Title: Blood and Thunder
Rating: 3 Stars
Even though this article is completely taken from it, I’m not going to spend much time discussing Hampton Sides’ Blood and Honor. I’ve read several of Sides’ works, including Ghost Soldiers, Hellhound on his Trail, and On Desperate Ground. I’d thoroughly enjoyed all of those works. They were some of the best historical narrative that I’d ever read.
I did not like Blood and Thunder as much. I think that Sides’ strength is on tighter, more focused subjects. When he’s focused on something specific, whether it be World War II POW’s and their rescue or the Korean War Battle on the Chosin or the assassination of MLK Jr and the search for his killer, his writing propels you forward as if you’re reading an action novel.
Blood and Thunder is a much broader subject covering a much longer period of time. It’s about white America’s dream of manifest destiny as it clashes with the Native American tribes that had the audacity to, you know, live on the lands that white Americans claimed was their birthright. It spans some sixty years. While it was interesting reading and there was much to be learned, I just wasn’t as drawn into it as I was with other Sides’ other histories.
If you’re interested in reading about the tragic history of a group of people that were destined to be triumphant over another group of people that were doomed to be nearly eradicated, then you’ll find this interesting. Having already read histories such as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the sad saga of broken promises, systemic mistreatment, and outright massacres is tragically, grimly, familiar.
One of the lens that Sides uses to tell this story is through the life of Kit Carson. I, of course, had heard of Kit Carson but I didn’t realize how much his life spanned this crucial time in the American West.
I’d like to spend the rest of this article with a brief biography of Kit Carson. In my opinion, he’s the Zelig of the American West in the nineteenth century. Hardly anything happened that Carson didn’t somehow end up in the middle of.
Let’s start with his birth. Born in 1809, he was one of fifteen children (in a blended family). His father fought in both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Boone’s Lick, Missouri. Boone’s Lick was owned by the sons of Daniel Boone. So, from birth, he had connections to our first two wars and the great pioneer Daniel Boone.
When Kit was eight, his father died in an accident. Carson was then apprenticed to a saddler. That work did not suit him and he ran away at the age of seventeen. Running away is a bit of a misnomer. The saddler encouraged him to leave and he placed an ad for Carson’s return with a reward of one cent.
Carson made his way to the Santa Fe Trail. He then began his career as a mountain man. He became a trapper. He led several expeditions. He hunted beaver until he noticed that the beaver population was beginning to die off.
He was an Indian fighter. As a mountain man, he often crossed paths with Native American tribes. Although he was illiterate (he usually signed his name with an X; it was only much later that he could even sign his name), he was fluent in Spanish and several Native American languages. His first two wives were both Native American. Even so, he engaged in many violent fights with Native Americans.
His exploits became so famous that he became a heavily sought after guide. John Fremont, famed as The Pathfinder, hired Carson to be his guide for three different expeditions. He led Fremont on one expedition that spanned the Oregon Trail to Wyoming and then another that went all of the way to the Columbia River in Oregon. The third expedition went through Salt Lake City to the Sierra Nevada in California and Oregon. Although Fremont was known as The Pathfinder, it’s safe to say that Carson was The Pathfinder’s Pathfinder.
In 1846, there was the Bear Flag Revolt. This was Californians trying to break free of Mexico. Carson served as the courier for Fremont during this struggle. On one trip, he met up with the US Army’s General Kearney and his troops. Carson turned around and led Kearney’s troops to California, making them the first US soldiers in California. Later, one of Carson’s courier messages that he personally delivered from California to Washington DC was the first news of gold being discovered in California.
Still working with Kearney’s men, Carson fought in the Mexican-American War. At one point, hopelessly outnumbered, Kearney sent Carson out for reinforcements. Having lost his shoes sneaking past the pickets, Carson walked twenty-five miles barefoot to San Diego to get reinforcements. They came in the nick of time to save Kearney and his men.
His military time was not over. Carson served the Union army during the Civil War. A Confederate army invaded New Mexico with dreams of cutting the Western territories off from the rest of the Union. Commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel, he successfully led a New Mexico regiment into battle. The Confederate army never threatened again.
Although he was famed as an Indian fighter, he was also empathetic to the plight of beleaguered Native American tribes. For many years he served as an Indian agent charged with managing the affairs of the Utes, Apaches, and Pueblos. Far more than typical, he treated the tribes fairly and with respect.
Even so, he was also the person that was put in charge of subduing the various Navajo tribes. He did so ruthlessly. Knowing that he and his men could never defeat the Navajo in a conventional battle, he used the tactics of total warfare to defeat them. He went after their food supply, burning every field that he came across. The Navajos had an extensive fruit orchard that held spiritual significance to them. He had it all chopped down.
Starving, the various Navajo tribes eventually surrendered. Carson believed that the only way that they could survive is if they learned to farm and to assimilate with Western ways. Unfortunately, the reservation land that was set aside from them had a poor water supply and was not conducive to farming. Eventually, the Navajo tribes were relocated to a reservation that was closer to their original homeland.
Carson became such a national celebrity that there was an entire publishing industry of Western pulp novels written that featured a highly fictionalized version of Carson doing all kinds of heroic exploits. Carson was himself a short, quiet, soft spoken, modest man that, at best, was bemused when he was told some of the stories that were published about him.
By the late 1860s, Carson was tired. He’d led an active life for forty years. He had a farm and a sheep ranch and just wanted to quietly live there with his third wife and ten children (from three marriages). However, it was not to be. About a month after his wife died after giving birth to their eighth child, Carson died of a aneurysm.
So there you have it. Kit Carson, running away from home as a young man, mountain man, explorer that ranged all over the American West, Indian fighter, Indian agent, committer of Indian atrocities, illiterate, fought for California’s independence, fought in both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, and became a mythic celebrity in his lifetime.
Kit Carson, I anoint you as the Person of the American Nineteenth Century.
dorkenstein 