Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West

5 stars This book is a comprehensive and in-depth study of Christopher “Kit” Carson; his life and times. Mr. Sides has obviously done exhaustive research into not only Carson, but the settlement and growth of the West as well. His detailed book touches on several well known subjects of the West from the ill-fated Donner party, the wars with Mexico to the Civil War and the eventual attempt to subdue and “conquer” the Native Americans. While the book mainly discusses the Navajo tribes, it also touches on the other Native tribes as well. Thus the reader learns a great deal about the Navajo and their legendary leader Narbona. He was a peace-loving chief who tried his best to get along with the soldiers. There were those in his tribe who violently disagreed with his policies, however. Chief among them was his own son-in-law. Narbona was widely respected though, not only among his own people, but among other tribes as well. The book discusses the various tribes that inhabited the plains, their customs and beliefs. It was some of these beliefs that got the Americans (as they are termed in the book), in trouble with the Natives. While there was one or perhaps two well meaning Americans who dealt with the Natives, by and large they were hard men who did not even try to understand their way of life. The reader learns about the travails and hardships of traveling across the West from Missouri and other places in the East all the way to California. Soldiers who knew nothing about the area set out to conquer the Mexican army and annex California and all lands east for the United States of America. Kit Carson plays a part in many exchanges with the Natives. He was married to a young Native woman who gave him a daughter. Essentially a shy man who spoke little, he was very decisive in his actions. He was clever, could not stand bullying and had a fiery temper when provoked. He traveled with some of the big names in history such as Fremont, Bent, Kearney and so on, but made his home near Taos in what is now New Mexico. He had a lifelong embarrassment about being illiterate. He can to hate the way of life in the East. He preferred the outdoor life he had chosen for himself when he left Missouri as a young boy and became a trapper and mountain man. When trapping petered out, he became a scout and soldier with the US Army. Although he was a great friend to the Navajo, his eventual actions led to their downfall and devastation. This is a very excellent book. I believe it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the settling of the West and the tragedy of the Native Americans. It is reminiscent in some ways to Larry McMurtry's writings, it is wholly non-fiction. Mr. Sides is not a dry author. He makes history interesting and engaging. The book doesn't just quote facts and figures, but tells the reader about the people. We get to learn about who they were apart from their actions; their fears, their weaknesses and interests.

The title of the book is the moniker used to describe the ' dime novels ' written about Kit Carson's adventures during the turbulent Indian Wars of the 1850's through the 1860's. Hampton Sides writes an epic account of what really happened in the Southwest. This non-fiction work is more than a story about Carson's life, it's also about America's first imperialistic strike westward led by our 11th President, James K. Polk. We kicked- out Mexico and settled California during his four year term. The guts of the book deals with what happened next... What to do about the colliding worlds of the indians and the white settlers moving west to occupy the new territories won from Mexico, especially the nomadic and fearsome Navajo tribe. Based on Hampton Sides research, I found Kit Carson's life quite incredible. Here is a man that couldn't read or write, yet could speak Spanish and seven different indian languages. He lived as a frontiersman, trapper, indian fighter, guide, and as a Colonel in the Union Army. He had the innate ability to see right from wrong, act with bravery, honor, and commitment. During his lifetime, he was married three times and had eight children. His first wife was Arapaho, the second was Cheyenne and the third wife, Josefa was Spanish. He had meetings with President Polk, he was a friend of General William Tecumseh Sherman, Navajo leader Narbona, Senator Thomas Benton, John C. Fremont, and General Stephen Watts Kearny, the father of the American cavalry. The escapades written about Kit gave me the feeling that he was truly a American hero. This book was worth reading just to discover what a miraculous life he led during a dangerous period in the history of America's Southwest. Yet, the author sites incidents where Kit Carson gunned down people in cold blood, because he was ordered to do it by a superior officer, or someone he respected. Go figure! The inane killing of Navajo leader Narbona by a drunken Union soldier over a stolen horse caused his son- in-law, Manuelito to declare war against America! While the Union Army were fighting the Confederates from Texas during the Civil War, The Navajo had carte blanche to murder emigrates and steel their cattle and sheep. After the Civil War ended, the U.S.A. realized that the Navajo had to be stopped, or else the move westward couldn't continue. Enter General James H. Carleton! He prodded Col. Kit Carson to prosecute the Navajo, burn their food supply and force them to accept a reservation life far from their natural boundaries. Many Navajo were killed, while the survivors were in a state of starvation. The rest of the book deals with the ' Long Walk ' of the Navajos from New Mexico to the Bosque Redondo ( Round Forest ) Reservation, where infectious corn crops, dysentery, syphilis and Comanche attacks almost destroyed the Navajo people. If you want to know how they survived, you will have to read this wonderful book. As a child I watched 'The Adventures of Kit Carson' , staring Bill Williams on television, thinking he wasn't a real person. Wow, now I know better! His T.V. sidekick, El Toro doesn't show up in this book. I also watched 'The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok' ! These cowboys were real heroes from the 1800's and need to be studied. I find myself searching for books about old western characters that helped shape America in it's early years. Hampton Sides did a yeoman's job in his research and storytelling. While it's not non-fiction that reads like fiction, it is very close. I guess that's why I felt that I wasn't reading a history book, but a good old western! I give this palatable book my highest rating.

