William P. MacKinnon is an independent historian who lives in Santa Barbara, California. A widely recognized authority on Utah's violent territorial period and the U.S. Army's western campaigns, he is the author of numerous journal articles and the author-editor of At Sword's Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858.
This monumental work reflects a half-century of far-reaching
research by the acknowledged expert on the Utah War. William P.
MacKinnon's wealth of knowledge is exhibited in the relevant choice
of documents and lively commentary provided in Parts 1 and 2.
Highly recommended."" - Richard E. Turley Jr., coauthor of Massacre
at Mountain Meadows
""Far more than a mere military history of conflict and response,
the author traces the actors and their immediate antecedents as
well. He explores their motivations and goals, and he ties together
dozens of threads coherently. . . . Those interested in the story
of American expansion or in intricacies of overland travel before
the railroad will find the book tremendously interesting. The Utah
War allowed the U.S. Army to solidify its knowledge of the
continent's geophysical heart, making possible and necessary both
the formal exploration of the West and establishing a federal
presence in military forts. Because of the book's amazing scope -
including every level of the action from local nobodies to
international geopolitics - At Sword's Point has changed the field
on which study of the time is made. The historical study of Utah,
the overland West, and of the United States' riven political scene
during the 1850s will never be the same."" - Richard Saunders, in
Overland Journal
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