Any one that's a fan of the early west history will enjoy this book. This is a group of articles combined by Captain Jack Crawford and his experiences in the Black Hills. The time is 1875 during the Gold Rush and in the time of the famous Battle of the Little Big Horn. The life of the early frontier mining towns along with the issues of dealin g with the local indians like the Sioux and Cheyenne make for interesting reading. Crawford himself was quite a character as a contempory of Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Cody. This is a very interesting read of a short-lived time in the western frontier.The South Dakota State Historical Society Press along with author Paul L. Hedren’s Book “Ho! For the Black Hills.” is worth the time spent reading. ( )

Very interesting compilation of articles by "Captain Jack" Crawford, one of the first settlers in the Black Hills. Crawford traveled there in 1875 during the gold rush, later becoming a scout for Gen. George Crook and participating in the Battle of Slim Buttes, just a few months after the Little Bighorn. In his articles, Crawford shamelessly promotes the Black Hills, especially his adopted home town of Custer, but paints a fascinating portrait of early life in this rapidly growing (and technically illegal) community. His writing style takes a little getting used to, but his articles are an interesting glimpse into a unique and short-lived scene of American history.

Paul Hedren, the editor, adds a lengthy introduction to each chapter, which does a good job of providing context and background to Crawford's letters. ( )

Newspapers are said to be the “rough draft of history” and Paul Hedren has done fans of the Old West a favor in collecting several dozen very lengthy and very detailed accounts by Capt. Jack Crawford published in the Omaha Daily Bee 1875-6, during the height of the Black Hills Gold Rush and ensuing Sioux War. Crawford was one of the rough and tumble characters of the post-Civil War West; a contemporary of Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok yet never achieving their fame and recognition.

Writing from the gold fields of the Black Hills, Crawford reported on life at the frontier mining towns as well as the attempts by the U.S. Army to remove the Sioux and Cheyenne from the Black Hills. He was witness to the Battle of Slim Buttes and provides a very detailed account.

Hedren does a commendable job of putting Crawford’s correspondence in context, providing sufficient background for anyone not familiar with the gold rush or the Indian War to appreciate and understand Crawford’s commentary, and several maps of the region (with Crawford's travels indicated) are included. ( )

Ho! for the Black Hills: Captain Jack Crawford Reports the Black HIlls... by Paul Hedren is a unique history book. It is a third commmentary by the author about the veracity of the letters sent to the Omaha Bee, the paper John Crawford wrote to about the gold rush to the Black HIlls of the Dakota territory. HIs commentary aids understanding what is the substance of the book, the letters themselves. The letters cover the actual gold rush and the building of communities in the enbattled area. The geographic area was in the boundaries of the Sioux reservation, but the lure of gold drew miners into the region despite Army attempts to remove them. Ultimately conflict had to come about between the Indians, who at the time had clear title to the lands, and the miners, who were setting up communities and political systems. The result was the Indian Wars of 1875 - 76. Crawford's letters cover those events and also describes adventures he had in the surrounding wilderness and with unique characters found only in a place like the Black Hills.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is an easy read, made moreso by the author's commentary on Crawford and his letters. This is not a history of the Black Hills or that region's history, but rather a single view from one man living in the time. He has his prejudices, as we do today, but nonetheless the adventures and his depiction of them are worth reading. I give this book 4 stars. ( )

A note about these newly posted non-link reviews.

This was a “win” from the LibraryThing.com “Early Reviewers” program … and something of a surprise. First of all, it was a release from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press, which certainly is a “niche” publishing house, and I doubt that I would have come into contact with it had it not been a LTER book. The book, in hardcover, has been out since this summer, but this is quite “early” for the paperback, which isn't due out until next July. While I do, from time to time, read “histories”, the format of Paul L Hedren's Ho! For the Black Hills: Captain Jack Crawford Reports the Black Hills Gold Rush and Great Sioux War is, I believe, quite unique in my reading, being about 2/3rds primary resources (letters reporting to the Omaha Bee and other newspapers) from Captain Jack Crawford, and about 1/3rd contextifying material from the editor/author.

