Nebraska Books

This book presents a fresh and reasoned assessment of Scott's first Antarctic expedition in its historical context. Engagingly written and well researched, its perspective casts an interesting light on aspects of Scott's first Antarctic expedition that have been passed over in general works on Scott in favor of the drama of the second expedition. The first expedition had ample drama of its own, and the author's take on such personalities as Clements Markham, Shackleton, and Scott himself is different enough from "standard received" to merit reading. I was particularly interested in the author's description of the interplay between Scott's orders as he received them and perceived them and subsequent criticism of the expedition for its failure to maximize the results obtained for the resources invested.

All in all, readable, informative, interesting, and well worth a read. You will find the point of view rather different from that so persuasively presented by Roland Huntford in his recently re-released "Scott and Amundsen," but partisanship -- if so strong a term may be used -- intrudes only occasionally, and then only in instances in which the author feels unfair misrepresentation may have done violence to the historical record.

I enjoyed this book!

Dr. Baughman continues to build on his reputation as America's preeminent polar historian in this book: Pilgrims on Ice (his first book on early Antartic exploration was Before the Heroes Came). This book focues on Robert Scott and the Discovery Expedition 1901 to 1904. By reading Dr. Baughman's work - one can see that this initial expedition laid the groundwork for the British expeditions of the following 21 years. In fact, the major players all played a part in this initial expedition. This voyage was Shackleton's first expedition to the South (serving as Scott's third officer). And I enjoyed the new insights Baughman provided into the young Shackleton, as well as the human details on expedition leader Scott and the rest of band. In its 250-odd pages of text, this becomes the first exhaustive account of the Discovery expedition 1901 to 1904 by a late 20th century polar historian. Baughman's extensive use of original documents in British and European archives brings fresh insight and more details on this heroic group then ever before available. I recommend this for lovers of travel, adventure, and biography.

very well writen gives a good representation of the mule. lots of history. I read and reread it to take it all in. a must read to a mule lover

Back in the early 1950s a movie starring Donald O'Conner called "Francis the Talking Mule" was a big hit that spawned several sequels. As a young 2nd Lt. in his first combat zone, an island in the South Pacific, O'Conner was befriended by a practical but chatty U.S. Army mule named Francis, who gets the young shavetail into and out of several scrapes, but also helps him capture a Japanese sniper.

I thought of Francis often while reading Essin's History of the U.S. Army Mule. For one thing I learned that the term "Shavetail", which by the Second World War meant a green officer just out of O.C.S., actually referred to untrained mules during the Indian wars of the late 19th century.

In those days of the horse cavalry, mules were trained to follow a mare with a bell around her neck, and usually did not require a handler with halter line in hand. These were the Bell Sharps. Untrained mules who did not know to line up at their own aparejo (pack saddle) and which might kick without warning, had their tails shaved.

From the Mexican wars of the 1840s to the China-Burma-India and Italian Theaters of World War II, the mule, and especially the pack mule, was a stellar performer in a wide variety of combat applications. Essin traces this history, and by giving a view of warfare from the standpoint of moving supplies to the troops, he subtly changes some opinions we may have of military leaders, and perhaps confirm suspicions we may have had about other leaders.

A history professor at East Tennessee State University, in the heart of traditional mule territory, Essin makes an unfortunate assumption that modern readers know where mules come from. I don't recall him ever stating that the mule is the sterile offspring of horse and donkey, even though he dances all around the subject by describing how mares were held in shallow pits to allow their breeding by smaller jackasses.

He does not lapse into sentimentality, but ever the historian he lets the data tell the story of the Army's use and misuse of the mule in a factual, but dispassionate manner. In every theater where mules performed their qualities were appreciated, even extolled by officers at all grades, but individual mules were considered to be expendable. No doubt this sort of thinking is what made the term "military intelligence" into an oxymoron.

To read of case after case through over a century of service until the last mule units were disbanded in 1956, is to marvel at how many times the Army found itself short of enough mules to do the job, but so little valued them that they were worked to the point where they died in harness.

Perhaps the mule's greatest champion was General George Crook, a cavalryman in the Indian wars, who actually used mules as his personal mounts, recognized the value of the custom-fitted aparejo (Mexican pack saddles) and double-diamond hitch means of tying packs to the mules. Crook was one officer who realized mules needed to be trained to the rigors of the trail, given a means of loading that would not disable them with pack sores, and rested in shifts from remount depots.

The techniques devised by muleteers (mostly borrowed from the Mexicans) under Crook were refined to the point that by the time of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Army and its mule-centered system of supply, primary by pack mules, was the envy of the world, and the lesson was quickly taken up by the horse-loving English. We failed to learn our own lesson, and much of our front line supply in World War I was by English and French mules. The U.S. Army had still not learned the value of field veterinary care, and was still in a mental fog that dictated replacing rather than healing sick and wounded mules.

