Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (review)

BOOK REVIEWS177 came from the manhood of other states. Some 7,286 men served in the Brigade, of whom approximately 4,300 were Texans. By April, 1856, only 496 men of the three Texas regiments still bore arms by time of the surrender, or less than 12 per cent of those who served throughout the war. The Compendium divides into four parts. Part One contains the rosters and service records of all 7,268 men who constituted the Brigade . Brigade, Regimental Headquarters, and company rosters are included. Part Two contains nearly 150 photographs of officers, noncommissioned officers, and the rank-and-file. Part Three, which is entitled "Statistical Charts and Summaries," illustrates casualty and loss rates from both disease and combat. Part Four, "Brigade Trivia," is aptly named. A lengthy index makes it all available. There is a place for this kind of book. Not easy reading, unglamorous , pedestrian, it is still all it claims to be—a compendium of Hood's Texas Brigade. Archie P. McDonald Stephen F. Austin State University Joseph Smith: The First Mormon. By Donna Hill, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1977. Pp. vii, 527. $12.50.) This is the first major biography of Joseph Smith since Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History, published in 1945. Hill has produced an excellent biography. If this book is not the definitive work on this subject, it is as close to it as we are likely to get. She has been able to produce such a complete treatment in part because she has made astute and thorough use of primary sources unavailable to other scholars. At the outset, the author demonstrates great wisdom by telling the reader that it is not her purpose to settle the many controversial issues that still stubbornly surround Joseph Smith's life. She does wish to show Smith's many positive human qualities, "but also his foibles, his implacable will, and something of his complexity" (p. x). In broader terms, she describes the fate of his followers, as well. The more prosperous the church became, the more hostile and jealous its neighbors became, and consequently the harder the Mormons worked to become stronger; a terrible pattern emerged wherever they went. As Hill puts it, "insults and harassment of the Mormons progressed to mobbing and assault, assault turned to pillage, confiscation of property, massacre and exile" (pp. vii and ix). During his thirty-eight years on earth, Joseph Smith played an incredible number of roles, some better than others, including prophet , seer, real estate agent, general of militia, candidate for President of the United States, social reformer, journalist, entrepreneur, 178civil war history city developer, banker, and a man with a direct pipeline to God. Without using the devices and trappings of psycho-history, Hill manages skillfully to reconstruct Joseph's complex personality by capturing, not only his many positive traits, but also his frailties and limitations, his doubts and fears, his feelings of guilt and inadequacy , his inconsistencies, and his shrewdness and taste for luxury and power. Despite all of his shortcomings, however, the author steadfastly insists throughout her work that Smith never expressed any doubt about his calling or religion, and that "there is never the slightest suggestion of insincerity" in any of his writings. Another major strength of this work is that the author has placed Smith and early Mormon activities in the broader framework of what was occurring in America and especially the frontier at that time. It is her view that the Mormons reflected the same forces and characteristics that were molding American society on all levels. When discussing the Kirtland Anti-Banking Company, for example, she is careful to place it in the context of the boom and bust economic atmosphere that permeated most of the United States in the late 1830's, while also dealing with the company's ill-effects upon Joseph's reputation and the unity of his church. Although a practicing Mormon, who admits that "my sympathies lie with the Saints" (p. x), the author is to be commended for her genuine effort to remove her biases from her work. She invariably presents evidence on both sides of controversial issues, even though...