Compare+and+Contrast+(Harrison)

by Capt. J.A. Sutter’s launch which arrived here a few days since from Fort Sacramento— we received a letter from a friend at that place, containing a most distressing account of the situation of the emigrants in the mountains, who were prevented from crossing them by the snow,— and of a party of eleven who attempted to come into the valley on foot. The writer, who is well qualified to judge, is of the opinion that the whole party might have reached the California valley before the first fall of snow, if the men had exerted themselves as they should have done. Nothing but a contrary and contentious disposition on the part of some of the men belonging to the party prevented them from getting in as soon as any of the first companies.
 * __First Article__** Distressing News.

The follow particulars we extracted from the letter:

The company is composed of twenty three waggons, and is a part of Col. Russell’s company, that left the rendezvous on Indian Creek near the Missouri line on the 13th day of May last. They arrived at Fort Bridger in good time, some two weeks earlier than the last company on the road. From that point they took the new road by the south end of the Great Salt Lake, which was then being marked out by some seventy five waggons with Messrs. Hastings and Headspath as pilots.

They followed on in the train until they were near the “Weber River canion,” and within some 4 or 5 days travel of the leading waggons, when they stopped and sent on three men, (Messrs. Reed, Stanton and Pike) to the first company, (with which I was then travelling in company,) to request Mr. Hastings to go back and show them the pack trail from the Red Fork of Weber River to the Lake. Mr. H. went back and showed them the trail, and then returned to our company, all of which time we remained in camp, waiting for Mr. Hastings to show us the rout.

They then commenced making the new road over the Lake on the pack trail, so as to avoid the Weber river canion, and Mr. Reed and others, who left the company, and came in for assistance, informed me that they were sixteen days making the road, as the men would not work one quarter of their time. Had they gone on the road that we had made for them, they would have easily overtaken us before we reached the old road on Mary’s river. They were then but some 4 of 5 days travel behind the first waggons, which were travelling slow, on account of being obliged to make an entire new rout for several hundred miles through heavy sage and over mountains, and delayed four days by the guides hunting out passes in the mountains, and these waggons arrived at the settlement about the first of October. Had they gone around the old road, the north end of the great Salt Lake, they would have been in the first of September.

After crossing the long drive of 75 miles without water or grass, and suffering much from loss of oxen, they sent on two men (Messrs. Stanton and McCutcher.) They left the company recruiting on the second long drive of 35 miles, and came in to Capt. J. A. Sutter’s Fort, and asked for assistance. Capt. Sutter in his usual prompt and generous manner, furnished them with 7 of his best mules and two of his favorite Indian vaqueros, and all of the flour and beef that they wanted. Mr. C.S. Stanton, a young gentlemen from Syracuse, New York, although he had no interest in the company, took charge of the vaqueros and provisions, and returned to the company. Afterwards, Mr. Reed came in almost exhausted from starvation; he was supplied with a still larger number of horses and mules and all the provisions he could take. He returned as far as the Bear river valley, and found snow so deep, that he could not get to the company. He cached the provisions at that place and returned.

Since that time (the middle of November,) we heard nothing of the company, until last week, when a messenger was sent down from Capt. Wm. Johnson’s settlement, with the astounding information that five women and two men had arrived at that point entirely naked, their feet frost bitten— and informed them that the company arrived within three miles of the small log cabin near Trucky’s Lake on the east side of the mountains, and found the snow so deep that they could not travel, and fearing starvation, sixteen of the strongest, (11 males and 5 females) agreed to start for the settlement on foot. Scantily clothed and provided with provisions they commenced that horrid journey over the mountains that Napoleon’s fete on the Alps was childs play compared with.

After wandering about a number of days bewildered in the snow, their provisions gave out, and long hunger made it necessary to resort to that horrid recourse casting lots to see who should give up life, that their bodies might be used for food for the remainder. But at this time the weaker began to die which rendered it unnecessary to take life, and as they died the company went into camp and //made meat of the dead bodies of their companions.// After travelling thirty days, 7 out of the 16 arrived within 15 miles of Capt. Johnson’s, the first house of the California settlements; and most singular to relate, all the females that started, 5 women came in safe, and but two of the men, and one of them was brought in on the back of an Indian.