When one views the callous attitude of wasting its badly needed pack animals, it is easy to understand how this same attitude by general staff officers extended to the common soldier, who was considered to be cannon fodder in the Civil War and wasted in suicide charges against machine gun emplacements in World War I.

At least when the war was over, the men were returned home, probably so they could breed another generation of cannon fodder, sired by survivors. Not so lucky was the sterile mule. Most of the mules who supplied Merrill's Marauders and "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell's campaigns in the Burma campaigns of World War II, were simply shot at the end of the war to prevent them from falling into Chinese hands. Yet one old survivor of this campaign with a U.S. Army brand was captured from the Chinese service during the Korean War, and re-enlisted into U.S. Army service.

Essin's account is very readable, in spite of his occasion lapses into supplying pedantic information. It is entertaining and informative. I do wish he had a bit more of a sense of symbolism in history.

During the Burma campaigns he mentions the discovery that mules were terrified by the presence of elephants, which were used as pack animals by the Japanese. Whether tame or wild herds of elephants were detected, the mules would bolt. Given that the mule is sired by the donkey, symbol of the Democratic party, this is an understandable attitude, which might have helped Essin to understand why, when President Ronald Reagan declared that defense spending was not a budget item during the 1980s, that the prospect of re-establishing mule units for Special Forces or National Guard Mountain Battalions never got off the ground. Clearly the GOP elephants were not about to let donkeys in any form back into the Army.

It is refreshing to see military history written from the viewpoint of supply 50 years after Dwight D. Eisenhower, a specialists in logistics, mounted the greatest logistics-based operation ever in the Normandy invasion. I take issue with Essin's one lapse into sentimentality in the final line of the book, "We have yet to win a war without mules." Although Francis would have approved, I find it difficult to see how he could have overlooked so recent an event as Desert Storm.

- James Brooks

This is an invaluable book because it is a first-person account of a moment in history--South Pass, Wyoming in 1868. The writer was sent by his Chicago newspaper to send back stories for newspaper readers in the East and Midwest eager for news and information of the expanding West, and especially any discovery of gold and untold riches. If you like very well written prose that takes you back to a time long gone, and to a subject that continues to resonate in the imagination, you will love this book. It takes you back to that time and that place in a way no history book can because it was written at that time and place by an astute contemporary observer. Put this one on your shelf next to "Journal of a Trapper", "The Santa Fe Trail," and "The Sweet Smell of Sagebrush."

Except for a few splatterings of philosophical and somewhat impertinent ramblings, James Chisholm's journal of the 1868 Wyoming Gold Rush at South Pass is a colorful first-hand glimpse into life during this time period.
Chisholm was a reporter from the Chicago Tribune whose assignment was to report on the activities of the Sweetwater Mines. Traveling by train from Chicago to "end-of-the-track's town" Cheyenne, Wyoming his reports of vigilante hangings, killings and life in Cheyenne are paramount for this time and place.
As the railroad advanced westward, he took leave of the train at Green River and continued north by horse and wagon to South Pass in search of the gold mines. Chisholm is very descriptive of geographical landforms, the people he encounters, the demeanor of the miners, experiencing the climatic elements, getting lost, accidently setting the prairies on fire (twice), his callous viewpoints on Indians, glowing reports of the Wind River Valley for future economic potential, his two exploratory trips into these Wind River Mountains and the overall profile of the gold mines.
An insightful read.

Zane Gray's books were the first westerns I ever read. I loved them then and I love them now. "The Spirit Of The Border" takes place in the Ohio River Valley. This is very close to home for me. Zane Gray mixes historical events into his stories. It is fast moving and one you don't want to put down until you complete that last page. If you have not read this, read it you will enjoy the adventure. By Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River" Natchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil WarQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelTravelersSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelWriting as a Small BusinessThe Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early Settlers

Drawing upon ancestors notes, Zane Gray reconstructs the agony of America's initial transmontane western movement of the frontier away from the original colonies into the OHIO Valley where Indians and Whites contest for souls and Wetzel, and Indian hunter, pursues his cause in a most dramatic fashion. The book is a riveting account of true adventure the veiled backdrop of which is the continued occupation of the teritory occupied by British and Americans. An excellent introduction to further study of the the then misunderstood goal of Manifest Destiny.