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides is a sweeping, richly detailed narrative that intertwines biography, history, and the drama of America’s westward expansion. The author paints a vivid portrait of Kit Carson, not as the mythologized frontier hero of dime novels, but as a complex, often contradictory figure whose life mirrored the violent collision between Native American nations and the United States. The book skillfully blends Carson’s personal story with the larger story of the Navajo Wars, the exploration of the Southwest, and Manifest Destiny. Sides’ prose is cinematic yet deeply researched, bringing to life both the beauty and brutality of the 19th-century frontier. Presented as a balanced perspective; with Carson’s courage and skill acknowledged, Sides does not shy away from the moral ambiguities and devastating consequences of the conquest. Blood and Thunder is both an engrossing adventure and a sobering meditation on the costs of empire, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the American West’s true and complicated history.

404 pages of text; 16 pages of B&W plates; 2 two-page endpaper maps; 22 pages of end notes (citations); 2 page Acknowledgements; and a 14 page Selected Bibliography. This is a biography of Kit Carson, but paralleled by the contemporary history of the Navaho people. The story follows Carson as he leaves an apprenticeship to become a Mountain Man, his relocation to New Mexico as the Mountain Man era waned, his incredible feats in the Mexican War, his fame, and his Civil War leadership. As a Brevet Brigadier General, he may have been the only illiterate general officer in US Army history. His involvement in the Bosque Redondo tragedy was only after he tried to resign to avoid it, but his resignation was denied by his commanding officer. A real page turner about a 19th century Forrest Gump (he was on intimate terms with John and Jessie Fremont, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the Bent brothers, Steven Watts Kearny, and General Sherman, fought notably in the battles of Valverde and San Pasquale, and was summoned by President Polk to the White House to give his a briefing) and western icon. The book is also informative on the history of the Navaho people and their centuries long conflict with the hispanic settlers on New Mexico. Highly recommended.

Outstanding book, nicely and easy to read story. Recommended to anyone passionate about history! I would definitely read this again.

I purchased this book first on Kindle. I haven't even finished reading it yet, but I had to buy it a second time in paperback for a number of reasons. I have not been disappointed by the author or the historical narrative. The author has researched and collated an incredible amount of data. Kit Carson seems like a minor player but he holds the historical weave together as the author pieces the narrative together so that it reads like a great novel. Indigenous peoples, immigrants from Europe, revolutionary war soldiers, families, trappers, those seeking a new life, new religious freedom, and a new government look and move ever westward. All of this human movement is compounded by European powers seeking to maintain or control lands in the Americas and in the west, the fight with Mexico, the Navajo wars, Mexico's fight with Spain, the French, the English, the influence of the Catholic Church, the War of 1812, the forcible removal of indigenous people from the east to the west creating tensions with tribes in the west, the politics and impact of "manifest destiny", and so much more. This is not the dry, piecemeal history bits we experienced in school. It is a broad expansive mosaic that unites seemingly random events that ebb and flow with the politics, tragedies, personalities, and world events of the time. It covers mostly the southwest but also points south into Mexico and north into Canada. I live in, and have wandered, all over the Southwest. I visited the home of Kit Carson, travelled over the Oregon trail, the Mormon trail, the Turquoise trail, the Pony Express trail and several others. I have visited Las Vegas, New Mexico, Taos, Santa Fe, Pecos, Albuquerque, and trader forts in Colorado, the many canyons in Utah and Arizona. As I read I am back in those places and want to go back again just to follow the trails in this book. I also do family genealogy. This book is a wonderful resource for those whose families were early in the country and then moved west into Ohio, then again to St. Louis, and again to Texas, the Southwest, and into California. They came by many routes for many reasons. I think it is also a great book for beginners who know little to nothing about the southwest and how critical it was to the formation of the United States. It is also critical to understanding the history behind so many contentious issues that are still being decided to include citizenship and voting rights, immigration, indigenous peoples, state rights, water rights, land rights and so much more. There are 74 pages of annotations with sources, source locations, a bibliography and an index. Finally, humanity is present in every page. It is humans, our ancestors, that came before us, the good, the bad and the ugly. We live with the results of their decisions, their hardships, successes and failures, their art, music, happiness and sadness. The Navajo were forced from their traditional lands and agreed to a treaty that defined their reservation domain. It is thousands of acres about the size of the state of Ohio but for the Navajo the acreage was not important. The location was more important for the land is sacred to the Navajo. They had to march 400 miles to reach the reservation and as they neared the boundary line at the Rio Grande "and saw the Blue Bead Mountain for the first time, the Navajos fell to their knees and wept. As Manuelito put it, "We wondered if it was our mountain, and we felt like talking to the ground, we loved it so". "They continued marching in the direction the coyote had run" chanting. Beauty before us Beauty behind us Beauty around us In Beauty we walk It is finished in beauty {page 497) NOTE: If you order the book in paperback, order it separately from other orders. My paperback was included in a box that included two boxes of shelving. It was not wrapped and allowed to flop around in a gap space that damaged the front cover and slightly damaged some front pages. If someone had wrapped and taped the book in some of the brown paper thrown in on top of the boxes It would not have been damaged. Lesson learned. [see photos]