The period of time dealt with in the book is primarily 1875-1876, the start of the gold rush into the Black Hills, in Nebraska and the Wyoming, Montana, and Dakota Territories. This region is still controversial, as the area is held as sacred to the Native American tribes, and there had (at that point) only fairly recently been established reservation lands for the Lakota and Cheyenne in the area. Where it must have seemed to the US government and many of the tribal leaders that they'd finally reached a territorial compromise, the discovery of gold brought in a large number of fortune-seekers. Initially the government made efforts to dissuade these miners … General George Crook had posted the following throughout the gold prospecting camps:

Whereas the President of the United States has directed that no miners, or other unauthorized citizens, be allowed to remain in the Indian reservation of the Black Hills, or in the unceded territory to the west, until some new treaty arrangements have been made with the Indians.
And Whereas, by the same authority, the undersigned is directed to occupy said reservation and territory with troops, and to remove all miners and other unauthorized citizens, who may be now, or may hereafter come into this country in violation of the treaty obligations: -
Therefore the undersigned hereby requires every miner and other unauthorized citizen to leave the territory known as the Black Hills, the Powder river, and Big Horn country by and before the 15th day of August next.
He hopes tha the good sense and law abiding disposition of the miners will prompt them to obey this order without compelling a resort to force. ...

Needless to say, the majority of the miners, etc., ignored these orders, and the military was very unwilling to “resort to force” to clear them out, especially as there was a constant stream of new folks coming into the region. This build-up, and infiltration into the lands set aside for the Sioux via the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 by the miners and speculators, was one of the main triggers of the “Great Sioux War of 1876”, famed for skirmishes such as Custer's demise at the Little Big Horn. However, with the US still reeling from the Civil War, economic stresses such as the “Panic of 1873” encouraged many men to head west to seek their fortunes.

Jack Crawford had been born in Northern Ireland and had immigrated to the US with his family. His father had been wounded in the early parts of the Civil War, and Jack followed him into the military, enlisting when his father re-entered the army in 1864. Jack was wounded, recuperated, rejoined his unit, was wounded again, and eventually mustered out at the end of the war in 1865. During his second, extensive, hospitalization, he was taught to read and write by the Sisters of Charity. By 1875 he was presenting himself to the editors of the Omaha Bee, gaining employment at first as a watchman, and eventually getting an assignment to cover the Black Hills gold rush for the paper.

Ho! For the Black Hills is mainly based on Hedren's research in the microfiche archives of the handful of newspapers that Crawford ended up “corresponding” for over those next couple of years. What is less clear here is how exactly Jack went from illiterate guy working in a series of jobs to the flamboyant “Scout” persona he affected in his journalistic career and beyond. The author tries to piece together the itineraries of various Wild West shows that Crawford might have encountered, and makes a good case of how these likely provided a template and impetus for his character and westward adventures. Again, most of the book is comprised of the materials that Hedren was able to dig up from the writings that “Captain Jack Crawford - Poet Scout” had submitted to the newspapers. These are largely rambling reports of what he saw, who he met, what was happening in assorted locales, what sort of gold was being produced where, how communities were developing, and even on-going reports on what basic supplies cost. This is a fascinating window into a different time and place, but it generally does not lend itself to excerpting here.

The last of the newspaper pieces comes from October of 1876, at which point Jack Crawford began moving into his new career as a Wild West show character. He had, essentially, resigned as a scout upon taking up the cause of a New York Herald reporter, and rushing back to civilization to get that story placed before others … netting him both the gratitude (and significant payment) of that paper, and the animosity of the US military. He had made contact with assorted notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, and eventually became part of that show, before setting out to produce his own. He died in New York in 1917.

If you're interested in “the wild west”, and the period of the Indian Wars, you will no doubt find this a very attractive book. The combination of “history” and original documents is quite enticing, and it provides a very interesting perspective on those conflicts. Again, the main part of Ho! For the Black Hills covers Crawford's reports over just about a year and a half, so is a very detailed look at his experiences in that time. As noted above, this is sort of between editions … the hardcover has been out for several months, and the paperback (which is what they sent out for review) doesn't come out till next summer. The on-line big boys have copies of the former, and are now taking pre-orders for the latter. Because of it coming from a small press, I don't know how much luck you'd have finding this at your local brick-and-mortar, but you could, I suppose, order it through them, or from the publisher at http://sdshspress.com/. I rather enjoyed reading this, and I'd suppose anybody with an interest in any of the basic themes here would find it worth picking up.

CMP.Ly/1

A link to my "real" review:
BTRIPP's review of Paul L Hedren's Ho! For the Black Hills: Captain Jack Crawford Reports the Black Hills Gold Rush and Great Sioux War (1170 words)