On the Illinois Frontier: Dr. Hiram Rutherford, 1840-1848 (review)

Abstract

186CIVIL WAR HISTORY author's unwieldy sentence structure reads: "He called on the people to turn out, and his call found a ready audience when on the following day a number of representatives from surrounding settlements showed up in response to an earlier call from the Political Chief [the capitals are McDonald's] at Brazos which had been based on the unofficial reports of the Governor's [sic] arrest." The book contains a few minor errors in fact. Travis did not make the last appeal on March 3. He sent sixteen-year-old Jim Allen with the final plea for aid to Fannin, at Goliad, on March 5. McDonald accepts the old fallacy that Travis took the cat's-eye ring from his finger and fashioned a necklace for the infant Angelina Dickinson. The diminutive ring, Rebecca's betrothal gift to Travis, was one she impulsively removed from her own hand. Undoubtedly, Travis wore the memento suspended from a string inside his shirt. I examined the ring minutely when I had professional photographers photograph it, along with other Alamo memorabilia. Strapping, six-foot Travis could not have gotten the ring on his little finger. In conformity with the text, a truncated index concludes the work. The index—a mere listing of names of persons and places—offers no breakdown of the material into its component areas such as students would find helpful. McDonald has been credited with some good work. His Travis is a conspicuous exception. Martha Anne Turner Sam Houston State University On the Illinois Frontier: Dr. Hiram Rutherford, 1840-1848. Edited by Willene Hendrick and George Hendrick. (Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. Pp. xxv, 115. $19.95.) After an uneventful journey from Pennsylvania in 1840, young Dr. Hiram Rutherford arrived in eastern Illinois. He soon began to correspond with John Bowman ofElizabethtown, Pennsylvania, intending to maintain contact with Bowman's sister, Lucinda, whom he later married. The correspondence between Dr. Rutherford and Bowman and between Dr. and Mrs. Rutherford and her mother forms one portion of this slim volume, the best portion. The letters are not profound, but they do provide useful glimpses of frontier life: prices and wages, the variety of occupations, the scarcity of servants, and the importance of hogs are some of the economic conditions cited; climate, rich soil and "our immense plains blooming with the richest verdue" (p. 45), buffalo and other wildlife receive attention, as does an awesome prairie fire; references to social conditions and localpolitics abound; loneliness, sickness , death, and other hardships are evident; the frontier's role in improving women's status is noted (p. 35), as is the practice of birth con- book reviews187 trol—"We have concluded to pospone [sic] [another child] for a yearor so yet" (p. 46). Prevalent diseases and their treatments are discussed, and finally, the letters reveal much about Dr. Rutherford, including his surging ego—"Here I walk a lord of the soil. The Doctor is the greatest man in the country" (p. 15)—and his fondness of money. The second portion of the work, of dubious value, consists of Dr. Rutherford's recollections of early Oakland, Illinois. The third portion consists of accounts of the roles played by Dr. Rutherford, Abraham Lincoln, and others in the Matson trial. Unlike many edited works, this one has an index. A good introduction adds additional strength, as do several illustrations. The bibliography is meager, however, and the absence of a map is bothersome. The footnote on Arminianism (p. 105) is nearly useless, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is curiously labeled (p. 135). In sum, the work is limited and has flaws, but it is interesting and of value. James E. Davis Illinois College The Papers of AndrewJohnson: Volume4, 1860-1861. Edited by LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976. Pp. L, 745. $20.00.) The Papers of AndrewJohnson: Volume5, 1861-1862. Edited by LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978. Pp. borii, 676. $20.00.) Publication of the first volume of The Papers ofAndrewJohnson, a project sponsored by the University of Tennessee, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the...