearly every citizen—122 adults and 263 children—was taken into custody. Bradley draws from her own extensive interviews with the late Arizona governor, Howard Pyle, and a number of Short Creek mothers who were swept up in the raid These women describe their experience at the hands of state authorities and well intended but insensitive Mormons. The strongest writing in the book comes from these interviews, enlarging on Bradley's 1990 Dialogue article on the same subject.

Probably the newest material in the book can be found in the chapters "The Women of Fundamentalism" and "Short Creek in 1992." The author is sympathetic and effectively conveys that women in the community are firmly committed to it These chapters provide insights into why Fundamentalism remains strong and will continue to grow. There is also a discussion of their United Effort Plan Her phrases "family as community" and "community as family" wonderfully convey the Short Creek experience.

In my opinion the book's greatest strength is Bradley's willingness to hear and report the voices of these "Old Fashioned Mormons," relating their lives as they have experienced them. I am unaware of any other history of this religious community that attempts to do this. Her strongest chapters draw the most from these sources and go a long way toward addressing some of the more stubbornly persistent stereotypes about Fundamentalists A serious student of Mormonism certainly will find the book interesting, as will anyone concerned with small, close-knit religious communities.

KEN DRIGGS Austin, Texas

Dreams, Visions and Visionaries: Colorado Rail Annual No. 20.

(Golden: Colorado Railroad Museum, 1993.239 pp. $42.95.)

The Colorado Railroad Museum has been in the forefront in publishing material dealing with rail activities in the Intermountain West, mostly within Colorado, but nonetheless has published three treatises regarding railroading strictly within Utah over the last thirty years Although there are five topics treated in the current annual, the first work is entitled "In the Mountains of Utah" which itself takes up almost half of the volume. Written by Jackson Thode and James L. Ozment, the treatise is the result of many years of library and field research using the journal of Francis Hodgman, the chief surveying engineer of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway in the 1880s The authors are well qualified in this work; Thode is a retired career officer of the D&RGW in Denver and the unofficial historian of the railroad Ozment was the Utah Division engineer, living in Salt Lake City for many years until his reassignment to Denver. He has researched in the Utah State Historical Society library files for this and other publications.

The D&RGW is possibly the most written about railroad in the country, as well as one of the most photographed; but the section of the railroad between Provo, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colorado, is the least well-known, especially in the early construction years. Built between 1881-83, the original line was entirely three-foot narrow gauge all the way from Denver to Ogden, via the Royal Gorge In 1890 the line was made standard gauge, and in so doing many long stretches of the narrow gauge in Utah were bypassed For the seven years between 1883 and 1890, this little railroad, the longest narrow-gauge rail line in the world, traversed some of the wildest and most remote country in the West—right here in Utah.

The authors have presented Hodgman's journal, often word-for-word, in a very thoughtful manner and show on-site photographs of these early surveys, some of which were used for the railroad and some of which were not. Only one other book, Utah Ghost Rails, has delved into the early railroading in this part of the state and that in lesser detail than Dreams; much of the information was obtained from Jack Thode, anyway. Some of the most interesting reading concerns the forty-mile-long railroad grade that was built westward from around Green River, Utah, to Castle Valley Junction, a remote location in the San Rafael Desert that never felt the weight of a single cross-tie let alone a rail Another choice bit regards the tortuous line along the Price River and through a tiny ninety-eight-foot long tunnel Despite the fact that today's D&RGW Railroad is known for its many tunnels in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, when the original narrow-gauge predecessor was built this was the only tunnel on the entire 735mile route It still exists and in fact is the only narrow-gauge tunnel ever bored in Utah. The book's front cover painting by John Green depicts an eastbound passenger train coming out of the tunnel Having been at that site, this reviewer agrees that the scene presented is probably very like the actual one.

Other aspects of eastern Utah railroading covered are the inclusion of the Utah & Pleasant Valley Railroad into the D&RGW, with an aerial photo of an abandoned section snaking around the point of a mountain; great time-line views of the trackage through magnificent Castle Gate (at least it was magnificent until the state highway department blasted away one of the remarkable buttresses of the remarkable rock formation in order to widen U.S. 50-6, which was necessary as there was no space in the narrow canyon for the river rail line and more than a tight two-lane road); the construction of the Pleasant Valley Branch up to Scofield.

Many photographs of Hodgman's surveying activities, several of his own watercolor drawings, early train photos by Springville photographer George E Anderson, and present-day photos of the remains of the early trackage, including crossties still in place—unused and untouched for a century—and modern D&RGW trains rambling across the eastern Utah desert complete the story of this very interesting yet almost unknown section of Utah rail history.

