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The frontier army in the settlement of the West

2000; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 37; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.37-5875

1943-5975

Ancient Egypt and Archaeology

Michael Täte argues that the public's conception of the U.S. Army's role in frontier American history is a false one, shaped by John Ford, John Wayne, and Kevin Costner rather than the historical record.Echoing Francis Faul Frucha's studies of army activities east of the Mississippi River, Täte traces the army's role as the "right arm" of the federal goverrunent and executor of its "nineteenth-century expansionist policies" in the trans-Mississippi West (x).Here was a "multipurpose" army far more occupied with exploration, mapping, road building, fort construction, vegetable gardening, and aiding westward bound emigrants than in suppressing Native Americans.Täte synthesizes a wide range of published primary and secondary sources, presenting his material in topical chapters to demonstrate the diverse activities of the multipurpose frontier army.He observes that military activity on the nineteenth-century westem frontier modifies the national myth that hardy pioneers brought "civilization to the untamed frontier" by dint of hard work and individual courage.Few question the fortitude or suffering of the pioneers, but Täte urges us to recognize that virtually everywhere emigrants went, soldiers had already been there and more often than not gave them vital assistance in the long journey from Missouri to the Pacific Coast and points in between.Lay people may know of the role played by army explorers such as Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Fike, and John C. Fremont in exploring the trans-Mississippi West.Few, however, realize that frontier soldiers built roads and bridges, provided emergency food and medical aid, and served as law enforcers along the emigrant trails.Täte stresses the crucial role the army and its soldiers played in the development as well as the settlement of the West.Army payrolls and government contracts underwrote the economic origins of many westem towns and cities.Moreover, he demonstrates that individual soldiers, largely officers, contributed to westem economic growth and development through their entrepreneurial and investment activities.After 1865, the army sometimes served as a relief agency when disasters such as droughts, prairie and forest fires, epidemics, and earthquakes occurred.Additionally, the army originated goverrunent activities that were later taken over by the National Weather Bureau (est.1890) and the National Park Service (est.1916).For much of the nineteenth century, post commanders recorded daily meteorological