As They Saw Forrest (review)

Book Reviews117 chance meeting with a picturesquely attired plainsman, he developed a compelling urge to go west. In 1878, two years after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, he arrived at Fort Keogh, situated on the Yellowstone above its junction with the Big Horn, to take the position of post photographer. Later, probably in 1880, he opened a studio in nearby Milestown (now Miles City), and made frequent camera and rifle hunts deep into the Yellowstone-Big Horn country, recording its scenery and its people, and becoming adept in the ways of frontier survival and the techniques of photography. However, with the arrival of the railroad in 1881, he began to regard the days of the true West as ended, and his economic status gradually declined until his death in 1931. In the half century he had spent in Montana, its population had increased from less than 40,000 to more than 500,000. From some 1200 of Huffman's negatives — most of which he took himself, many while wielding a home-made, fifty-pound camera from the back of a lurching horse — the authors have selected 125 which they consider his best. This representation ranges from scenic views of Yellowstone National Park and superb Indian portraits to shots of Calamity Jane, General Phil Sheridan, gamehunters , hide-hunters, man-hunters, swaddies, bull-whackers, and muleskinners . Regrettably, Huffman's photos of the 1881 evacuation of the Sioux from prisoner-of-war camps outside Fort Keogh were lost when one of his studios burned; and space limitations have not permitted inclusion of his photographic record of the open-range days. The text which accompanies the pictures is colorful and interesting, but also somewhat discursive and loosely organized, with an occasional lack of connection between text and pictures. Moreover, lengthy excerpts from Huffman's letters and rough manuscripts usually do little to supplement either camera work or background material. It may be that had the collaborators utilized fewer of Huffman's words and more of his photos, their book would have gained in value as a study of the Northwest frontier. The volume contains notes on text and photographs, a bibliography, and an index, along with a notation that prints from their new negatives (made from the old glass plates) are available to collectors. For this reader, the outstanding features of the book — even better than the word and picture treatment of the extermination of the buffalo — are the photographs and text dealing with the Indian. Curtis L. Johnson Chicago, Hlinois As They Saw Forrest. Edited by Robert Selph Henry. (Jackson, Tennessee : The McCowat-Mercer Press. 1956. Pp. xvi, 306. $5.00.) Robert selph henry, in his "First With the Most" Forrest, gathered together and presented in one volume an authoritative study (published in 1944) of one of the great generals of the Civil War. In the present work, containing comments and recollections concerning Nathan Bedford Forrest selected from a vast amount of material, we see Forrest through the eyes of his contemporaries. The selections are varied as to style and content. The comments of Viscount Wolseley, for instance, are the considered thoughts of one of the leading mili- 118civil war history tary figures of his age; other selections are provided by members of the Confederate and Union armies, and still others by civilians. One of the truly controversial figures of the Civil War, Forrest was the sort of man whose acts engendered violent emotions. No single man in the Tennessee area was so feared by the Union forces. His exploits, on the one hand, made him the object of extreme hero-worship by Southerners and, on the other, brought down upon his head the anathema of his enemies. So much has been written about him, and so much of it colored by personal feelings, that selection of the wheat from the chaff has always been a difficult problem. Legend has grown at the expense of fact, but in these selections, varied as they are, the true picture of Forrest begins to appear. Viscount Wolseley's assessment of Forrest as a man and as a soldier is based not on personal knowledge but on research, study, and correspondence with many who knew...