Review of The View from Officers' Row: Army Perceptions of Western Indians

Authors

Peter Maslowski, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

1991

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 11:4 (Fall 1991). Copyright © 1991 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

Careful students of the American West have long realized that making valid generalizations about the officers who served in the frontier army is extraordinarily difficult. For example, a major theme in Soldier West: Biographies from the Military Frontier (1987), edited by Paul Andrew Hutton, was the rich variety in experiences, interests, and personalities among army officers. Now, Smith, an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso, demonstrates how ambivalent and contradictory the officers were in their perceptions of virtually every aspect of Indian affairs. And, importantly, she recognizes that officers' wives also lived on "officers' row," and wherever possible she probes their attitudes.