The December, 1917, number of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review maintains the high standard of excellence which readers have been led, by the character of previous numbers, to expect in this periodical. The three leading articles are: “Howell Cobb and the Crisis of 1850,” by R. P. Brooks; “A Larger View of the Yellowstone Expedition, 1819-1820,” by Cardinal Goodwin; and “The Beginnings of British West Florida,” by C. E. Carter. Dan E. Clark contributes the annual review of historical activities in the trans-Mississippi Northwest, and to complete the number are departments devoted to “Notes and Documents,” “Book Reviews,” and “Notes and Comments.”
Announcement has recently been made of the resignation of Clarence W. Alvord as managing editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, in which capacity he has acted since the founding of the magazine in 1914. The Review, largely because of the efforts of Mr. Alvord, now ranks among the best of American historical publications. Its readers will greatly regret Mr. Alvord’s resignation.
The leading article in the October, 1917, issue of the Iowa Journal of History and Politics, describes the Iowa war loan of 1861. By reason in part of a doubtful provision in the state constitution, in part of the concerted efforts of the southern sympathizers living in Iowa, the state administration encountered greater difficulty in floating a war loan than was the case in any other northern state. Through the columns of the distant New York Herald the enemies of the loan conducted their campaign to defeat it. The manner in which Governor Kirkwood and his assistants overbore the opposition and saved the reputation of the state is vividly described.
The life of Samuel J. Kirkwood, Iowa’s war governor, by D. E. Clark, has been issued as one of the Biographical Series of the Iowa Historical Society. The study of Governor Kirkwood’s life takes
the reader into the history of three commonwealths, but it is with the development of Iowa that his name is inseparably associated. As Civil War governor, United States senator, and secretary of the interior under Garfield, his name is perhaps more widely known than that of any other person in Iowa history. In preparing the biography, Mr. Clark had access to seven Civil War Letter Books and three letter books for the period when Kirkwood was secretary of the interior. Use was also made of a large collection of letters, covering the period from 1850-1890. From these sources the author has given us a sketch of Iowa’s noted war governor which is both timely and valuable.
In a two-volume work on Burrows of Michigan and the Republican Party published by Longman, Green and Company, 1917, William Dana Orcott has presented a detailed career of one of Michigan’s most famous men. As lawyer, college professor, military hero, and United States senator, Burrows gained an acquaintance that was nation wide. In ability he ranked with Blaine, Garfield, Reed, and McKinley; and had he not been so blindly devoted to the partisan principles which he represented, in all probability he would have occupied a higher office.
The Michigan Historical Magazine for October, 1917, contains an interesting group of Civil War letters written by Hon. Washington Gardiner while serving as a volunteer in 1863-64. The letters were all written from the front, and depict the conditions observed by this youthful soldier of sixteen years.
Those who enjoy reading a frontier narrative will welcome a little volume recently published, entitled A Soldier Doctor of our Army: James P. Kimball. The book was written by Maria B. Kimball, wife of Dr. Kimball, and is published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. Dr. Kimball served in the Civil War and later for a number of years at Fort Buford and other places on the western frontier. He was an intimate friend of General Custer, by whom he was chosen to act as the chief medical officer on the campaign which ended in Custer’s death in 1876. But for his inability to meet the appointment, his career would doubtless have terminated at the same time as Custer’s in the disaster which overwhelmed his army.
The Myth Wawataw is the subject of a brief dissertation, beautifully printed, by H. Bedford Jones of Santa Barbara, on the unreliability of Alexander Henry’s account of the events in the Northwest connected with Pontiac’s war. A brief discussion is also included in the booklet on the historical remains at old Michilimackinac.
The October, 1917, number of the Ohio Archeological Historical Quarterly has an article on Muskingum River pilots by Irven Travis