Samuel Peter Heintzelman and the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company (review)

190CIVIL WAR HISTORY grow a little monotonous, but that is the price of comprehensive coverage. Blacks prove not to have been invisible Americans at all. Their presence is haunting: a barefoot boy seated in front of McClellan's generals, the servants of New England officers, laborers for photographers . Were they too much a part of their military families to be excluded from the photo album? Did the photographers think them picturesque? Did they insert them as a reminder ofthe cause ofthe war? After William C. Davis completes his task of laying the evidence before us, perhaps the art historians orsomeone else can answer theseand other questions suggested by this fine series of books. Mark E. Neely, Jr. Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum Samuel Peter Heintzelman and the Sonora Exploring 6- Mining Company. By Diane M. T. North. (Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 1980. Pp. xvii, 248. $12.50 cloth; $7.95 paper.) In 1850, Samuel P. Heintzelman, West Point graduate, former member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, and veteran of the Mexican war, began construction of Fort Yuma at the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. During the four years thathe commanded thatpost, he invested in real estate and ferry companies, advocated steam navigation on the Colorado River, supported the southern route for a transcontinental railroad, and helped found Colorado City, now Yuma, Arizona. Later he helped Charles D. Poston, self-styled father of Arizona, form the Sonora Exploring & Mining Company, one of the earliest American companies to exploit mineral resources in present-day Arizona. Investors in the company sought military protection, separate territorial status for Arizona, and began the first newspaper in the region. Heintzelman became president of the company, and having secured leave from the army, he spent approximately six months directing the mining operations in the vicinity of Tubac, south of Tucson. Diane North has edited and annotated the portion of Heintzelman's voluminous journal that pertains to this period. Heintzelman produced a lengthy and informative journal that provides an interesting commentary on events in the region such as Indian relations and filibustering expeditions into Mexico, mining operations, and individuals such as Poston, whom he found contributed little of value to the company. Basically, it is a record of the day-to-day operations and illuminates the technical problems of mining in that isolated location. The company was plagued with unskilled labor, crude equipment, supply and transportation costs, and the quality of the ores and never became successful. Ultimately, firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt gained control of the book reviews191 company, which soon thereafter ceased operations, and Heintzelman returned to military duty. The volume is useful for describing early mining operations and outside investment in present-day Arizona and for illustrating the economic activities of army officers. It will appeal largely to students of Arizona history. Richard N. Elus University of New Mexico ...