Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, & the Pacific States with Speaker Colfax [Library Binding]

Samuel Bowles (Author)

Product Details

• Library Binding: 438 pages
• Publisher: Reprint Services Corporation (December 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078128032X
• ISBN-13: 978-0781280327
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,522,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Post Civil War Officers forced Indians onto reservations, November 3, 1998

By 

Kenneth G. Ramey (Paso Robles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Border with Crook (Paperback)

The concept of Manifest Destiny took root during the Mexican American War, and assumed grander proportions following the Civil War. Gen. Crook had been a calvery officer whose services proved to be of considerable value, as much for his ability as for his compassion for the Indians. His job was to protect the settlers and subdue the Indians by locating them on reservations. The author was with Crook during his first and second Southwest campaigns as well as that of the Northern Plains. His love for his commander and appreciation of the Indians made him the perfect writer for the topic. Gen. Crook seems the ideal officer for the job, but was defeated, not by the Indians but Agents assigned, after the army had done its work, to reservations by Washington. The book is a wonderful description of the duty performed by Gen. Crook who, had his system been utilized, would have led to a better life for all. In the end, Bourke feels, Crook died of a broken heart. Important history, and a story too beautifully told to miss.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it if you love the old West and the frontier Army, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: On the Border with Crook (Paperback)

John Bourke writes wonderfully of General George Crook, a legendary Indian fighter in post-Civil War Arizona, Wyoming, and Montanna. Bourke, who for most of the time was Crook's aide-de-camp, is an unabashed admirer of the General, but the book goes far beyond flattery and sycophancy. Bourke makes the reader admire Crook as much as he himself does, for Crook truly did possess unmatched stamina, experience, attention to detail and equal measures of sympathy for the Indians he was fighting and ruthlessness in his ambition to drive them onto the reservations. Bourke too admires the Indians, especially the Apaches. In fact, one of the book's high points is its almost anthropological descriptions of Apache life, the Arizona landscape, life in the frontier Army, and the social milieu of old Tuscon. The descriptions of Crook's campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne flag just a little, but only in comparison to Bourke's own rapturous discussions of life in the Southwest. The book that this compares best to is Eugene Ware's "The Indian War of 1864" (which I've also reviewed for Amazon). Ware, like Bourke, was a serving Army officer with a keen, sympathetic eye for all he saw in the old West. Both were involved in more hair-raising episodes than a dozen Hollywood action heroes combined. I too am a serving Army officer, and I can testify that none of my peers today has seen as much or writes so well.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Read it if you love the old West and the frontier Army, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: On the Border with Crook (Paperback)

John Bourke writes wonderfully of General George Crook, a legendary Indian fighter in post-Civil War Arizona, Wyoming, and Montanna. Bourke, who for most of the time was Crook's aide-de-camp, is an unabashed admirer of the General, but the book goes far beyond flattery and sycophancy. Bourke makes the reader admire Crook as much as he himself does, for Crook truly did possess unmatched stamina, experience, attention to detail and equal measures of sympathy for the Indians he was fighting and ruthlessness in his ambition to drive them onto the reservations. Bourke too admires the Indians, especially the Apaches. In fact, one of the book's high points is its almost anthropological descriptions of Apache life, the Arizona landscape, life in the frontier Army, and the social milieu of old Tuscon. The descriptions of Crook's campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne flag just a little, but only in comparison to Bourke's own rapturous discussions of life in the Southwest. The book that this compares best to is Eugene Ware's "The Indian War of 1864" (which I've also reviewed for Amazon). Ware, like Bourke, was a serving Army officer with a keen, sympathetic eye for all he saw in the old West. Both were involved in more hair-raising episodes than a dozen Hollywood action heroes combined. I too am a serving Army officer, and I can testify that none of my peers today has seen as much or writes so well.