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that a ravaging army ran the risk of alienating Mexican citizens and driving them into a costly, long-term guerrilla war. Second, Scott also showed, through his willingness to momentarily halt his offensive after key battles, that he wanted not to conquer Mexico, but instead to convince her leaders to accede to American demands. “This study argues” writes Johnson, “that [Scott] devised a sophisticated pacification plan . . . and a strategy of moderation” (p. 5). Scott’s leadership also marked a huge step in the professionalization of the United States Army. With many West Point graduates (and future Civil War generals ) in his ranks, Scott relied on their knowledge and expertise to negotiate the rough terrain and battlements that marked his route. In so doing, Johnson also credits Scott with being uniquely able to overcome what Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called the “friction” of war (p. 3). Johnson relies on more than 150 primary sources, both published and unpublished, to tell his story. As such, the narrative comes alive with the comments of men and officers alike. One such story, which fits with Scott’s demand for army discipline, comes from young Lt. Ambrose Powell (A.P.) Hill. At one point on the march to Mexico City, Hill’s fifty mounted volunteers were ordered to stay behind as a rear guard. Anxious to move up, some of his men made ready to ride ahead in violation of orders. Hill himself mounted up to block his men. “His appearance alone should have been sufficient to keep the men in line,” writes Johnson. “He wore a sombrero, a ‘flaming red flannel shirt,’ red-trimmed boots, and an ‘immense pair of Mexican spurs,’” along with four pistols, a butcher knife, and a saber. “I was as villainous a looking rascal as ever there was,” Hill commented (p. 247). His men relented. Civil War buffs will recognize this as the start of Hill’s habit of wearing a bright red shirt into battle. The book features a selection of maps which are vital to visualizing the campaigns about which Johnson writes, and a wealth of material in appendices, such as officers attached to Scott’s command and men who were wounded or killed in battle. Again, this book is a pleasure to read and highly recommended. Southwestern Adventist University R. Steven Jones Gender and Generation on the Far Western Frontier. By Cynthia Culver Prescott. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. Pp. 232. Illustrations, tables, notes, selected bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-81652-543-0. $49.96, cloth.) In this slim but highly informative volume, Cynthia Culver Prescott picks up the thread of nineteenth-century overland migration, begun by such esteemed historians as John Mack Faragher and Sandra Myres, and carries the discussion beyond the trail to explore the post-migration gender roles of Oregon’s first settler generations. Through impressive research conducted in numerous Oregon archives and libraries, Prescott confirms that trials and tribulations on the trail did cause women to perform tasks and duties traditionally undertaken by men, but insists that at trail’s end, and on settlement, both men and women were happy, perhaps eager, to reestablish traditional gender roles. Prescott reveals, 2009 Book Reviews 321 *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 321 however, that the rigors of frontier settlement often hampered this return to gender “normalcy,” and she introduces the barnyard as the gender “middle ground,” since both men and women performed the tasks carried out there—maintenance of the garden and attendance to chicken and cows, among others. Oregon’s first settler generation is recognizable to the reader, and is comprised of hard-working agriculturalists, dedicated to building productive farms and decent farming communities. The second generation, however, may be unfamiliar, or at least unexpected, and it is in these discussions that Prescott’s study is so valuable. She reveals Oregon’s second settler generation, like their contemporaries in the Midwest and the East, as caught up in the “modern” trappings of mid- to late-nineteenthcentury America. Conveniences such as stoves, mail-order catalogs, and sewing machines changed the way Oregonians lived, but rather than cause gender roles to blend beyond the barnyard and into the home...

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