The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 102, July 1998 - April, 1999 Page: 412

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

These are extremely beautiful books. The oversized format allow readers to
fully appreciate the more than five hundred black and white photographs of the
various firearms. The University Press of Colorado spared no expense-and it
shows. While the volumes are not inexpensive, the reader will find superb value
on every page.
Texas readers will find much relating to their state. The authors examine old
favorites such as the "Texas" model Paterson .36-caliber five-shooter, the mam-
moth Whitneyville Walker Colt, as well as lesser known firearms. Although the
authors boast of their reliance upon primary materials, they missed many Texas
classics that would have greatly informed the book. Where, to cite some of the
most glaring oversights, are Noah Smithwick, Robert Hall, Buck Barry, and
George Durham? Still, these are mere quibbles. Given the study's enormous
scope, it would be churlish to expect the authors to have consulted every ger-
mane source.
The authors and the University Prcss of Colorado have produced a lavishly
illustrated and superbly documented reference work. The legion of gun con-
noisseurs will cherish it for its attention to detail. At the same time, those who do
not live and breathe firearms will find these two volumes easily accessible.
Readers in both groups will discover themsetves well satisfied and well served by
this singular achievement of the bookmaker's art.
The Victoria College STEPHEN L. HARDIN
Nathan Boone and the American Frontier. By R. Douglas Hurt. (Columbia and
London: University of Missouri Press, 1998. Pp. xii+223. Maps, illustrations,
notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8262-1159-3. $29.95, cloth)
This book, while interesting and well researched, has nothing much to do
with Texas or the Southwest. It is primarily a fascinating tale of the Missouri-
Wisconsin-Illinois-Iowa frontier between 1812 and 1825 when Sauk and Fox
Indians as well as Winnebagos, Otos, Osage and Kickapoos were rightly consid-
ered dangerous tribes continually on the warpath against the white intruders
and one another. Nathan Boone, youngest son of Daniel Boone, was a trapper,
hunter, surveyor, ranger and dragoon officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant
colonel before he died in 1856 leaving a wife and fourteen children, plus count-
less grandchildren. Much of his time in the military was spent in what might be
called "the Old Southwest" as he soldiered out of Fort Gibson in Oklahoma. His
closest brush with Texas and the Southwest was his presence on Col. Henry
Dodge's dragoon expedition to the Comanche country and the Wichita villages
on the Red River in 1834. George Catlin accompanied this expedition and made
some of the first pictures of the Comanches, whose horsemanship he admired.
Catlin, like many of the dragoons, fell ill with fever on the expedition and
General Henry Leavenworth, who rode with the dragoons, died from fever and
exposure on this long scout across the southern plains.
So-called "new" western "historians" would not understand this book because

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