Book Reviews

Utah People in the Nevada Desert: Homestead and Community on a Twentieth-Century Farmers' Frontier.

By MARSHALL E BOWEN (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1994. xiv+134 pp. $24.95.)

If you have ever wondered why irrigation and dry farming activities have not become more prominent within the Great Basin, this book will tell you why Although the account related here is limited to two adjoining areas of northeastern Nevada, the hopes, problems, and disappointments of the settlers stand as a model of the agricultural potential for much of the Great Basin. At the present, irrigation and dry farming agriculture between Delta, Utah, and Fallon, Nevada, is limited. The experiences of the early twentieth-century homesteaders in two communities of northeastern Nevada will attest why.

It is easy to recognize that northern Nevada is marginal for agricultural purposes. These sagebrush covered flats of the high desert experience hot summers and cold winters with limited resources for irrigation agriculture and sparse seasonal precipitation for dry farming Despite these drawbacks a host of settlers arrived there between 1909 and 1915 to forge a living on these marginal lands The story of the Metropolis/Afton and Tobar Flat/Independence Valley communities gives us some insight into the many factors that drew these pioneers into this great adventure. Almost without exception they were hard working folks who desired to raise their economic status by developing and owning a place of their own, and the opening of these lands held great promise for them There was reason to feel that they would succeed Government legislation, the backing of the railroad, the convincing of land speculators, rising world grain prices, and new farming technologies made life in the Nevada desert look promising Those seeking a better life were caught up in the "back-to-the-land" movement and became Great Basin agricultural pioneers.

A major thesis that predominates throughout this volume is the presentmen t connections Lhat existed between die homesteaders Two major source groups emerged—a North Ogden/Cache Valley contingent of Mormons who settled in the Metropolis/Afton area and a smaller group of mainly Salt Lake City non-Mormons who formed the nucleus of the Tobar Flat/Independence Valley area settlers. In both groups family and neighbor connections were paramount. However, the ensuing years did not bode well for the homesteaders as a multitude of difficulties beset them These problems ranged from the heat of the summer to the cold of the winter and from drought to falling grain prices They also included infestations by jackrabbits and ground squirrels After the collapse of the project in the mid-1920s, family and neighbor groups were again paramount in determining where these broken homesteaders would relocate.

This volume is of value to anyone interested in the geography and history of the Great Basin. This is the story of the last of the true traditional pioneers of the American West and provides insight into the environment and potential of that area It is further recommended that future Great Basin developers become intimately familiar with this work.

DON R. MURPHY Weber State University

Abraham Lincoln and the Western Territories.

Edited by RALPH Y MCGINNIS and GUATN N. SMITH. (Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1994. x + 222 pp. $28.95.)

Compared to the voluminous historical coverage given to the Civil War, other contemporary topics typically have received rather cursory treatment. Understandably, Lincoln gave relatively limited attention to the emerging western territories Even so, his influence on the trans-Mississippi West was profound Ralph McGinnis, the Lincoln enthusiast whose vision inspired this book, and Calvin N Smith, who assumed the editorial duties following Professor McGinnis's passing in 1989, have performed the valuable service of editing a brief overview of the development of the western territories prior to and during the Lincoln presidency.

The first four chapters describe the general nature of territorial government, provide an overview of international rivalries in the West, supply a logical series of informative maps, give an overview of the creation and development of territories prior to Lincoln's death, and discuss three legislative enactments that exerted a major influence on the history of the frontier West. Chapters 5 through 14 summarize the pre-Reconstruction histories of ten territories: Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Dakota. The book concludes with a thought-provoking chapter on the area known popularly as Indian Territory (basically present-day Oklahoma).

The eleven contributors to this volume have succeeded in accomplishing the book's stated purpose of correcting a major deficiency in American historical writing by producing a study that focuses directly on Lincoln's "dealings with the sprawling western territories." The book's strength does not lie in the advancing of new interpretations based on fresh research into primary sources; rather, ts principal contribution is the pulling together in a single volume of a competent overview of the development of the western territories during the Lincoln presidency.

