09-15-2021, 04:07 PM
The Last of the California Rangers by Jill L. Cossley-Batt
California Rangers came out in 1928. It's a biography of William Howard who was born in Virginia on a slave plantation, took those slaves to Texas and eventually found his way to Mariposa. You would think that a book written fifty years after the end of the Civil War you might at least start thinking of the other races as human beings, but no so much in this book. There was one story in the book where an African American man was beaten and dragged through the streets after he purported to assault a white woman. The African American was eventually killed by the mob. Captain Howard (self appointed) saw the mob but his big take away was that he met a pretty girl during the festivities and they made a date to meet up later. It was a little off putting. But there were lots of scenes like that in the book.
This book caught my eye, because it has one of the other accounts of the Mariposa Battalion and the entry into the Yosemite Valley. James Savage comes across as a con man in this telling of the story. There is also made mention of Bunnell's book on the same subject and how it is now the authority on the subject despite it's inaccuracies. That being said, Cossley-Batt liberally quotes Bunnell in her book about the incidents.
The book is written in a very hyperbolic style. All the men are true and forthright and clear eyed, unless they are scoundrels. And in the end, I didn't get as much out of the book as I hoped. But I do know that Captain Howard was able to build a home on Mirror Lake.
California Rangers came out in 1928. It's a biography of William Howard who was born in Virginia on a slave plantation, took those slaves to Texas and eventually found his way to Mariposa. You would think that a book written fifty years after the end of the Civil War you might at least start thinking of the other races as human beings, but no so much in this book. There was one story in the book where an African American man was beaten and dragged through the streets after he purported to assault a white woman. The African American was eventually killed by the mob. Captain Howard (self appointed) saw the mob but his big take away was that he met a pretty girl during the festivities and they made a date to meet up later. It was a little off putting. But there were lots of scenes like that in the book.
This book caught my eye, because it has one of the other accounts of the Mariposa Battalion and the entry into the Yosemite Valley. James Savage comes across as a con man in this telling of the story. There is also made mention of Bunnell's book on the same subject and how it is now the authority on the subject despite it's inaccuracies. That being said, Cossley-Batt liberally quotes Bunnell in her book about the incidents.
The book is written in a very hyperbolic style. All the men are true and forthright and clear eyed, unless they are scoundrels. And in the end, I didn't get as much out of the book as I hoped. But I do know that Captain Howard was able to build a home on Mirror Lake.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm