The American West as Revealed Through Four Men

Hutton, Paul Andrew.  The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the 

         American West.  New York: Penguin Random House, 2025.  ISBN: 9781524746131

 

How up are you on the story of the American West?  Do you think that the story of western expansion only started when folks moved west of the Mississippi River?  Paul Hutton offers a correction to that view in Undiscovered Country by starting with the movement over the Appalachian Mountains in the 1700s and carries the story on until the closing of the Frontier in the late 1800s through the lenses of four men who helped open up the West for white settlers.

 

Paul Hutton starts his tale of the American West with the first of four men he focuses on - Danial Boone in the 1750s.  The first third of the book places Daniel Boone and his exploits in relation to the events of the French and Indian War, the settlement of the the Ohio River Valley, and the American Revolution and beyond.  The events of the American Revolution and the conflict with the Creek and Seminole Indians introduces the reader to the family of  Davy Crockett - the 2nd focus of this book.  Davy Crockett gained fame for his exploits of fighting Creek Indians and his hunting prowness which led to becoming a politician.  His fame also led to him  being the subject of plays and books.  Then, at the height of his fame, he decided to go West to Texas and ended up at the Alamo where his death just added to his notoriety. 

 

The third man in this book is Kit Carson - known for his bravery, his compassion for various Indian tribes, and his knowledge of the West.  He was involved in the beaver trade,  led John C. Fremont on various of his trips around the West, led troops in New Mexico against the Confederate invasion under General Sibley, then led scouts and troops against the Apaches and Navajos. William "Buffalo Bill" Cody was the final focus of the book.  Buffalo Bill Cody gained his name by hunting buffalo for the Kansas Pacific Railroad.  He also spent time as a scout for the Army, being involved with Kit Carson at times and being called to lead hunts for important folk such as  James Gordon Bennett, Leonard Walter Jerome, and the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, the 3rd son of Czar Alexander II.  Planning out these hunts came in handy later when the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show toured the East, Great Britain, and most of Europe.  Cody was not just a showman, he was also known as a brave scout by both the US Army and the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes.  He became friends with Sitting Bull and had him in his traveling show for a year along with Annie Oakley when they visited England and had opportunity to meet Queen Victoria and other nobility.  Paul Hutton closes the book with the 1893 Chicago World Fair and the meeting of the "World's Congress of Historians and Historical Students" where Frederick Jackson Turner presented his paper "The Significance of the Frontier in American History."  

 

If you would like to refresh your knowledge of the push west from the East Coast or are just interested in any of the four men Paul Hutton focused on, The Undiscovered Country is a good place to start.