Adventure on Red River. Report on the Exploration of the Head-
waters of Red River by Captain Randolph B. Marcy and
Captain G. B. McClelian. Edited and annotated by Grant
Foreman. (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1937.
Pp. xxxi, 190. $2.50.)

Grant Foreman has contributed much to the study of the south-
western frontier. Not the least of these contributions is this
reprint of Captain Marcy's report which serves to make available
to the lay reader a colorful document that has long been consulted
by the historian as part of United States Senate Executive Docu -
ment No. 54, Thirty-second Congress, second session. The original
document, not readily obtainable save in larger libraries, included
320 pages followed by two maps and sixty-three plates. The
reprint is Captain Marcy's journal and originally occupied 117
pages of the complete report. One map has been reproduced in
the present text.

Adventures on Red River is an account by Captain R. B. Marcy
of the fourth of five exploring expeditions that he led into west-
ern Oklahoma and Texas. More specifically it gives the first
authentic report concerning the country in which Red River rises.
This report established, the Prairie Dog Town Fork of Red River
as the main upper water course of the stream and thus indirectly
deprived Texas of Greer County.

Marcy's report is worth republishing in a popular form. He
was a careful observer, a man of wide intelligence, and wrote
tersely and accurately. Foreman's notes accompanying the text
are rather meager. Inasmuch as I have little acquaintance with
the region traversed I can not vouch for their accuracy or descry
their inaccuracy. One error does seem apparent on page 16, where
Foreman remarks that Cache Creek was one hundred miles above
the most remote settlement. He, in another publication, speaks
of Warren's trading house at that locality in 1852. A map super-
imposed upon modern political boundaries would have been help-
ful, a lack which is partially redeemed in Foreman's Pioneer Days
in the Southwest, save for the fact that Marcy's route there is
dated "1853." Except for these unimportant errata, the book
should be praised for its intent, its accomplishment, its attractive
format, and excellent typography.

College of Mines and Metallurgy,

Rex W. Strickland.

How to cite:
"Adventure on Red River", Volume 42, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v042/n3/review_DIVL4009.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 12:31:27 CST 2008]