There's no reason to withhold the fifth star! The poet, linguist, and typographer Robert Bringhurst worked from transcriptions of Haida myths recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century, and allows those of us who don't speak Haida a chance to sit and listen to some of that nation's great mythtellers. We can never recover what it was like for their compatriots to hear these poems, but the rawness and directness of Bringhurst's translations brings us remarkably close, certainly closer than we get in the usual ironed-flat renditions. In this first of three volumes he intersperses his translations with a discussion of their cultural and intellectual context. (Some texts appear in the other volumes in revised form.) An ideal introduction, and few will be able to resist going on to the others

Good mythtelling is poetry of the highest order, and it takes a poet to translate it. Robert Bringhurst's renderings of the verbal masterpieces of classical Haida storytellers are truly astounding, as it is his reconstruction of the facts surrounding their collection by American anthropologist John Swanton. As someone who works in the same field I must say that this book has been a great discovery for me. It is an example to follow, both in the style of the translations and in the wide range of the commentary.

C. Richard King and Charles Springwood, with their edited collection, bring to the forefront the cultural and social intricacies, animosities, and stereotypes associated with the Native American team mascot debate. The work "traces the (re)inventions of self and society through Native American mascots and the cultural artifacts, public sentiments, and ritual performances...associated with them." (1)
The essays are very informative and help clarify why certain practices have been misappropriated by the dominant "Euro-American" society. The authors prey upon the same themes in almost every essay, racial stereotypes, misappropriations of cultural practices, and displacement of Native American cultures and histories. Moreover, it appears that some of the authors take umbrage with the fact that certain Native American tribes actually support the use of their images as mascots. In their fabulous discussion of the Seminole Tribe and Florida State University, King and Springwood particularly illustrate their indignation in regards to the backing of the Chief Osceola mascot by the Seminole Tribe. The authors believe that members of the Seminole Tribe should quit "playing Indian" with the whites and work to challenge the misuse of Chief Osceola and the Seminole Tribe's identities and culture. King and Springwood also worryingly rely on a third-person account to buttress their argument that Florida State's appropriation of Native American imagery for use as a mascot only furthers popular stereotypes and prejudices.
Team Spirits is a work of activism. The collection of essays are designed inform readers of the complexities surrounding the Native American mascot controversy and hopefully reconsider their thoughts and conceptions of Native Americans. Perhaps the most important point of the text is that the appropriation of and misuse of Native American images reveal "much more about the non-Indian people and institutions that invented them than they have about Native American cultures and histories." (328) Most of the authors ignore the fact that mascots are not intended to glorify a certain historical or cultural distinctness. Many mascots were created in informal meetings without much regard to historical and cultural settings or identities. The authors of the essays expect mascots to lionize certain aspects of a locale's cultural and historical heritage. In reality, this just is not the case. However, Native American mascots are held to a higher standard as they should be and the complexities and controversies surrounding the issue show no signs of diminishing. Additionally, the Native American mascot controversy overshadows the argument that Native Americans have been perhaps the finest athletes the United States has ever had.
King and Springwood's effort certainly will not end the debate; it does provide analysis and understanding for those unfamiliar with the true subtle intricacies forever associated with Native Americans and their white conquerors.

An illuminating look into the mascot controversy, "Team Spirits" covers many of the issues surrounding the debate, including historical, fiscal, and racial. This book belongs on the shelves of anthropologists, sportswriters, sports fans, and concerned individuals. "Team Spirits" is especially useful for countering the tired and ignorant accusation that removing mascots is merely a PC move by liberals with nothing better to do.

Ok. At this point in your life you're pretty far away from watching Bonanza, Gunsmoke, etc. with your family on that old black & white Zenith. You no longer have the toy six-shooter and cowboy hat that were the joy of a long ago Christmas or birthday. You've forgotten whether you preferred to play the sheriff or the outlaw, but you probably remember the name of your imaginary horse. Read this book. Not because it's great literature (the writing is merely serviceable) but because it reminds you why the image of the cowboy era is so powerful and enduring. And it's all true. Wonderful read

The most authentic book ever written about the Texas cowboy. J. Frank Dobie said that "no record of cowboy life has supplanted this rollicky, reckless, realistic chronicle" and that it is "the most-real, non-fiction book on cowboy life." Siringo worked as a cowboy for Shanghai Pearce, rode with a posse of Texas cowboys to New Mexico to track down Billy the Kid and took part in numerous cattle drives. A Texas history classic.

Though I attended a school with a buffalo as its mascot, I never tried to learn much about them till recently. Purchasing this book was part of my effort to learn more, and the book was useful for that. The book is very readable, and a very interesting overview of the buffalo. Unfortunately, it dates from the 1970s, and knowledge has moved on since then. The most obvious example of this is coverage of "Blue Babe"--A frozen buffalo from several thousand years ago which was discovered after this book was published. I'm sure there are other places where our understanding of buffalo and their place in the scheme of the prairie has changed, but I'm not expert enough to identify them. I really like the book, but would like to see it updated to reflect new findings.