I think that Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides is a great book because it taught me so much about the Western Frontier in its rise and about one of the most famous explorers of all time, Kit Carson. The book is written well and allows for easy reading. It makes sense that the book is so good because it is written by someone with a BA in History. Hampton Sides completes his purpose of teaching the reader about the rise of the Western Frontier and Kit Carson. This is one of my favorite books because I learned so much about the country that I live in and about the people that worked to make sure that there was a country for the future. I wouldn’t mind reading it again because reading about Carson is always an adventure that no one could pass. Sides also helps students who are trying to learn about the rise of the Western Frontier and Carson by giving them all of the information they need to master the subject. I would recommend this book mainly to people who want to learn about the rise of the Western Frontier and Kit Carson. If you weren’t wanting learn about these subjects the book would seem very slow and awkward because it focuses on those two main subjects. The Indians also allow for another subject to please or interest readers. A casual reader would want to read this only for its action and suspense because it would excite the reader to hear about Carson’s adventures. For example, I couldn’t put down the book because Carson was in duel with a hotheaded trapper at the annual trapper “rendezvous”. Carson won in the end because his shot hit the other man in the shoulder, causing him to shoot wildly and it spooked his own horse. Later Carson would say that if it wasn’t for the spooked horse of the other opponent, he would have died. This is the kind of action that would catch the reader. These reasons are why I recommend this book mainly for people wanting to learn about the rise of the Western Frontier and Carson: I would maybe recommend to readers wanting action and adventure. I enjoyed reading this book and I hope others will too.

Subtitled "The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West", this 2006 well-documented saga transported me to a time and a place that I've been hearing about all my life. It's all packed into a mere 497 pages and every page unearthed new facts and figures about the history of America from the 1820s to the late 1860s. The narrative is tied together by following Kit Carson, a frontiersman from the American southwest, a trapper and soldier who was illiterate, but was able to speak five different Indian languages as well as Spanish. I learned a lot from this book, mostly about the people who were involved in what is sometimes called the "manifest destiny" to expand America from ocean to ocean and conquer all peoples who got in their way. Here we meet a cast of familiar characters from President James K. Polk who instigated the Mexican War, to army explorer John Charles Freemont as well as all the army officers and politicians who played a role in changing the landscape of America forever. We also meet the Indians. The writer brings a critical eye and a deep understanding to the politics of the time which forced the destruction of the various Indian groups. I learned more than I ever thought I would about Indians, especially the Navajos, who fiercely resisted the American expansion but, in the end, became but a shadow of their former selves. The book is rich in detail, and every page is full of facts. Kit Carson saw himself becoming a legend in his own time. Mostly, this legend was pure fabrication from the pens of flamboyant writers, but his name is forever linked with those turbulent times which saw him eventually becoming an officer for the Union army and leading battles against the Indians who he certainly respected. The book is interesting and also a little dense for my taste. I found I was forgetting the names of the battles and the officers and the different tribes of Indians as I was reading. It was one of those books that I read all the words but let the details wash over me as I experienced the bigger picture of how the west was won. It was bloody and it wasn't nice. There was cruelty and injustice but that's just the way things were. We can't whitewash the truth of history. Blood and Thunder gave me a fresh perspective on what really happened all those years ago that formed the America I know and love today. It is not for a book everyone though. I just happen to love history.