Customer Reviews

Regulars in the Redwoods: The U.S. Army in Northern California, 1852-1861 (Frontier Military Series)

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This is a great book and sheds light on the little known details of the U.S. Regular Army in Northern California, and Oregon. Great read and a must for anyone doing research on pre-Civil War regulars.

This is an exceptionally well written book which relies on primary sources to tell the story of the US Army's role in Northern California during the decade leading up to the Civil War. I was amazed, and dismayed, at the California State government's aiding and abetting of white settlers seeking to displace Indians from their hereditary hunting grounds, the frequent kidnapping of Indian children and women by whites, and the tendency of settlers to make up stories about Indian attacks so they could form groups of "state volunteers" to hunt down and kill Indians living on the land coveted by the settlers. The graft and corruption of the Department of Interior's Indian Agency was also startling and a major factor behind Indians taking cattle from white settlers because their food allowances were being siphoned off by crooked agents. That said, not all settlers were bad and neither were all Indian agents, as the author makes clear in this book. Neither were all Indians good and peaceful. The Army found itself in the middle of this clash of cultures, trying to be impartial, but not always succeeding, and trying to prevent violence by either side, but again not always succeeding because of the miniscule War Department budget that starved the Northern California garrison of soldiers, horses, weapons, and housing. I applaud the author for putting together a useful and well researched account of the Army's role on the Pacific Coast during this period.