The eleven authors uniformly provide broad historical perspective in their writing. In dealing with diverse territorial histories, they commonly give a pre-territorial overview, discuss Lincoln's appointees to political offices, assess the public's reaction to Lincoln's death, and summarize territorial responses to the Civil War Western settlers typically, though not universally, viewed Lincoln in a positive light and genuinely mourned his death That view may well have been even more positive had Lincoln been able to focus more of his attention on national expansion and less on national preservation. For example, given the press of Civil War concerns, the necessity of making territorial appointments—and especially of replacing unsatisfactory officials—was often simply an unpleasant chore for Lincoln It seems likely from the collective evidence in this volume that the western territories would have benefited from the oversight of a gifted, but less-preoccupied, president who could devote more attention to the duties of the chief executive and less to those of the commander-in-chief.

D GENE PACE Alice Lloyd College Pippa Passes, Kentucky

Into the Wilderness Dream: Exploration Narratives of the American West, 1500-1805.

Edited by DONALD A. BARCLAY, JAMES H. MAGUIRE, and PETER WILD. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. xviii + 397 pp. Cloth, $45.00; paper, $17.95.)

Over thirty years have passed since John Bakeless produced The Eyes of Discovery: America as Seen by the First Explorers, a book somewhat similar to Into the Wilderness Dream but with emphasis on the physical environment rather than the more eclectic approach of this new book Three editors have pooled their interests to introduce their thirty-three widely divergent selections consisting of brief excerpts from firsthand accounts of efforts to seek knowledge of North America's terra incognita of yesteryear. Selections run the gamut from Las Sergas de Esplandidn, a medieval romance of chivalry, to the mysterious Peter Pond, to the total fantasy of Mathieu Sagean and the poetic embellishments of amateur epic poet Gasper Perez de Villagra, via the cleverly edited captivity narrative of John Jewitt, to the terse campaign journals of early Spanish explorers of the desert Southwest.

The time span of over three centuries, combined with the geographical sweep from Atlantic to Pacific and from Mexico to the Arctic, requires much more from the editors than mere selection of materials Regarding initial choices, no reader will be fully satisfied with those included, but that is to be expected Not surprisingly, since the Spaniards were first in much of North America, about half of the exploration narratives (and nearly all of the lengthy ones) emanate from Spanish sources, while the fur trade generates much of the remainder It is in the brief, two- to four-page introductions to each selection that the editors occasionally expose the weakness inherent in such a tour de force. Greater care should have been taken with Spanish materials, including more attention to spelling and accentuation, as well as efforts to make the introductions reflect the current status of research rather than to depend on "established fact." For example, Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez was not one-eyed; Estevan, the companion of Cabeza de Vaca and Fray Marcos, was a Moor rather than a Negro, and certainly not both; and Francis Drake's chronicler, Parson Francis Fletcher, was clearly not an unimpeachable source.

The Wilderness Dream s introduction quickly carries the reader, complete with justification for so doing, into the mind set of those early visitors who preserved written views of the wilderness at a time when it was known only to preliterate people, the resident Indians who, of course, were frequently the underlying sources for the literate observations That only one selection was by a female writer does not reflect a modern bias but rather is indicative of the unavailability of such materials, a result of limited educational opportunity for women and the paucity of educated females on the early scene. The exception was Frances Hornby Barkley who accompanied her husband in the early maritime fur trade in the Pacific Northwest and whose diary, later lost, was used by earlier historians.

There is much merit in the presentation of such materials in a single volume, and the editors are forthright in stating their purpose of carrying the reader imaginatively into the dream of the New World They selected authors on the basis of the great advance expectations that shaped what they saw, how they saw it, and how they reacted. Such a series of selections cannot but whet the appetite for reading at greater length from the sources that necessarily had to be brief.

