Sentinel to the Cimarron: The Frontier Experience of Fort Dodge, Kansas (review)

86CIVIL WAR HISTORY was well established in America and even the railroads were willing to accept regulation. The real issues were the means and the goals of regulation . The local mercantile classes found the railroads inimical to their interests and wanted them controlled by local law. The railroads, like other industrial capitalists, feared regulation by local legislative fiat and wanted judicial protection; the courts, not the legislatures should determine if rates were unreasonable. Only a minority of the Supreme Court accepted the railroads' view in 1877, but by the 1890's the Court had reversed itself. The granger laws were little more than a short-lived holding action. The value of Professor Miller's fine study is enhanced by ample documentation and a long and intelligent bibliographical essay. The book deserves to be widely read. Harold D. Woodman Purdue University Sentinel to the Cimarron: The Frontier Experience of Fort Dodge, Kansas . By David Kay Strate. (Dodge City, Kansas: Cultural Heritage and Arts Center, 1970. Pp. 147.) Although Fort Dodge has received incidental treatment in previous studies, this is the first book to focus directly upon the history of the post itself. Established on the Arkansas River in southwestern Kansas in 1865, Fort Dodge defended trade and traffic on the Santa Fe road and served as a staging and supply point for military expeditions against Southern Plains Indians in 1868-69 and 1874-75. The post also played a role in the pursuit of Dull Knife's people during their flight from Indian Territory in 1878. Comprehensive coverage is given to military operations, but the best portions of the book are those relating to the social and routine military life of the garrison. Drunkenness, desertions, illnesses, and soldiercivilian altercations in nearby Dodge City, taken altogether, seemingly posed as much a problem as hostile Indians. The installation was closed in 1882, after the threat of Indian hostility had subsided, only to be reopened in 1890 by the state of Kansas as a soldiers' home. The author devotes too much space to the Southern Plains Indian campaigns in general, which have been better described by William H. Leckie and Donald J. Berthrong, whose studies are not cited, and too little in some instances to local military events in which Fort Dodge was more directly involved. Examination of other Kansas newspapers, in addition to those cited, might also have helped the study. The presentation is mediocre, there are several minor errors, the print is small, the footnotes are at the back of the volume, and unnecessary "ibid." citations clutter the documentation. BOOK REVIEWS 87 Nevertheless, this book is a material contribution to the growing body of literature relating to the military history of the Southern Plains. Lonnie J. WmTE Memphis State University ...