To August Derleth the saga of Wisconsin is not a tale of heady conquest, but one of understanding of the suffering and betrayal experienced by two races which could not live together in peace and equality. And, giving meaning to the tragedy of a people doomed to extermination, is ["Wind Over Wisconsin"], the story of friendship between two men, Black Hawk and Chalfonte Pierneau, holding each other in high esteem and affection but powerless to stem the tide of affairs which separate them. Each suffered pain and disillusion, but at the end it was the conquering white who found it hardest to swallow the defeat and humiliation of the conquered….
Besides telling the story of Wisconsin of this era, Mr. Derleth tells the story of Chalfonte's courtship of his second wife, but so powerful is the drama and romance of the country that the personal drama is dwarfed by it. Mr. Derleth has recreated the scene with power and with tenderness and the men who walk through it carry their strength and their weakness with unerring direction. A vast amount of historical research has gone into this book, but beneath the scholarship one finds something deeper, a love for the land which is Wisconsin…. And because Mr. Derleth is a poet, this book takes on the stature of a singing epic concerned alike with white man and red.
Rose C. Feld, "Untamed Country of the 1830's," in New York Herald Tribune Books, April 24, 1938, p. 7.
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