DONALD A CUTTER Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Big Empty: Essays on the Land as Narrative.

Edited by LEONARD ANGEL (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. xii + 321 pp. $32.50.)

Collections of essays often tend to be motley and somewhat uneven, and The Big Empty: Essays on the Land as Narrative is no different. This is to be expected in a work that, although well conceived, attempts to merge the ideas of folks ranging from academic historians and professors of literature to film critics and journalists. The avowed purpose of the book is to "examine how creative artists have seen and imagined the land in their works," but only some of the essays deal specifically with this objective. Indeed, the two strongest essays in the book— James Ronda's "Dreaming the Past," a superb examination of the image and reality of South Pass, and Patricia Limerick's "Haunted by Rhyolite," an evocative look at a Nevada ghost town—have little, if anything, to do with the role of creative artists and the West. In the remaining essays, those that do deal with creative artists, the gamut of topics ranges from the West in film (or more about Sam Peckinpaugh than you ever wanted to know) to the western landscape in oral narrative, regional art of the Great Plains, and literature These essays vary in strength. Some rehash old interpretations of western movies (do we really need another analysis of John Ford?) Awhile others represent fresh looks at the relationship between landscape and language. Curious topical absences exist: nothing on the romantic artists of the mid-nineteenth century whose West was so important in the shaping of American images; nothing 3n the popular western artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who reinvented the West for a nation; nothing on the resurgence and popularity of western art in the latter twentieth century.

A major problem with the collection is that the various authors (with the exception of Ronda and Limerick) seem to have difficulty in deciding whether they are writing about western "land" (meaning the physical geographic characteristics of the region) or western "landscapes" (meaning the land as imprinted by human activity). Perhaps the distinction is too fine a one for persons not trained in regional analysis, but it is a critical distinction and should have been considered by those responsible for assembling the cast of authors More important, however, is the fact that the book attempts to be something it cannot be, given its format and the expertise of most of its contributors. Like most works on the American West today the book attempts to address the "vigorous and ongoing effort to redefine the meaning of the West"—in other words, a feeble effort is made to work in the traditionalist-revisionist theme that would be better left for the western historians themselves to work out while leaving others to go about their business.

In spite of these criticisms the work is nevertheless an intriguing effort by a group of powerful writers The Big Empty achieves one of its goals of increasing appreciation for the role of land/landscape in the arts, and most specialists in western history, as well as the casual reader of things western, will find something of value in the collection But the reader—whether specialist or casual—is cautioned not to take too seriously the editor's pretentious claim that this book offers "a fresh vision of the land" that will serve us "in our search for a sustaining national purpose and revitalized inner values as we approach the next century." It does rather less.

JOHN L ALLEN University of Connecticut Storrs

John Sutter and a Wider West.

Edited by KENNETH N. OWENS (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 x + 138 pp $22.50.)

Since the 1848 discovery of gold in California, the historical figure of John Sutter has been obscured by his very notoriety Most biographical studies in the past have also failed to place Sutter in the wider context of Euro-American development of the West.

Kenneth Owens has brought together, under one cover, a group of essays that highlight Sutter's California experience in a new and exciting way Although each contributor approaches Sutter's career from a different perspective, each advances a substantial reappraisal of this man and his place in western American history.

This collective portrait exemplifies revisionist scholarship at its best.

The volume begins with Sutter's own 1856 narrative of his life in California. The present edition differs in small ways from the original 1878 publication by correcting obvious typographical errors and adding important editorial comments that help clarify the narrative. The account reveals Sutter's own attempt to portray himself as the heroic founder of civilization in the Sacramento region.

The chronicle is followed by five essays by leading historians who consider particular aspects of Sutter's activities Howard R Lamar's essay, for the first time, views Sutter not as a lone individual struggling against the accidents of fate but as one of many wilderness entrepreneurs—or empire builders—who helped shape the American West and bring its resources and promise to the attention of not only the United States but also the entire world.