This full-scale study of the buffalo splendidly memorializes the magnificent beast that once roamed from Alaska to the Carolinas. Illustrated with maps, drawings, paintings and photographs, this informative account begins with the genesis of the buffalo in the Ice Age and traces his evolution, natural history, patterns of behavior, and relationships with three cultures.

You may consider this review biased since I am the brother of the author (who is now deceased). However, I found the book great fun to read and the technical aspects of the material are beyond reproach. In 1984, Tom McHugh wrote:

"Some reviewers have called my book, The Time of the Buffalo, the definitive work on the subject. The book actually had its beginnings in my doctoral thesis, a study of social behavior in buffalo. For the book, I expanded my thesis to include the effect of the buffalo on the life of ancient hunters, the Plains Indians, the American frontier. Photographs of buffalo behavior that I originally made for the thesis eventually led to my being chosen as director of photography for Walt Disney's Academy Award-winning feature, `The Vanishing Prairie.'"

This book is just delightful, considering it was written by an old gentleman who was raised with good moral values and such a gentlemanly attitude. He tells of his coming to the USA to try to make a living for himself and ended up being a cowboy. It is just thrilling to read of the experiences he had as a bullwhacker and other cowboy adventures. It is heartwarming to know that his wife and daughter saw to it that the book was published first in 1921 after Mr. Bratt died unexpectedly before finishing his years of work in writing this book. It is truly a gem, in my opinion. If you enjoy reading Western factual history, it is very good!

This memoir is the story of John Bratt, an Englishman who came to America near the end of the Civil War and, after many adventures, ended up a successful rancher in Nebraska and two-tern mayor of North Platte. Bratt was an educated man with a good business head and a strong set of personal principles (he neither swore, drank, smoked, or gambled; a humorous incident is related where he admonishes himself for backsliding in the swearing department, though his comrades praise him for it. A not so humorous incident is also told where his fellow bullwhackers force a bottle of red eye whiskey down his throat and almost kill him.) After arriving in New York in 1864, Bratt went to Chicago where he became a successful trader on the Chicago Board of Trade. A disastrous trip to New York via New Orleans, during which a storm in the Gulf of Mexico destroyed his goods and left him nearly penniless, is described, as is his time helping to build a levee along the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Red River. But then he signed up with an outfit delivering goods to Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming by ox team, and here's where the western adventures begin. He describes sights along the old Oregon Trail, especially Ft. McPherson, and many troubles with Indians beyond Ft. Laramie. He stayed on at Phil Kearny for a few months, mainly hauling hay for the fort, encountering Indian hostility almost daily. He left (he implies because of a vision of impending disaster) just before the notorious Fetterman massacre.

Back in Nebraska after a few other adventures, Bratt established a ranch south of North Platte and had a successful operation. But times were changing and homesteaders were moving in and breaking up the big spreads, so Bratt sold out and moved his family into North Platte and built a home there and got into the real estate and insurance businesses. North Platte was still a pretty wild place (some of the stories he tells about gunfighters and drunken melees seem embellished), and Bratt, the steady, moral citizen, was elected mayor to put things in order. By all accounts, it appears he did ("I helped," he says). Bratt was an educated man and takes an historical approach in these memoirs. His style is straightforward and episodic (as opposed to reflective). The second half is more raggedy than the first, as if he was getting tired with his endeavor (indeed he died before finishing the work, which his wife completed for him). His prejudices are plain: he has nothing good to say about the Indians. Unfortunately, the book shows no editing and appears as first published, and, even more disappointing, there is no index. However, it's an interesting first-hand account of one man's experiences in the West, especially the first half of the book. Recommended.

Novelist and historian Wellman here provides an indescribably superior one-volume story of the range-cattle business that reads as easily as fiction. Beginning with the Spanish roots of the Southwestern cattle ranches, he goes on to tell something of the early Anglo settlement of Texas, the troubles with the Comanches, the "hide-and-tallow empire" built up in antebellum days, the effects of the Civil War, the clashes with the Kansans, the founding of Abilene. He talks about stampedes and what was done about them, great trail towns and their lawmen, lean years and fat ones, the cowboy's work and play, and a gallery of unforgettable Western characters, good, bad, and indifferent. He studies the Lincoln County War, the coming of "bobwire," and why cowmen hated sheep. There is information I got from this book that I've found nowhere else. You will say the same. Every lover of Western social history should be glad to see it back in print.

Wellman, who died in 1966, was born in Oklahoma and worked on Wichita and Kansas City newspaper for much of his life, before moving to California and freelance writing. This book, written in 1939, is an excellent summary account of the cattle trade in the West, from 1580 to the early 1900s. He touches on just about everything having to do with his topic, from historical figures and events to equipment. I thought he spent a tad too much space on Billy the Kid, the Earps, and such (they don't seem that important to the cattle business), but he's an excellent writer. The first half of the book is the best. Recommended.