Fort Phil Kearny–An American Saga, by Dee Brown, reprint with introduction by Shannon D. Smith. Lincoln, NE University of Nebraska Press, 2022, 251 pages,
photographs, bibliography, appendices, index. Softcover, $21.95

The Colfax County War – Violence and Corruption in Territorial New Mexico, by Corey Reckouth and M. Alexander.  Denton, TX:  University of North Texas Press, 2024. 222 pages, table of contents, index, bibliography, footnotes, maps, appendix and photos. Hardcover $34.95, Softcover $27.96

Billy The Kid, El Bandito Simpatico, by James B. Mills. Denton, TX: The University of North Texas Press, 2022. 688 pages, photographs, bibliography, appendices, index. Hardcover $34.95

This book is about the life of Colonel Henry B. Carrington, prior, during and after the Civil War. Because he was an engineer, Carrington’s many assignments were to construct and supply men at Fort Reno near the beginning of the Bozeman Trail and send men to establish Fort Smith near Bozeman, Montana. He was given the command to establish Fort Philip Kearny in the Powder River Country of Wyoming to protect travelers along the Bozeman Road. This book explains the daily travels to these forts’ locations and life’s activities upon arrival.
The author presents an interesting and accurate historical account about the life of Colonel Carrington during the growth of western frontier forts.

As was often the case, Colonel Carrington was promised tools, rations, quartermaster supplies and the best of horses and equipment, which never arrived. He was able to come within a hundred men of having a full-strength battalion, however, the delivery of this promise was dismal. Colonel Carrington also had to deal with a higher command that did not support him and did little to make things better.  When things started to go wrong, the higher command turned on him. In Carrington’s case, these issues involved political in-fighting between the Department of the Interior and the War Department.

The author explains that there were a number of officers on the frontier who had been promoted to a brevet (temporary) rank during the Civil War and were required to go back to their previous rank after the war. For example, Captain Fetterman had been
a brevet-Colonel during the Civil War, but reverted to the rank of Captain after the war. This was an example of how remaining in the Army negatively affected morale for U.S. Army soldiers after the Civil War.

Dee Brown writes about the 1866 Fetterman massacre of his eighty troops and how he was portrayed as overly ambitious. The author believes that the disobedience of Colonel Carrington’s orders were what caused the massacre. Further study of Carrington’s Civil War record did not support that portrayal. Dee Brown also writes about the differences and commonalities between his view and another author, Mari Sandoz, who wrote extensively about Plains Indians and pioneer life.

Reading this book reminded me in many ways of the treatment that General Smith received during his duty while in the Korean War. He was poorly supplied and higher leaders did not understand nor appear to care what happened. They were quick to make General Smith the scapegoat when the Chinese crossed the border and drove back his troops. In this authors opinion, Colonel Carrington was treated much in the same way at Fort Philip Kearny.           – Roy Richards

This history takes place in an ill-defined area in present-day Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. During the 1840s, the newly independent territorial government of New Mexico gave over a million acres to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda. Their property was then sold to Lucien Maxwell which became known as the Maxwell Land Grant. The size alone nourished disputes for years.  Maxwell then sold his land in 1868 to the Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company which were British buyers (absentee landlords), backed by Dutch money.   

Disputes spread. The historical owners were the Mouache Utes and Comanche Indians. The Indians, new settlers and miners refused to recognize the buyers’ claim to this land. Add to this the Santa Fe Ring which was an informal insiders club at the territorial capitol of Santa Fe. Many of them had business influence and ownership interests throughout New Mexico and in the holding company itself. The Santa Fe Ring had its foot on the territory’s throat and for several years did its best to keep other buyers away.

To this pile of kindling and kerosene, a match was touched with the 1875 murder of a Methodist Episcopal Minister named Albert Tolbey. He had made public his opposition to the administration and handling of the Maxwell Grant to foreigners. Killings around this land dispute went on for several years.   Lynch mobs, hired killers and sheriffs posses all had a hand in violence and shed blood. Many members of the Santa Fe Ring were implicated. The Governor refused to visit the county to help sort things out. Courts in Colfax County were closed so residents seeking justice had to get to Taos, which was sixty miles away where travel over 10,000 foot mountains was treacherous. Ensuing violence far superseded the dissatisfaction with the Maxwell land grant disputes.

Finally, representatives of the Departments of Justice and Interior were sent to Santa Fe to research the land disputes. Their reports caused steps to be taken to end the Colfax County Wars. The Santa Fe Ring’s power and influence were reduced as a result.

This was a well-researched book about a little-known and bloody episode of New Mexico’s history. I consider it to have been well worth the read.                       – Stan Moore

This book is a very well-researched and historically-accurate book about Henry McCarty, also known as Henry Antrim, Kid, The Kid, Kid Antrim, William Antrim, William H. Bonney, Billy Bonney, Willie Bonney and Billy the Kid.

James Mills writes about Billy the Kid from his early days until his death. Included aredetails about his genealogy, identifying Billy the Kid’s father and mother. Following the death of his father, Billy, his mother and his younger brother Joseph, moved west from New York City. Their first stop was Indianapolis, Indiana, where his mother met William H. Antrim, who later became his stepfather. The family then moved to Wichita, Kansas, where Billy’s mother was a successful businesswoman and landowner. From Wichita, they moved to Denver and on to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where William Antrim and Catherine married. The family soon thereafter moved to Silver City, New Mexico, where the boys were exposed to a wild and violent way of life. The book gives a detailed

description of the Santa Fe Ring that ran New Mexico with a firm and corrupt hand. It was here at Silver City, New Mexico, that the boys would receive most of their formal and street-wise education. The author explains how the unstable circumstances of youth had a negative effect on Billy. In Silver City, his stepfather left the family to prospect for gold and basically was away from the family after that. Billy’s mother died in Silver City, New Mexico, leaving the two boys on their own in a wild and violent mining town.

