The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 148
692 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
daily saga of events that transpired in this history-making journey. His
arrival in California is a letdown, for the conclusion is near at hand.
Editor Mary McDougall Gordon has done a masterful job. Her intro-
duction informatively sets the scene, and her explanatory footnotes are
crisp and illuminating. Gordon has carefully woven appropriate ex-
cerpts from other expedition accounts into the text to clarify, enlarge
upon, and to offer contrasting ideas to those presented by Sherburne.
Her use of H. Bauduin Mollhausen's drawings, an artist-naturalist com-
missioned to collect zoological specimens on the survey, serve to illus-
trate the diversity of peoples and environments encountered. Gordon's
concluding treatise not only brings events into perspective, but it elabo-
rates on what happened to each of the key figures after the survey team
completed its work.
A bibliographical appendix on people mentioned in Sherburne's
diary and a thoroughly researched bibliography of relevant works, add
to the scholarship of the publication. In sum, it is a fascinating first-
hand account of the expedition that so influenced the settlement and
development of the Southwest.
National Park Service, Fort Darvs NHS MARY L. WILLIAMS
From Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains: Major Stephen Long's Expedition,
1819-1820. Edited by Maxine Benson. (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum,
Inc., 1988. Pp. xxvii+41o. Acknowledgments, introduction, map,
illustrations, color plates, notes, epilogue, bibliography, index.
$20.)
In the decade following the War of 1812, American nationalism and
self-confidence grew rapidly, and one result of this was a renewed in-
terest in frontier exploration. The Scientific Expedition of 1819-1820o
developed in that context. Designed to explore the Missouri River Val-
ley via steamboat as far north and west as the Yellowstone River in
Montana, the 1819 effort got only as far as present Omaha, Nebraska,
before it collapsed. The Panic of 1819 and ensuing depression cut gov-
ernment revenues drastically and crippled explorations the next year.
As a result, in 1820 Major Stephen H. Long led his small party of natu-
ralists, artists, and army officers west to the Rocky Mountains rather
than further up the Missouri River. Long's expedition was the first
major effort to gather scientific data about the central Plains and the
fringe of the Rockies, but the shortage of money for enough horses or
food cut short the effort. As a result, Long's party returned east in 1820
having accomplished much less than was expected of it by the public
and the government. Generally speaking, Western historians either ig-148
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991, periodical, 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101214/m1/172/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.