Book review concepts and analysis

Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes

Heading: McGrath, Roger D. Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

Reviewed by:

Roger McGrath's book asserts that none of the blame for today's violence in America's cities can be pinned on the rowdiness of the frontier. The kinds of violence that occurred in the West as America was being settled was entirely different from today's big city violence, he insists. The book goes into great detail to describe the social values that existed in the mining towns, which were more protective of women and innocents than most people realize.

The book provides an in-depth examination of what life was like in frontier towns and villages in America. The author carefully, expertly references existing records (in newspapers and books) written by well-known authors like Alex de Tocqueville to show that the gunfights and hangings were between consenting male adults and were just part of a system of justice that was well-structured in those days. McGrath covers the Civil War, mining camps, thieves, vigilantism, and he writes that the robbery rate in the frontier was about 84 people robbed per 100,000 (in New York City in 1980 it was 1,140 out of every 100,000 people).

Analysis: McGrath makes clear from the first page of his Preface that the picture many Americans have of the frontier is incorrect. it's a powerful way to launch into his book. He writes that the movie industry, television and popular literature have created a myth that social structure and law enforcement were absent in the "old west." He promises to investigate through well-documented sources; he delivers on his promise and footnotes his sources methodically.

As to his narrative style, McGrath uses mainly short, succinct sentences, some of which would be technically considered "fragments" by some professors and by spell-check software systems. McGrath prefers a matter-of-fact journalistic approach with careful use of literary embellishments. As for particulars, he does the word "found" in a clumsy way several times. To wit, in the opening line in his Preface - "The early morning hours of Thursday, 13 June 1878 found Patrick Gallagher's Shamrock saloon in Bodie crowded with men" (xi) - hours don't and can't "find" anything. And on page 86 ("The cold and snowy month of April 1863 found James Sears...") month's don't "find" people. Still, this book is easy juvenile or adult reading, unpretentious, and the humorous descriptions of life in these wild times are entertaining.

New York Times critic, William Broyles Jr., writes that McGrath's chapters on the mining boomtown of Aurora "provide some wonderful frontier tales..." (about Samuel Clemens and the Daly gang's lynching by vigilantes) "...but otherwise add little to either our understanding of the West or Mr. McGrath's hypothesis" (Broyles, 1984). This is an unfair and unjustified attack on McGrath's book. A quick review of the sections on Aurora, with it's "highly structured" institutions of "law and justice," its climate, its percentage of prostitutes ("perhaps half" of the population), and its rich veins of gold and silver, were well presented, informative, and made a contribution to his thesis and to the substance of the book.