Book Reviews
In Search of Captain Warner (revised) by Patricia Barry, et al.
Story
of a courageous soldier revealing the history of an amazing time in
American and California 1800s history.
Together, Patricia Barry and Philip Warner, tell the story of the life of Captain William Warner, whose military career spans the years 1831 when he entered West Point Military Academy to his untimely death in 1849 near what are today named the Warner Mountains in northeast California. Captain Warner was a military surveyor in the Army Corp of Topographical Engineers, and served in many assignments across the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. He began his career in Maine, surveying and establishing the US-Canada border there. He next served in Florida in the Seminole Wars, and then was part of the Trail of Tears American Indian relocation campaign. He was posted to the SW during the Mexican War, and then California, in time to take part heroically in the California Rebellion from Mexico, fighting in the battle of San Pasqual. After pursuing his own entrepreneurial adventures the Gold Rush, he was given the order, in 1849, to survey northeast California in order to find a railroad route into California from the East. He had nearly determined that there wasn’t one, when he met his untimely death when attacked by a band of American Indians, near what is today the corner of the California-Nevada-Oregon border. Many a locale bears his name in this part of the world. His story is one of a very brave and courageous American soldier, and reveals the history of an amazing time in American and California History.
