Trails of Yesterday

By John Bratt

Book Overview

Revised

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803260555
• ISBN13: 9780803260559
• Release Date: June 1996
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Trails of Yesterday by John Bratt

This book is just delightful, considering it was written by an old gentleman who was raised with good moral values and such a gentlemanly attitude. He tells of his coming to the USA to try to make a living for himself and ended up being a cowboy. It is just thrilling to read of the experiences he had as a bullwhacker and other cowboy adventures. It is heartwarming to know that his wife and daughter saw to it that the book was published first in 1921 after Mr. Bratt died unexpectedly before finishing his years of work in writing this book. It is truly a gem, in my opinion. If you enjoy reading Western factual history, it is very good!

Western adventures

This memoir is the story of John Bratt, an Englishman who came to America near the end of the Civil War and, after many adventures, ended up a successful rancher in Nebraska and two-tern mayor of North Platte. Bratt was an educated man with a good business head and a strong set of personal principles (he neither swore, drank, smoked, or gambled; a humorous incident is related where he admonishes himself for backsliding in the swearing department, though his comrades praise him for it. A not so humorous incident is also told where his fellow bullwhackers force a bottle of red eye whiskey down his throat and almost kill him.) After arriving in New York in 1864, Bratt went to Chicago where he became a successful trader on the Chicago Board of Trade. A disastrous trip to New York via New Orleans, during which a storm in the Gulf of Mexico destroyed his goods and left him nearly penniless, is described, as is his time helping to build a levee along the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Red River. But then he signed up with an outfit delivering goods to Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming by ox team, and here's where the western adventures begin. He describes sights along the old Oregon Trail, especially Ft. McPherson, and many troubles with Indians beyond Ft. Laramie. He stayed on at Phil Kearny for a few months, mainly hauling hay for the fort, encountering Indian hostility almost daily. He left (he implies because of a vision of impending disaster) just before the notorious Fetterman massacre. Back in Nebraska after a few other adventures, Bratt established a ranch south of North Platte and had a successful operation. But times were changing and homesteaders were moving in and breaking up the big spreads, so Bratt sold out and moved his family into North Platte and built a home there and got into the real estate and insurance businesses. North Platte was still a pretty wild place (some of the stories he tells about gunfighters and drunken melees seem embellished), and Bratt, the steady, moral citizen, was elected mayor to put things in order. By all accounts, it appears he did ("I helped," he says). Bratt was an educated man and takes an historical approach in these memoirs. His style is straightforward and episodic (as opposed to reflective). The second half is more raggedy than the first, as if he was getting tired with his endeavor (indeed he died before finishing the work, which his wife completed for him). His prejudices are plain: he has nothing good to say about the Indians. Unfortunately, the book shows no editing and appears as first published, and, even more disappointing, there is no index. However, it's an interesting first-hand account of one man's experiences in the West, especially the first half of the book. Recommended.