Albert L Hurtado's disturbing essay about Sutter's interaction with Native Americans demonstrates the different ways in which Sutter exploited the Sacramento Valley resources (including Indian labor) for his own advantage. It is obvious that Sutter's career in this area was most unsavory and that he directly contributed to the weakening of Indian autonomy and the decline of Native American numbers in the Sacramento Valley.

Iris H W Engstrand's essay is an example of social history at its best because she moves beyond obvious areas of historical inquiry—such as politics and economics She presents Sutter as a human being—a man who was eager to claim credit for any success and quick to blame others for his failures. Although Sutter was without a doubt an energetic builder, he was a failure as a father and as a family man.

Richard White's essay reminds us that Sutter's aim was to tame the wilderness and establish civilization near the juncture of the Sacramento and the American rivers Ironically, many people living amidst prosperity and "progress" in this very area are now trying to save remnants of the older natural world Sutter sought to destroy.

Patricia Nelson Limerick attempts to move beyond the dehumanized Sutter—the Sutter who has been washed, sanitized, bleached, and shrunk to size for school children, for tourists, and for residents of the city of Sacramento This effort has made Sutter all the more interesting for everyone.

The book is an example of those exceptional academic phenomena: essays that can be read with benefit by both the nonspecialist and scholar.

RICHARD NEITZEL HOLZAPFEL Brigham Young University

Following the Guidon.

By ELIZABETH B CUSTER (1890; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 xxxii + 341 pp $12.95.)

By refuting critics and nobly playing the devoted widow, Elizabeth Bacon Custer carefully manipulated and authenticated the image of her husband George Armstrong Custer as a hero who gave his life for God and country Although Libbie hoped boys would emulate Armstrong's sterling qualities, this book's ultimate purpose was to refute his critics. In the process, the charming Libbie transports her readers to the Southern Plains frontier and vividly introduces them to the winter campaign of 1868, summer camp, and frontier army life.

Ignoring Custer's court-martial and suspension for leaving his post in 1867, Libbie opens with his preparation for the winter campaign of 1868 against the Southern Plains tribes. Gen Philip Sheridan, believing Custer was uniquely suited for the new tactic, had engineered his restoration to duty. Skillfully using Custer's letters, Libbie brings to life the ordeal faced by the troops and justifies his actions in the battle of the Washita which established Custer's reputation as an Indian fighter. Countering criticism of the attack on the peace chief Black Kettle, Libbie cites the Indians' abuse of their white female captives While mourning Major Elliott and his men, she assures military critics her husband's return to base after a brief search for them was necessary to preserve the lives of his remaining, exhausted men.

While visiting Fort Hays, Libbie shares her prejudice and fear of the Cheyenne captives and their great respect for Custer. Typically portrayed as inferior to their noble white captors, the uncivilized Cheyenne supposedly sought the patient, compassionate Custer's aid at every turn and trusted no other white man Libbie presents Cheyenne women as monstrous drudges who were incapable of attaining the prevailing domestic ideal Especially effective is her presentation of Monahsetah, a chiefs daughter who supposedly bore Custer's child. Seeing her as a dangerous "princess," Libbie praises the assistance Monahsetah provided to her husband as a tracker. Her failure to mention the philandering of military men protected their nobility.

Perhaps most valuable are Libbie's vivid descriptions of everyday life in camp, buffalo hunting, and her brief visits to Ellsworth and Hays City. Their "petting zoo" of exotic local creatures, a flash flood, the sharing of finery, camp followers' roles, horse and mule races, and hunting trips could be observed at any frontier post, rendering her account invaluable to historians.

Libbie absolves the officers and their guests of helping exterminate the buffalo by explaining that the meat offset their poor army diet, and the buffalo's demise did not hasten the Indians' defeat Scenes in "wild" western towns further ennobled the military men.

