DOC Bayonets in the Wilderness: Anthony Wayne’s Legion in the Old Northwest (Campaigns and Commanders Series) by Alan D. Gaff in History

Description

In 1875; a team of cartographers; geologists; and scientists under the direction of Ferdinand V. Hayden entered the Four Corners area for what they thought would be a calm summer’s work completing a previous survey. Their accomplishments would go down in history as one of the great American surveying expeditions of the nineteenth century. By skillfully weaving the surveyors’ diary entries; field notes; and correspondence with newspaper accounts; historians Robert S. McPherson and Susan Rhoades Neel bring the Hayden Survey to life. Mapping the Four Corners provides an entertaining; engaging narrative of the team’s experiences; contextualized with a thoughtful introduction and conclusion. Accompanied by the great photographer William Henry Jackson; Hayden’s team quickly found their trip to be more challenging than expected. The travelers describe wrangling half-wild pack mules; trying to sleep in rain-soaked blankets; and making tea from muddy; alkaline water. Along the way; they encountered diverse peoples; evidence of prehistoric civilizations; and spectacular scenery—Hispanic villages in Colorado and New Mexico; Mesa Verde; Hovenweep; and other Anasazi sites; and the Hopi mesas. Not everyone they met was glad to see them: in southeastern Utah surveyors fought and escaped a band of Utes and Paiutes who recognized that the survey meant dispossession from their homeland. Hayden saw his expedition as a scientific endeavor focused on geology; geographic description; cartographic accuracy; and even ethnography; but the search for economic potential was a significant underlying motive. As this book shows; these pragmatic scientists were on the lookout for gold beneath every rock; grazing lands in every valley; and economic opportunity around each bend in the trail. The Hayden Survey ultimately shaped the American imagination in contradictory ways; solidifying the idea of “progress”—and government funding of its pursuit—while also revealing; via Jackson’s photographs; a landscape with a beauty hitherto unknown and unimagined.