Ken Robison

This compilation of newspaper articles concerning Montana during the War of the Rebellion, very broadly defined, got off on the wrong foot with this reviewer when the author got the important fact of which slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation exactly backward. It's basic to an understanding of the war, and, while perhaps not crucial to a book about Montana, is an elementary concept which is, or should be, known by every sixth-grader in America; getting it wrong calls into question every paragraph in the rest of one's book.

As for the book, any history of the War of the Rebellion in a western state is going to have to come up with an approach which sidesteps the fact that there was little (or, in this case, no) military action, at least between USA and CSA forces, in the territory. Aside from passing mention of a few scattered donnybrooks between Unionist and Confederate miners and some Indian fighting, most of which happened after the war, this book consists of mini-biographies of individuals who settled in Montana after the war, sometimes emphasizing their lives there and sometimes what they did during the war. Though not all of these people are completely uninteresting, the overall effect is to make for a tedious read which is much more about Montana than anything about the war which one hasn't read dozens of times before.… (mer)