Despite the language of the cults of domesticity and heroes of the late 1800s, Following the Guidon successfully portrays frontier army life for both popular readers and scholars. Libbie fails to convince modern historians of her husband's infallibility, but she convinced most of her generation of his nobility Although romanticized and censored, her work is invaluable to historians seeking a glimpse of the old Southern Plains frontier.

MICHELE BUTTS Austin Peay State University Clarksville, Tennessee

A Dose of Frontier Soldiering: The Memoirs of Corporal E. A. Bode, Frontier Regular Infantry, 1877-1882.

Edited by THOMAS T SMITH (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 x + 237 pp $29.95.)

Emil Bode was a typical frontier army enlisted man. A young, unemployed German immigrant, he joined Company D, 16th Infantry, at New Orleans in February of 1877 and embarked on a five-year tour of duty on the Southern Plains and in the Southwest Unlike many of his comrades-inarms, however, Bode was endlessly curious and uncommonly literate Back in civilian life, sometime between 1884 and 1889, he wrote down his recollections of soldiering, which eventually found their way into the Texas A&M University Library Thomas T. Smith, an army officer and West Point history professor, recognized their value as the observations of a lowly foot soldier Thanks to his meticulous editing and generous annotations, they provide an unusual perspective on the everyday world of the Indian-fighting army.

"Finding myself under somewhat peculiar circumstances and my vital powers gradually decreasing without hope of speedy relief in civilian life," Bode matter-of-factly records, "I concluded to go under the protecting shield of Mars and join the United States Army " No fife or drum celebrated the event, nor does he seem to have harbored romantic notions of martial glory. And yet, Bode took to army life with rare good humor and a thirst to see what lay beyond the far hills His "dose of frontier soldiering," acquired at Fort Sill in present-day Oklahoma, consisted of the soldier's daily routine of kitchen police, guard and escort duty, and stringing telegraph wire No wonder he concluded that "There is more laboring than soldiering in the U.S Infantry." Bode paints a familiar portrait of the motley assortment of humanity who lived by the soldier's motto: "Live so long as you can, the next instant you may be dead." In the process, he describes the ingenious ways in which post traders, quartermasters, and others defrauded Uncle Sam, and he draws pointed thumbnail sketches of prominent officers, including Henry O Flipper, William R Shatter, "Black Jack" Davidson, Ranald Mackenzie, and Benjamin Grierson.

One of Bode's engaging qualities is his ability to transcend the tedium of army life An avid hunter and fisherman, he was also a close observer of flora, fauna, and the natural landscape A stranger in a strange land, he sought out reservation Indians, with whom he formed respectful and comfortable relationships, observing their customs and lamenting their fate at the hands of the U.S. government. Present at the arrest of Kiowa chief Big Bow, he vividly recounts the tense scene as "hot and cold chills" ran up and down his back.

Like most soldiers Bode never fired his weapon in anger During the Victorio campaign in New Mexico he rarely saw a hostile Indian and spent most of his time trudging across mountain and desert. Still, his recollections are valuable as the only published enlisted man's account of the campaign, providing firsthand observations of life in camp and field. Here, Bode's good humor wears thin as he criticizes Col Edward Hatch's military judgment and disparages the fighting qualities of black soldiers. Relieved of officers and left to guard a remote ranch, however, he picks up his rifle and fishing pole and sets off with a familiar refrain: "We lived like lillies of the valley, nothing else to do but cook and eat."

Promoted to corporal and then sergeant, Bode closed out his military career at Forts Davis and McKavett, Texas, where he again carefully recorded his experiences escorting telegraph repair crews, paymaster wagons, and emigrant parties He even strikes a revisionist note when he criticizes Texas Rangers for their "uncivilized" treatment of Indians The reminiscence ends abruptly on the eve of Bode's discharge, with the veteran soldier drilling recruits and enjoying the many small duties that occupied an infantryman's day. Unfortunately, we do not learn what happened to Bode after the late 1880s when he was a businessman traveling around the Midwest. Like the stereotypical old soldier, he just fades away.