The remainder of the book includes the account of D&RGW Railway builder William Jackson Palmer and his narrow-gauge railroad in Mexico, some Union Pacific show trains in Wyoming and Colorado, and an exceptional photo essay of Union Pacific's giant articulated locomotives (including several photos of the engines in Utah) by prominent photographer Richard Kindig.

To complement the book, a large 24-by-36-inch folded map of all the rail activity and surveys discussed in the volume between Provo and Green River is included It details the graded but never used line between Green River and Castle Valley Junction, the treacherous route along the Price River, the site of the narrow-gauge tunnel, and the present D&RGW route.

Although filling a relatively small niche in Utah's history, the book is nonetheless a valuable resource for those interested in Utah's rail history.

STEPHEN L CARR Holladay, Utah

Boatwomen of the Grand Canyon: Breaking into the Current.

By LOUISE TEAL (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994 xvi + 178 pp Cloth, $25.95; paper, $14.95.)

What a shame that it has taken twenty years since women began in numbers to break into commercial river running for their story to be told. But how fortunate that they should have found at last such a competent chronicler as Louise Teal, who is both the author and one of the subjects of this engrossing collection of biographical sketches.

The greatest virtue of the book is Teal's literary gift Weaving together extensive quotations from interviews with her subjects and her own extensive knowledge of the river and the river-running business, Teal fashions a fully rounded view of the adrenaline-fueled life on the big water. More than just a story of river runners, though, the resulting product is the story of one phase of the larger movement of women integrating themselves into all currents of modern American culture.

With some few exceptions, the subjects of these sketches are substantial human beings with real lives, as a musician, an artist, a photographer, or a scientist, apart from their adventuresome river seasons In this, they contrast refreshingly with their typical male counterpart, the macho-posturing bronze river god whose conversational resources end with the story of his last run through Lava Falls. These women can talk river running as well as the guys, but repeatedly one finds an additional appreciation for the intellectual and emotional delights of the canyon, of living on the river rather than just running it.

There are occasional errors of fact: it was P T Reilly, not Martin Litton, who introduced the colorful dories to the river, though it was Litton who made the first commercial use of them after increasing their payload (p. 137); the Glen Canyon Dam went into operation in 1963, not 1964 (p 8), and it wasn't the canny Huck Finn whom Tom Sawyer tricked into painting the fence (p 53)! There are dubious interpretations as well: Georgie White, the pioneer woman river guide, gets off too easily during this mourning period following her recent death Georgie had a tough, foolhardy courage, but she was a crude, ignorant person whose knowledge of the geography and other scientific aspects of the river was nonexistent, and whose immense "triple" or "G-rigs"— three huge pontoon rafts lashed together—muscled their way through those big rapids and concealed the fact that she never really learned to handle a boat.

One hopes that this book signals an upturn in the literature of the river, which at present is clogged with banal guidebooks, mindless coffee table color photography, rehashes of other people's research (including the errors), and New Age mystical effusions. Books like Boatwomen, with its original topic, thorough research, felicitous prose, and solid link with the larger skein of American culture, are most welcome.

GARY TOPPING Salt Lake Community College

My Best for the Kingdom: History and Autobiography of John Lowe Butler, a Mormon Frontiersman.

By WILLIAM G HARTLEY. (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1993. xiv + 511 pp. $24.95.)

The broad and colorful tapestry of Mormon history is enlarged through William Hartley's interesting study of early Mormon convert John L Butler Hartley wrote this as a book-length family history and later "upgraded" it under the auspices of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church HistoRy at BYU. The whole fabric of Mormon history is enriched through events in Butler's life Yet, My Best for the Kingdom does not try to be an all-inclusive church history. Instead, Hartley adeptly places Butler in the circumstances that surrounded him, and though a broader history is included, the focus of the narrative stays close to Butler's activities. The most interesting writing comes from Butler's own autobiography. Where this written record is thin, Hartley has painstakingly reconstructed the narrative through parallel events recorded in diaries and journals of contemporaries who describe Butler's activities. Where there is conjecture on Hartley's part it is rarely strained or overstated On the contrary, it is usually documented well enough to accord adequately with the author's conclusions.

My Best for the Kingdom makes two important additions to the large amount of pre-exodus Mormon scholarship. First, it considers the most prominent LDS diaries and accounts, including Butler's, in detailing the August 6, 1838, election-day battle at Gallatin, Missouri A serious brawl resulted when townspeople refused to let Mormon settlers cast their votes in the election. Hartley's sympathetic account describes Butler's actions as he "neutralized" a number of the mob with well-placed head blows from his oak club. The author also details Butler's involvement in the somewhat secret and paramilitary Mormon group, the Danites Hartley attempts to clarify the many misconceptions concerning what he believes to be a very misunderstood organization. Through it all the author creates a context for understanding the pivotal year of 1838 and the depredations of the Missouri "Mormon War."

