On the Overland Trails with William Clark - by William P MacKinnon & Kenneth L Alford (Paperback)

About the Book

This account documents a young man's travel along the trails from St. Louis to Salt Lake City, accompanying the U.S. Army's Utah Expedition as a teamster, his captivity in Salt Lake City by the Nauvoo Legion, and his continued journey through southern Utah to California.

Book Synopsis

The Utah War remains an understudied but important moment in western history as the United States wrestled with its political future. There are few primary accounts from this war, but one of the best comes from William Clark, a young teamster hired by Russell, Majors and Waddell, the West's greatest freighters. Clark's narrative, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," was not published until 1922 and only then in an obscure journal with little annotation, so for the last hundred years, this work has been a valuable but obscure document.

In On the Overland Trails with William Clark William P. MacKinnon and Kenneth L. Alford have remedied this historiographical oversight by providing material entirely missing from the original printing, including an explanation of the Utah War's origins and prosecution; maps by which to chart Clark's travels; illustrations to enliven major players; and annotations to clarify the sometimes arcane people, places, incidents, and issues mentioned. Also included for the first time is an account of the manuscript's colorful provenance.

Review Quotes

"MacKinnon and Alford have transformed an already wonderful account of an intriguing adventure in the antebellum West into a scholarly gem that paints the strange Utah War episode with all its color and accompanying grit."--Gene A. Sessions, coauthor of Camp Floyd and the Mormons: The Utah War

"Rescued from obscurity, Clark's vivid account of trials and travel in the American West offers witness to the overland trail, the oft-forgotten conflict between Utah's Latter-day Saints and the U.S. government in 1857-58, and the tragic Mountain Meadows Massacre, with strong contextual support from the editors."--Robert Clark, editor of Overland Journal

"William Clark's compelling account of having survived hardship and danger on the western trails is here brought out of obscurity and expertly contextualized by two of the foremost authorities on the Utah War of 1857-58. The book is a model of careful editing, sensitive handling, and informed research."--Charles E. Rankin, editor of Toward a More Perfect Union: The Civil War Letters of Frederic and Elizabeth Lockley

"William Clark's measured account of his extraordinary overland journey has long been a vital, if hard to consult, source for anyone seeking to understand the North American West at the eve of the Civil War. In this first scholarly edition of Clark's narrative, William MacKinnon and Kenneth Alford provide essential context that allows contemporary readers to understand the importance of once-famous figures whose significance has faded from popular memory. Their thorough research illuminates the arc of Clark's life before and after his trip to California, as well as how his account came to be. They guide us to a fuller understanding of nineteenth-century commercial freighting on the plains, the intricacies of the Utah Expedition, and the precariousness of life in the Mountain West."--George A. Miles, retired William Robertson Coe Curator of the Yale Collection of Western Americana

About the Author

William P. MacKinnon is an independent historian and management consultant. He is a retired vice president of General Motors. Kenneth L. Alford is professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. MacKinnon and Alford are coeditors of Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy: A Tale of Utah War Intrigue, 1857-1858--A. G. Browne's "The Ward of the Three Guardians."