Alexander William Doniphan (1808-1887)--Missouri attorney, military figure, politician, and businessman--is one of the most significant figures in antebellum Missouri. From the 1830s to the 1880s, Doniphan was active in a variety of affairs in Missouri and held firm to several underlying principles, including loyalty, hard work, the sanctity of the republic, and commitment to Christian charity. However, the key to Doniphan's importance was his persistent moderation on the critical issues of his day.

Doniphan became a household name when he served as the commanding officer of the famed First Missouri Mounted Volunteers during the Mexican-American War. It was during this time that he won two battles, established an Anglo-American-based democracy in New Mexico, and paved the way for the annexation of the territory that became New Mexico and Arizona. He is also recognized by the Mormons for his assistance to their beleaguered church during Missouri's "Mormon War" and for his refusal to execute Joseph Smith when ordered to do so by his commanding officer.

Although Doniphan was a slaveholding unionist, he sought a middle ground to stave off war in the 1850s and early 1860s and served as a delegate to the Washington Peace Conference in 1861. When conflict escalated along the western border of Missouri in 1862, Doniphan moved to St. Louis, where he worked as a lawyer with the Missouri Claims Commission, seeking pensions for refugees.

Doniphan early adopted the Whig ideal of the "positive liberal state" and sought to use the power of government to remake society into something better. Once he saw the heavy-handed use of state power during Reconstruction, however, Doniphan reversed his views on the role of the government in society. For the rest of his life, he resisted government incursions into the lives of the people and sought to restore a healthy Union.

Alexander William Doniphan will be of interest to academic specialists and general readers alike, especially those interested in Mormon studies, Missouri history, military history, and Western history.

 When a Mormon missionary stopped by the Taylor home in 1836, Leonora was more interested than was John. However, John was the one who finally decided to move from Toronto to church headquarters in Ohio, and it was John’s commitment that survived their temple worship experience there, when it was disrupted by several pistol- and bowie-knife-wielding apostles.

As half the church fell away in Ohio, the Taylors escaped to Missouri with the faithful, just in time for the 1838 Mormon War. John’s role became that of an advocate with Congress—to convince them that it was the non-Mormons who had sacked the county seat and burned their own homes, for instance. As a literary experience, this was good preparation for later editorships of church newspapers in Illinois, New York, and Liverpool.

From his personal letters and speeches, and from the diaries and reminiscences of associates, vivid images of Taylor’s life appear: his children crossing the Missouri River on the backs of oxen “bulls”; one of his ten plural wives packing a piano instead of a cookstove for the trip and then later regretting it; and Native Americans teaching him how to burn a cricket-infested field, gather the roasted insects, and grind the carcasses into flour.

Taylor’s eventual tenure as church president was spent “on the dodge” from federal marshals, and prior to that he often lived out of a suitcase, rotating from one of his sixteen families to the next. Among his greatest achievements was the settlement of as much territory as was colonized by his more famous predecessor, Brigham Young. Taylor was also a visionary man. His personal spirituality led the church through one of its most turbulent times; his revelations later inspired the Mormon fundamentalist schism, as well. This controversy, mingled with the drama of internecine power struggles and interpersonal conflict, makes The Last Pioneer suspenseful and largely unforgettable.