Hartley makes a second contribution by providing a serious and extensive exploration of the little-known James Emmett expedition Following the martyrdom of Mormon leader Joseph Smith, the church leadership attempted to keep its people united and centralized Emmett and a number of followers, apparently acting on earlier orders from Joseph Smith (rescinded by Brigham Young after the prophet's death) left Nauvoo, against counsel, in an attempt to find a western settlement for the Saints Butler was sent by Young to accompany Emmett both to oversee the group and to maintain a cohesive link with Mormon faithful in Emmett's party. As a capable and proven frontiersman, Butler eventually led Emmett's party back to the migrating Saints, helped early Mormons interact with Native Americans, and took part in settling the Spanish Fork area of Utah Valley. Many additional experiences woven throughout the narrative of his life illustrate the confidence of early Mormon leadership in his talents and abilities.

The book is indexed and includes an extensive bibliography and a full transcription of Butler's autobiography It is well documented and has the detailed richness of an eyewitness perspective through the extensive use of diaries and journals. It inserts an additional colorful thread into nineteenth-century Mormon history through the involvement of John L Butler in the important events of that period. As a result, My Best for the Kingdom goes far beyond being a book of ancestral hero worship and contributes significantly to early Mormon church history

STEPHEN B SORENSEN Salt Lake City

Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army.

By Robert WOOSTER (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993 xvi +391 pp $35.00.)

Nelson Appleton Miles (1839-1925) was an American military giant in the late nineteenth century, rising from the elected grade of captain of a Civil War Massachusetts volunteer infantry unit to lieutenant general of the United States Army, the nation's highest ranking officer. Miles was not a West Pointer, but what he lacked in formal military training was compensated for by personal intuition, audacity, and style. He played pivotal roles in the close of the Civil War and in many of the West's most consequential Indian wars, including the Red River War, Great Sioux War, Nez Perce War, Geronimo campaign, and Ghost Dance strife. Miles was commander-in-chief of the American Army during the Spanish American War where he saw some combat but is better remembered for controversial political battles waged against the president and secretary of war. Scorned in the end by the Roosevelt administration, he was ignominiously retired in 1903 "by operation of law."

Miles suffered a split personality that colors history's memory of him. An extraordinarily gifted field commander, he ought to be remembered for his critical participation in the great Indian campaigns His were enormous victories during the 1876-77 Sioux War, for instance, where he and his Fifth Infantry almost single-handedly closed that conflict. But Miles's unbridled ambition, vanity, and self-righteousness consumed his persona and typically shrouded his battlefield successes. Moreover, he married a Sherman and unflinchingly used the family at every opportunity His bombastics led the media and contemporaries outside his circle to paint him a buffoon: "Too much circus, too little brain," added one colleague; "the most ambitious officer" in the army, said another; a "brave peacock," chortled President Roosevelt.

Robert Wooster, associate professor of history at Corpus Christi State University and author of several significant books on the Old Army, unveils this enigmatic soldier in an eloquent biography Miles's gifts as a field commander are clearly evident, but so are his failings as an army administrator. In the larger context, Miles's story is also that of the Old Army and its twilight During his watch as commander-in-chief the nation learned that the tactics of the Indian wars were useless beyond the frontier, and the bickering and infighting of the army staff left the line ill-prepared to function in the global community Miles's reputation clearly rose and set on the western frontier.

Wooster's work is a deftly crafted biography of this paradoxical soldier. He availed himself of significant collections of Miles papers that surfaced subsequent to the Johnson and Tolman biographies of the 1960s Aswell, Wooster exhibits poised writing skills and a wry sense of humor. During Reconstruction, for instance, Wooster notes the North Carolinians' difficulty in "cooperating with a Massachusetts born officer who led black troops and [had] married a woman named Sherman." Of Miles's insatiable self-promotion, even to his well-positioned in laws, always did his lengthy letters close, Wooster notes, with the colonel informing them of "his loyal support and unappreciated military genius."

Noting Miles's appetite for military fashion, even during the most stress filled times, the author notes that Miles was known frequently to get a new uniform and, "when in doubt, [have] his photograph taken." This is not just good history, it is a delightful read.

In retirement Miles dabbled in politics and was active in veteran's affairs And as only the "brave peacock" could, while taking his grandchildren to the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1925, he rose for the "Star-Spangled Banner" with frame erect and chest extended, then slumped over from a heart attack and died. Wooster's biography of this great and colorful officer is destined to become the standard and should be added to all western and military collections.

PAUL L HEDREN National Park Service Williston, North Dakota