Kit Lit & Fit

I am proud and excited to report we are publishing a very cool original article based on a chapter in Paul Andrew Hutton’s
next book (page 24).

As we were prepping this issue for press, we realized that most of the photographs of the legendary—and now controversial—scout and frontiersman Kit Carson, show him in old age, pained and a tad weather-beaten and emaciated. And, yet, at the time of the events covered in Paul’s masterful story about the so-called Bear Flag Revolt, Carson was 36 years old and in the prime of his life. Fortunately for me, our editor, Stuart Rosebrook, found a lesser-known photo of a younger Carson which I had never seen before (see below).

A Young Kit Carson

So we scrapped our original cover concept, and I took a swing at a cover painting that skewed more toward his younger visage.

Paul Andrew Hutton’s Next Book

The Undiscovered Country is an epic history of the frontier movement and the struggle for control of the American West from colonial times through 1900, using the lives of seven men—Daniel Boone, Red Eagle, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Mangas Coloradas, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill Cody—to tell the story. It will be published late next year by Penguin Random House/Dutton.

Kit Carson’s Conflicting Descriptions

As large as Kit Carson looms on the American frontier, it’s interesting how those who knew him described him. Here is John C. Fremont’s description: “He was a man of medium height, broad-shouldered, and deep chested, with a clear steady blue eye and frank speech and address: quiet and unassuming.” Contrast that with the description by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who met the famous scout in Monterrey in 1847: “I cannot express my surprise at beholding such a small, stoop-shouldered man, with reddish hair, freckled face, soft blue eyes, and nothing to indicate extraordinary courage or daring. He spoke but little and answered questions in monosyllables.” Either way, Carson made his mark on the West.