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    On the Overland Trails with William Clark
    A Teamster's Utah War, 1857–1858

    William P. MacKinnon (Edited by), Kenneth L. Alford (Edited by), Howard R. Lamar (Foreword by)

    9781496237507

    Paperback / softback, published 1 March 2025

    246 pages, 9 photographs, 17 illustrations, 2 maps, 4 appendixes, index
    22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.374 kg

    “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
    “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

    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.

    List of Illustrations
    Foreword by Howard R. Lamar
    Acknowledgments

    Part 1. Understandings
    Editors’ Introduction
    Editorial Decisions
    Background and Context: The Utah War

    Part 2. William Clark’s Edited Reminiscences (“A Trip Across the Plains in 1857”)
    Section 1. “We Had an Eye on California”: Signing On, Starting Out
    Section 2. “I Was Starving with a Train Loaded with Provisions”: Sick unto Death
    Section 3. “They Make the Earth Tremble”: Into the Buffalo Range
    Section 4. “Consider Yourselves Discharged”: Sunday Confrontation
    Section 5. “Grand and Beautiful Scenery”: Wolves along the North Platte
    Section 6. “A Sage Brush Country”: Crossing the Continental Divide to Green River
    Section 7. “The Boss, Seeing They Had No Show, Surrendered”: Meeting Lot Smith
    Section 8. “Into Winter Quarters”: An Agonizing Crawl to Fort Bridger
    Section 9. “Saddle Up and Be Quick about It”: Into Captivity with the Latter-day Saints
    Section 10. “Difficult for a Man to Escape Their Vengeance”: Life in Salt Lake City
    Section 11. “We Started, Badly Scared Inside”: From Salt Lake through Utah’s Southern Settlements
    Section 12. “Enough to Make a Man’s Blood Run Cold”: Crossing Mountain Meadows and Beyond
    Section 13. “Back to Wisconsin”: The Fate of Sherwood and Tuttle
    Appendix A: The Pomeroy and Kingston Story
    Appendix B: William and Cora Clark’s Later Years
    Appendix C: William Clark’s Obituaries
    Appendix D: Status Differences among Teamsters

    Part 3. Meaning
    Editors’ Epilogue
    Editors’ Conclusions

    Notes
    Contributors
    Index

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