Military historians, and western historians in general, can be grateful that Smith discovered Emil Bode's important and engaging memoir. As one of only a handful of enlisted men's accounts of the Indian wars, it throws new light on military routine and society at western forts Equally important, it offers an intimate and sympathetic view of the early reservation years of Southern Plains tribes Before he disappeared from the pages of history Emil Bode left behind a rare glimpse from the barracks.

BRUCE J. DINGES Arizona Historical Society Tucson

Figures in a Western Landscape: Men and Women of the Northern Rockies.

By ELIZABETH STEVENSON (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994 xiv + 222 pp $25.95.)

Elizabeth Stevenson has either written an evocative biographical history of the northern West, or she has used her multiple biography format as a contrived vehicle for retelling a dozen and a half familiar if not hackneyed western stories. Happily, the book is more the former than the latter, although Stevenson succumbs on occasion to old repetitious grooves.

She states her purpose early: to see how the landscape of what she calls "the last West"—the place of "final enactment" of the American westering experience—affected the lives and outlooks of a variety of individuals and how the landscape in turn affected them. What she really does is identify how various people, herself included, reflect facets of the human response to the historical and geographical West.

Stevenson's West, moreover, is decidedly Montanan. All her figures spent meaningful time in the state, and most are closely associated with Montana history. Perhaps that's fitting. She admits few places are more identified with the mythic West than the Treasure State. Devoting ten of the book's twelve chapters to individual biographical portraits or pairings of portraits, Stevenson commits one chapter, titled "Coppertown People," to a portrayal of Butte, Montana, and reserves the last chapter for her personal memoir response.

Her portraits have been sketched before Arranged chronologically they include the introspective explorer Meriwether Lewis who delighted in "the strangeness and vastness" he traveled through; the sensitive fur trapper Russell Osborne, for whom life was most real in the West; the insensitive naturalist/scientist John Kirk Townsend, who collected the region's "facts" with ruthless determination; the early trader John Owen, who "fostered his isolated community"; and the venerable Jesuit priest Pierre Jean DeSmet, who loved the slow, balanced pace of Montana's early biracial society.

In addition, there are brothers James and Granville Stuart James, the "more typical man of his times," is a miner of the main chance who willingly employs violence to gain an end, while Granville, the more enviable, is a man who is "as happy at finding a lake full of trout" as he is to discover "a gulch full of gold." Also here are Henry Plummer, Montana's famed outlaw sheriff, and the man who made Plummer a legend, Thomas Dimsdale, newspaper editor and vigilante defender. To Stevenson, Dimsdale and Plummer are simply two sides of the same coin—outlawry masquerading as law and order George Crook and John Gregory Bourke are both veterans of the High Plains Indian wars, but they came to defend Indian rights and respect native culture.

Stevenson does not neglect women: Pretty-Shield, daughter of one of George Armstrong Custer's Crow scouts; and Nannie Alderson, West Virginia daughter of southern sympathizers and hardscrabble Montana homesteader The author views both as "survivors." Great Falls founder, entrepreneur, and visionary Paris Gibson is a man who looked forward, whereas Montana's cowboy artist, Charles M. Russell, looked backward. High Plains celebrity Calamity Jane sacrificed her real life for the sake of myth, and "Coppertown People" illustrates how locals could love an ugly place.

Finally, there is Stevenson, for whom the West is special because "each person counts for far more than the solitary individual elsewhere" and because memories, especially her own, linger on the land.

The book is beguiling, for it is neither western history nor biography in the conventional sense It is commentary, but engaging commentary crafted for readers who enjoy seeing the West through the eyes of a contemplative writer Handsomely produced, the book is at once a valuable introductory and an enjoyable contemporary take on the historical West.

CHARLES E. RANKIN Montana Historical Society Helena