Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion

I learned about Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion, by Robert Morgan, on a fellow blogger's site and thought it sounded perfect.  I am a westerner and love learning about the role the West played in the development of the U.S.  The structure of the book really worked for me--each section is on a different individual who helped shaped the West in one way or another.  Many of their stories and histories overlap, but I liked being able to focus on a single individual and learn about his story and role one at a time.

The book covered Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman, David Crockett, Sam Houston, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, Kit Carson, Nicholas Trist, and John Quincy Adams.  While the subtitle promises to feature villains as well as heroes, I think this is overstated.  In a way, I didn't see anyone as really a hero or a villain.  They all were admirable to a degree--some more than others--and they all took part in activities that could be seen as questionable, and many did things that were downright dishonorable and reprehensible.  For the most part, all were well-intentioned and patriotic and loyal to their cause, but oh, so human!  They engaged in petty squabbling, they turned away from what they knew was right (e.g., abolishing slavery, acknowledging the rights of Native Americans, stealing land from Mexico and Britain and France), but they had a vision and acted to make that vision a reality.

The only one I didn't really know about before reading the book was Nicholas Trist, and I found his story to be among the most interesting.  Gifted with incredible talents and skills as diplomat and administrator, he was also hampered by incredible shortcomings--an inability to speak in public and a knee-jerk defensive reaction to any type of criticism that resulted in him writing long (>160 pages) letters of rebuttal (makes Mr. Darcy's letter to Elizabeth Bennet seem like child's play).  He married Thomas Jefferson's granddaughter, and was an executor of his will, as well as one of his proteges.  

I also didn't know much about Sam Houston, so I really enjoyed learning about this dynamic, gregarious man, and now want to read a full biography of him.  Everything I knew about Polk I had learned from the Jackson bio I read last year, but Morgan didn't paint a glowing picture of this Machiavellian president.  I absolutely fell in love with General Winfield Scott, "Old Fuss and Feathers," and would love to read more about him as well.  And then, I've always had a soft spot for John Quincy Adams since I watched the John Adams mini-series--my goodness, a diplomat to Russia at age 14, and he swallowed his pride and served as a congressman for years after he lost the presidency!  And, I daresay, he was the "noblest Roman of them all" but letting his 1928 campaign supporters smear Rachel Donelson Robbiard Jackson, Andrew Jackson's wife, was shameful.

I did like the way the author drew on and quoted from a host of historians, many whose names I recognized but whose works I never read.  I tend to read more recent historians, but that doesn't make the research, opinions, and scholarly work of their predecessors less valid.

Incredibly, this book was not part of any of the various reading challenges I have signed up for this year.  I read it just because and is one of the reasons I am behind schedule on those same challenges!

William Ranney, Daniel Boone's First View of Kentucky, 1849

History and Biography, Jackson and Lincoln

I recently read, back to back, two history books about two presidents, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham, and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  It was interesting reading them sequentially, both from a historical sense and to compare how Meacham and Goodwin approached their subjects.

I've read a fair amount the Civil War and some on the Revolutionary War and the early years of the republic, but I really haven't read much on the years 1820 to 1850, so I found the Andrew Jackson book fascinating for the history I learned as well as a much better understanding of Jackson although I can't say I am a Jackson fan.  If you are considering this book, be forewarned that it is not a true biography but instead focuses on the eight years that Jackson was in the White House and the people who made up his formal and informal (aka Kitchen) cabinet and extended family.  Meacham jumps around a lot and doesn't even give Jackson's backstory a chronological treatment. Although this is a bit annoying, the overall book is so interesting that I was will to put up with the jagged narrative although I'm still not sure why Meacham chose to tell his story in this way.

The part I enjoyed most involved Jackson's niece and nephew, Andrew and Emily Donelson.  Andrew was Jackson's heir apparent, and Emily was like a daughter to him, serving as hostess at the White House--Jackson's wife died shortly after he was elected president but before the inauguration.  However, they had a severe falling out midway through the first term because Emily would not "receive" Peggy Eaton, the wife of Jackson's Secretary of War.  This Petticoat affair, was just one of many scandals that rocked the Jackson administration.  Sadly, Emily died of tuberculosis during Jackson's second administration.  Her First Lady duties were assumed by the wife of Jackson's adopted son.

Emily Donelson

I'm ready for a mini-series that focuses on the Jackson White House--would be good fun and great history.

The second book, on Abraham Lincoln and his multi-party cabinet, was absolutely excellent.  I've long been a fan of Goodwin, having enjoyed her memoir, Wait 'Til Next Year, as well as her book about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and eager to read her books on LBJ and the Kennedys.  Back to Lincoln, this book. like the Jackson one, isn't a true birth-to-death with all the details bio but rather focuses on a slice of history, the cabinet that Lincoln put together and that helped him administer and eventually win the Civil War.

The title, Team of Rivals, says it all.  The chief players in the cabinet were men who Lincoln ran against for the Republican nomination in 1860--William Seward, Edward Bates, Salmon Chase, and Edwin Stanton.  I loved learning about the backgrounds of each of these men as well as reading about Lincoln's political genius when it came to working with them, working through them to give his country a "new birth of freedom."

Left to right, Stanton, Chase, Lincoln; Seward and Bates are on the right in the foreground.

As with the Jackson book, one of my favorite parts of the Lincoln book was the part that dealt with his wife Mary.  The death of her son, Willie, during Lincoln's first term was truly a devastating shock from which she never recovered, and my heart simply ached for her and all that she endured.

Mary Todd Lincoln

While Meacham and Goodwin both chose to write about their presidents' administrations rather than providing a full biography of each, Goodwin is clearly the stronger writer.  Her narrative is more cohesive and linear, easier to follow, and more compelling.  That said, I enjoyed both books immensely and heartily recommend them.