Plains Indian Raiders (review)

BOOK REVIEWS349 pressed dissatisfaction with Stanton and Meade and disappointment with Halleck. Many readers will enjoy the well written adventures of a young officer and will also appreciate Hagemann's footnotes that amplify or correct the text. They will be annoyed with the incomplete index and the cluttered maps copied from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. G. Thomas Edwards Whitman College Plains Indian Raiders. By Wilbur Sturdivant Nye; photographs by William Stinson Soule (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Pp. xx, 418. $9.50.) The talents of Wilbur S. Nye and William S. Soule have combined to make another useful contribution to South Plains Indian History. This may seem remarkable, since Soule died in 1908 and Nye is still with us. Though separated in time, their interests came together on the South Plains. Mr. Soule, an expert photographer, was on the Plains when the Indians were making their last stand against white encroachment. He was at Fort Dodge in 1867, Fort Supply in 1868, and at Fort Sill from 1869 to 1874. Cheyennes Arapahoes, Kiowas, Comanches, and KiowaApaches visited these places to parley with the commanders and to obtain their rations. They were excellent locations for seeing these tribes still in their prime. His pictures scattered to customers, relatives, and friends. Some found their way to the Bureau of American Ethnology. His are superb examples of the photographers art, produced with complex technique and under primitive conditons. This was before the time of photographic film; and he had to prepare his own plates the night before each sitting. The entire process required a knowledge of chemistry , mathematics, patience, and experienced guess-work. The results are remarkable. The studio portraits of Indians in finery compare favorably with the best of today's, produced under far more favorable circumstances . Details are clear; lines, lights, and shadows are distinct. The camp scenes are plain, objects appearing best in the middle distance, rather than in the foreground or background where objects are indistinct . Nevertheless, these scenes graphically show the panorama of camp life. Wilbur Nye, historian and retired army officer, has written the text, which places the photographs in their historical setting. Nye had the opportunity to see Indians who still had vivid memories of the old ways and to consult the records. While stationed at Fort Sill in the 1930's, he became acquainted with the descendents of Soule's subjects. His earlier work, Carbine and Lance, a history of old Fort Sill published in 1937, was a pioneering study and is still useful. While gathering research material , he also collected a number of Soule's photographs, some of which 350CIVIL war HISTORY had never been published. In the present work, Plains Indian Raiders, Nye recounts from original sources, many unpublished, from the National Archives, the South Plains wars from 1864 to 1875. In the next 223 pages he annotates over a hundred of Soule's photographs. The work of either man alone would be useful. Together, they are a major contribution . Forrest D. Monahan, Jr. Midwestern University History in the United States, 1800-1860: Its Practice and Purpose. By George Callcott. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970. Pp. viii, 239. $8.95.) Historiography, broadly defined, appears to be getting a new lease on life. Writings on the craft of history seem to be of greater interest than at any time since the days of Carl Becker's and Charles Beard's relativist essays in the 1930s. Several distinguished emeritus practitioners, such as John Hicks and Dexter Perkins, have recently published memoirs which cast light on what it meant to be a historian earlier in the century. The 1969 presidential address given by C. Vann Woodward to the American Historical Association gave a particularly thoughtful critique on the state of the profession. Younger and more activist scholars , such as Martin Duberman and Staughton Lynd, have indicated their dissatisfaction with history as traditionally written and have argued their preference, respectively, for art and for history in the service of social reform. Other young scholars who are more preoccupied with matters of historical method, such as Robert Berkhofer and David Hackett Fischer, have published books which insist upon the need for increased rigor...