The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West [Hardcover]

Michael L. Tate (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1999

Books, art, and movies most often portray the frontier army in continuous conflict with Native Americans. In truth, the army spent only a small part of its frontier duty fighting Indians; as the main arm of the federal government in less-settled regions of the nation, the army performed a host of duties. The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West examines the army’s nonmartial contributions to western development. Dispelling timeworn stereotypes, Michael L. Tate shows that the army conducted explorations, compiled scientific and artistic records, built roads, aided overland travelers, and improved river transportation. Army posts offered nuclei for towns, and soldiers delivered federal mails, undertook agricultural experiments, and assembled weather records for forecasting.

The "multipurpose" army also provided telegraph service, extended relief to destitute civilians, and protected early national parks.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Tate, an established historian of the West, provides a valuable overview of the army's role in U.S. expansion beyond the Mississippi, a role that included much more than protecting whites from Indians. The army surveyed and explored, directly and as part of other expeditions, and provided extensive logistic support to westward movement before as well as after the Civil War. It was crucial in developing the national infrastructure of roads, railroads, river navigation, water supplies, and everything else on which civilization depends. Finally, officers and enlisted men alike frequently were also settlers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs, both during and after their military service. Sometimes entrepreneurship was not disinterested; General Custer had investments in the mining companies that were trying to open the Lakotah territories in the Black Hills to settlement. The volume's frame of reference suggests that Tate intends it for a scholarly audience, but its admirable synthesis of existing research makes it vital to any serious student of the history of the American West. Roland Green

About the Author

Michael L. Tate, Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, is author of nine books, including Indians and Emigrants: Encounters on the Overland Trails.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 454 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (November 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080613173X
• ISBN-13: 978-0806131733
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,385,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Purchase for Frontier, U.S. military enthusiasts, April 10, 2002

By 

Walter Blankenship (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West (Hardcover)

I am a Russian-Soviet history specialist. But this era of America's military history is shrouded with inaccuracies and myths and this book does an excellent job of clearing up past questionable material. The author did an excellent job in showing that the U.S. Frontier army did more than chase down Indians to murder and kill them thereby opening up and keeping the frontier safe for the influx of European settlers. The author does a great job of showing that many military officers and enlisted men actually defended the Indians. This will certainly be news for many people who think that the army only tried to kill the Indians. The army posts were a hub of activity concerning domestic duties duties like farming, cleaning, maintanence of equipment and the like. This author did an outstanding job and since this is not my area of specialty, I learned quite a bit from this work. I would strongly recommend this work to anyone interested in the frontier army, its role in the post and outside the post and how that interaction actually took place. This is a must have for any living historian of the frontier era. My compliments to the author on his thorough research and lucid writing style which makes it easy to read, even for a dyslexic like myself.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the West was really won, December 12, 2008

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West (Paperback)

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. Tate's well written and informative book The Frontier Army In The Settlement Of The West, accomplished his stated goal of breaking the John Wayne "Hollywood" stereotype of the American frontier soldier in the nineteenth century. Using the historiographical method of "social history" as his guide and completing an exhaustive examination of primary sources such as official records, diaries, autobiographies, army posts newspapers, and secondary historical sources, Tate has brilliantly documented the multifaceted life and missions of frontier soldiers. The crux of Tate's thesis is that the frontier army's accomplishments provided a great service to the nation in not only helping to bring about the completion of "manifest destiny," but in a myriad of fields; such as, exploration, transportation, communication, meteorology, agriculture, medicine, conservation, and emergency relief work.

Tate's book illuminated the important services the frontier army provided to the young American nation that started soon after the Lewis and Clark expedition returned in 1806 and which lasted until the close of the nineteenth century. In the early part of the nineteenth century, soldiers of the frontier army became "trailblazers" in such endeavors as exploration, surveying, cartography, road building, and in providing medical and law enforcement needs to settlers in the newly burgeoning territories. Among the plethora of tasks that the army engaged in which wound up leaving an indelible mark on America's socio-economic history, was building army posts, improving roads and providing escort service along the Santa Fe and other trails which provided ease in transportation and protection from Indians as settlers who started their migration into western territories. Later in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the army provided much needed humanitarian and disaster relief services to citizens. Tate specifically elaborated on the life saving services the army provided to the city of San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906. Tate noted that these nonmilitary tasks the army became involved in were a cause of concern for many political officials, because these tasks were perceived as taking the soldiers away from their traditional military training regimen. However, when Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, was questioned about soldiers spending so much time performing nonmilitary duties by congress in 1819, this reader understood that Calhoun's answer actually paved the way for the frontier army to be used as a tool of socio-economic change in the nineteenth century. As Tate noted Calhoun, "...tied military and civilian needs under the common banner when he noted that `the road or canal can scarcely be designated, which is highly useful for military operations, that is not equally required for the industry and political prosperity of community'" (53).

Tate's book is an extremely important though often ignored or misunderstood narrative of a segment of American history, which deserves more study in the future. Tate's book had extensive citations to back up his claims and a robust bibliography that will serve to enable future historians to elaborate on this important aspect of American social history. Specifically, Tate provided a cogent and well-written narrative proving his thesis that, "In truth, however, the real significance of the army was not measured in either romanticism or neglect, but instead in a wide range of tangible accomplishments" (305).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in military history, and American history.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tate is awsome, February 15, 2001

By 

Ryan Joneson (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West (Hardcover)

Michael Tate was my history professor at the University of Nebraska, as I found his lectures fascinating, I decided to buy his book. Anyone on any level will not only enjoy this book, but learn a lot as well. Dont pass this book up, add it to your cart now!