Review of The View from Officers\u27 Row: Army Perceptions of Western Indians

Careful students of the American West have long realized that making valid generalizations about the officers who served in the frontier army is extraordinarily difficult. For example, a major theme in Soldier West: Biographies from the Military Frontier (1987), edited by Paul Andrew Hutton, was the rich variety in experiences, interests, and personalities among army officers. Now, Smith, an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso, demonstrates how ambivalent and contradictory the officers were in their perceptions of virtually every aspect of Indian affairs. And, importantly, she recognizes that officers\u27 wives also lived on officers\u27 row, and wherever possible she probes their attitudes