And The River Ran Red by Rod Miller

This review originally appeared in the November 2021 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

Miller shines light on a sordid chapter of westward expansion in this fictionalized account of the U.S. Army’s 1863 massacre of as many as 400 Shoshonis at Bear River in what is now southern Idaho. A California detachment is sent to a desolate western post to police matters among Native Americans, wagon train settlers, and Mormons. Historical background for the army, the Indians, and the Mormons sets the scene, and the tale is told via fictionalized accounts of historical figures: Army officers, Shoshoni chiefs, and Brigham Young and his henchman Porter Rockwell. Descriptions of the remote landscape are vivid, and the army’s mission to Bear River unfolds with a sense of foreboding. Heinous imagery of a climactic battle scene has shock value, and the outcome is unsurprising given superior numbers of soldiers armed with superior weapons. In this saga, blame for the dark moment seems to attach to all parties, though the biggest share surely lies with ruthless army officers held largely unaccountable by the political and military establishment during Civil War years. Miller, a Utah native with a dozen western novels to his credit, is also a poet and essayist.