On the Overland Trails with William Clark: A Teamster's Utah War, 1857–1858

Editors William P. MacKinnon and Kenneth L. Alford have provided an accessible treatment of an important, albeit obscure, source regarding the Utah War: William Clark's “A Trip Across the Plains in 1857.” By editing and republishing this essay, they seek to bring Clark's firsthand experiences of the war to a broader audience and render his account intelligible through their added notes, appendices, introductions, and images. These provide contextualization that the essay's 1922 printing omitted, such as information about the war and its causes, biographical sketches of the author and his associates, and notes on the document's provenance. Together these provide a more complete view of the Utah War, the life of William Clark, and the text that he produced.Clark wrote a quintessentially Western account, which provides a snapshot into life on the overland trails in the 1850s. While his account focused primarily on his time spent traversing the Nebraska and Utah Territories, Clark also spoke to broader trends as he alluded to other episodes in the history of the American West. While narrating his journey from Freeport, Illinois, to San Bernardino, California, he commented on everything from bison to tensions between Southerners and “Yanks” (21 and 40). Clark had a unique perspective on the Utah War because he was neither a Latter-day Saint nor an enlisted man. His commission as a teamster working for the Russell, Majors and Waddell freight company put him in close proximity with the army without enlistment. Following his discharge at Fort Bridger, he risked traveling through enemy lines to seek his fortune in California. Clark's reminiscences highlight the sense of existential dread experienced by outsiders traversing Utah during the conflict, especially in light of the Aikens murders and the Mountain Meadows Massacre.In addition to Clark's essay, the editors have appended newspaper clippings discussing Clark's later life and death. These help to shed light on Clark's experiences following his cross-continental adventure, including the setting in Ames, Iowa, in which he composed his travel account.This book will prove especially useful to those interested in the experiences of the overland trails and the Utah Expedition. Clark's writing is generally easy to follow and should prove comprehensible to most readers. Obscure names and terms are generally explained in accompanying notes; however, some editorial additions assume a level of prior knowledge above that of the casual reader. These include obscure references to the “Indian Ring during . . . the Grant administration” (39) and “William Walker's filibustering expedition to Nicaragua” (176n2). Despite these instances, the main narrative should prove accessible to a general readership, and Clark's account could reasonably be assigned to upper-division college classes.Notwithstanding the book's strengths, readers should be aware of certain weaknesses. First, despite principally being a travel narrative, the book is sparse on maps. A mere two maps appear in the book, one indicating the basic route from St. Louis to San Bernardino (6) and the second showing the trail from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino (98). These omit several locations that appear in the text, including Freeport, the Sweetwater River, and Spanish Fork. Also omitted are territorial boundaries and the route of the army's aborted move to Soda Springs (62). As such, casual readers are advised to read with a historical atlas close at hand.Second, because editorial priorities involved making the stories of William Clark and the Utah War “available” and “relevant” (3), exact reproduction of the text remained secondary. While the editors recognized the existence of five versions of the text (two early publications and three manuscripts), it will likely disappoint textual scholars to learn that the editors only deemed three variants worth noting in the book (155 and 200n2). To improve readability, the editors also made some changes to the text, including chapter divisions and modernizing punctuation (7–8). While most changes remained minor, a more substantial and problematic editorial decision involved moving a noncontiguous section of text to an appendix because it was deemed “a distracting digression” (9). This decision affects the flow and meaning of the text, introduces a probable error regarding the geography, and seems at odds with the editorial treatment of other problematic passages, which were simply noted rather than excised. While the editors are to be commended for making this source available to the public and clarifying its murky provenance, scholars studying the specific episodes within this account are not relieved of the responsibility to check this version against earlier redactions.While not comprehensive, MacKinnon and Alford's contribution has laid the groundwork for further assessment of this and related sources.