Member: barnabas

I recently sent you a cover for "Pecos Bill": A Military Biography of William R. Shafter by Paul H. Carlson. While looking through your profile, I noticed your interest in General Ranald S. Mackenzie. Thanks to that, I recently added copies of Bad Hand and The Most Promising Young Officer to my library.
Do you know about any books on other Indian Wars generals, such as Terry, Crook, and Gibbon? There is a biography of Canby, but it is fairly old (1959) and hard to find.

posted by DVanderlinde at 2:40 pm (EST) on May 2, 2009

FYI
I have uploaded a cover for "Pecos Bill": A Military Biography of William R. Shafter by Paul H. Carlson.

posted by DVanderlinde at 11:08 pm (EST) on Apr 24, 2009

I have been fascinated by Mackenzie all my life. As a Cub Scout we visited Fort Concho in San Angelo. Of course, the good colonel used the fort as a staging area several times during the Texas Indian wars of the 1870s. In college I took Texas History from Dr. Ernest Wallace who was considered a leading expert on the man. Just a few minutes ago I reshelved his book, Randall Slicell Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier. Glad you made contact, sorry for the long delay in seeing your message. Let me know what you hear from Williams.

posted by barnabas at 1:20 pm (EST) on Apr 30, 2007

Okay, so I am just getting used to LibraryThing, stumbling around, feeling my way, and then -- boom! -- I'm confronted with the tag "Randall Slidell MacKenzie." Whoa. Well, I'm assuming that you find this brilliant, tormented, strange man as fascinating as I do, while the rest of the world fusses over that idiot Custer. At any rate, you may get a kick out of this: Yesterday, I decided to drop into the website for Williams College in Mass. I was curious what they had to say about MacKenzie. Even though he had left in his junior year, once MacKenzie gained some fame in the Civil War, the college had, of course, re-entered him on the rolls of the class of 1859. Later, they gave him an honorary master's. So, what was on their website? Nothing. Zip. Trying to play fair, I went to the alumni magazine and searched it. Nothing. I checked over on Wikipedia under "Williams College People" -- noted grads -- and MacKenzie wasn't even included in the tiny -- just two names -- "Military" section. Well, I dashed off an e-mail to the editor of the alumni magazine, leading off with the "most promising officer in the Army" quote and then briefly summarizing his career, including its bizarre and tragic end. I haven't heard back from them but who knows?

posted by cgoodnight1 at 11:07 pm (EST) on Mar 21, 2007