Billy was a short, thin young teen with buck teeth who was unable to do the heavy work required on the ranches and farms in the area. He was unable to get a job or keep one. This led him to try living from the vices of gambling and stealing horses. Being a horse thief brought him into contact with John Tunstall who made him an offer to work as a ranch hand and bodyguard. Billy accepted and for a time he was an honest man until John Tunstall was murdered. Tunstall’s death started the violence of 1878 for which the Lincoln County War was famous. The author explains details about the Lincoln County War between the McSween-Tunstall group and the Dolan group. Previous books do not include the fact that the Dolan group was associated with the corrupt Santa Fe Ring.

The killing of Tunstall by members of the Dolan group started Billy on his short and violent life. This book goes into great detail about Billy’s part in that war, and includes the big picture of Lincoln County politics.

The author had made a valiant effort to tell the complete story of Billy the Kid and the people around him, including the Hispanic population. Other events described in the book do not directly deal with Billy the Kid, but were an important part of the story. This interesting and well-written long book was well worth the time to read and I recommend it to everybody who wants to learn more about Billy the Kid and his legend.              – Roy Richards

Blood in the Borderlands – Conflict, Kinship, and the Bent Family, 1821-1920, by David  C. Beyreis. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. 294 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Hardcover $50.00, Softcover $29.95, Kindle $13.03

Continental Reckoning –The American West in the Age of Expansion, by Elliot West. Lincoln, NE: University of NebraskaPress. 2023. 704 pages, maps, photos, index, bibliography, Hardcover $30.20

TThe essence of this book and what the author desired to achieve are captured by his statement in the introduction, “…surprisingly few Western scholars have devoted book-length studies to individual families.” The title, with its leading word, “Blood,” might make the potential reader believe that this is another book about the conflicts between expanding frontiersmen and Native Americans. Though conflicts were written about blood, in this case it refers to kinships, both those based on blood relations and those that are made by mutually beneficial relationships based on practicality.

This author’s research added to previous studies about the Bent brothers and their fur and hide trade at their fort. The author wrote about the Bents’ extended families and how a family enterprise of social and cultural dynamics as well as business and personal fortitude shaped survival and success.

At the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, forces of change led to an unraveling of the Bent and St. Vrain business enterprise that resulted in William Bent destroying Bent’s Fort. That could have been the end of an adventurous and romantic story of stalwart fur traders and western settlement, however the Bent family influence continued. This book gives insights into the struggles of the progeny between William and Charles Bent as they forged lives in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico.

William had five offspring, three sons and two daughters, from his three Cheyenne wives. William Bent and his children, in particular his sons, had to walk the proverbial tightrope between being looked upon as agents of change, while at the same time not being fully trusted with the old ways. Williams’s older brother Charles married into a distinguished Taos, New Mexico family. Charles’ family had one son and two daughters who survived to adulthood. Their family’s standing in Taos and the daughter’s marriages to pioneering husbands helped these daughters to take advantage of their land holdings and earn a respectful place in the Victorian era of American society. All of the Bents’ offspring were of mixed cultural marriages that provided both benefits and challenges for the children as they navigated the regional changes coming from Anglo-American expansion and settlement.

The Bent family legacy from both William and Charles left an indelible stamp on the Arkansas River and borderlands far beyond their trading post fort. This book explains how family dynamics interacted with external forces to shape both a family and the course of history. The author concluded by saying, “Remembering, memorializing, and interpreting the Bent family demonstrated the complexity of telling historical stories about the West.             – Joseph Lamos

There has always been a Western history gen- eralist that has offered an anthology overview of American expansion. Two examples were LeRoy Hafen, replaced by Ray AllenBillington’s “Western Expansion.” Now there is Elliot West who is arguably the finest western historian working today. This 700-page tome brings expansionist historiog- raphy up to date.

While the earlier anthologies focused on the now deconstructed theme of Turner’s Frontier Thesis, West sees the West not as a process but rather a place. His prolific use of statistics judi- ciously examines the “meaning” of past sources. His unique contribution is the prolific inclusion of environmental sources that add to the historiogra- phy of the West including conquest and the Indian wars which are my research specialties. 

West reminds us that at the beginning of the nation, the plains tribes extended from southern Canada to Mexico, centered in NW Kansas and SE Nebraska and were bigger than the U.S. They lost because they could not form a uniform coalition which was the same problem the U.S. had with the thirteen states under the Articles of Confederation. This failure was later due to technology and numbers rather than any significant decisive actions by the U.S. Army.

As series editor, Richard Etulain said, “The most important contribution of West’s extensive and invaluable study is the illustration of his greater Reconstruction Thesis, the most notable historiographical idea advanced about the American West in thetwen- ty-first century. This is an extraordinary Western history, full of provocative insights, fresh information, and storytelling power. It will win major prizes.”

Westerners will do well to have this new anthology handy as a standard reference work of the expansionist period.

–John.Monnett