Nine of the men died and seven of them were eaten by their companions— The first person that died was Mr. C.S. Stanton, the young man who so generously returned to the company with Capt. Sutter’s two Indian vaqueros and provisions; his body was left on the snow. The last two that died was Capt. Sutter’s two Indian vaqueros and their bodies were used as food by the seven that came in. The company left behind, numbers sixty odd souls; ten men, the balance women and children. They are in camp about 100 miles from Johnson’s, the first house after leaving the mountains, or 150 from fort Sacramento. Those who have come in say that Capt. Sutter’s seven mules were stolen by the Indians a few days after they reached the company, and that when they had left, the company had provisions sufficient to last them until the middle of February.

The party that came in, were at one time 36 hours in a snow storm without fire; they had but three quilts in the company. I could state several most horrid circumstances connected with this affair: such as one of the women being obliged to eat part of the body of her father and brother, another saw her husband’s heart cooked &c; which would be more suitable for a hangmans journal than the columns of a family newspaper. I have not had the satisfaction of seeing any one of the party that has arrived; but when I do, I will get more of the particulars and sent them to you.

As soon as we received the information we drew up the appeal of which I enclose you a copy, calling a meeting in the armory of the Fort, explained the object of the meeting and solicited the names of all that would go. //We were only able to raise seven here,—// they started this morning for Johnson’s to join the party raised there. Capt. J.A. Sutter in his usual generous manner ordered his overseer to give this brave band of men, all the provisions they could carry. They took as much beef, bread, and sugar, as they thought they could carry and started in good spirits on their long and perilous trip. Capt. Kern the commander of the Sacramento District, will go up as far as Johnson’s to-morrow to assist in starting the party, and may go as far as the Bear River Valley. **__Second Article__** NOBODY likes reading about a plane crash. In the collective unconscious, the fear of dropping out of the sky is right up there with being buried alive or, say, having to eat the corpses of one’s friends to survive. “Miracle in the Andes,” Nando Parrado’s account of the infamous 1972 plane crash in the Andes, captures these and other horrors. And as a result, a certain amount of mental fortitude is required to crack the spine of this book (which was written with Vince Rause, a freelance journalist). Thankfully, the grisly tragedy evolves into an affecting tale of almost mystical perseverance and physical stamina. The story is real-life legend, though for all its telling (first, as front-page news) and retelling (in Piers Paul Read’s book, “Alive” and, later, the movie starring Ethan Hawke), the ordeal remains as fascinating as it is mind boggling. A chartered Fairchild airplane, carrying a Uruguayan rugby team to an exhibition match in Chile, clips a mountain peak deep in the Andes. The fuselage breaks apart, and everyone seated behind the wings tumbles into the teeth of the mountains. The front half of the plane crashes onto a glacier at nearly 12,000 feet, with subzero winds swirling and the shrieks and moans of those impaled by metal and crushed by seats. It’s enough to make those who lived through it seem like the unlucky ones. Parrado’s skull is fractured and after three days near death, he wakes up to find his sister dying, his mother dead. In the first of several miracles, many of the players are either unscathed or wounded only superficially, among them two medical students who set bones and ration the group’s paltry supply of snacks. (Parrado makes one chocolate-covered peanut last three days.) They think the worst is over, and await rescue. Sociologists couldn’t devise a more revealing experiment in group dynamics. It is both disquieting and reassuring to see how quickly people adapt to unspeakable circumstances, how fast horrors are normalized. In daylight everyone gets a job — tidy the fuselage, melt snow for water, nurse the injured — and at night these young people pack together to keep warm, slapping their limbs to keep their blood from freezing. When there is not a scrap of food left and the dead keep piling up and thoughts of rescue are abandoned, the group decides cannibalism is the only way to survive. The cutters know whose remains are eaten each day, though Parrado’s family members and another woman are off-limits. Slivers of flesh are dried in the sun like jerky. In this way the weeks pass until the young men realize someone will have to climb out to get help. And when Parrado and two others set off on a trek over the mountain with a quilt made of plane insulation, rugby boots on their feet and human flesh in their packs, the grim-to-grimmer tale becomes a thrilling mountaineering story. No crampons, no ropes, no ego, no climbing simply because the mountain is there. In adventure narratives, risk is often a gimmick, such as when the physical challenge is simply impossible, or merely a conceit, as in the case of extreme athletes who manipulate danger for effect, knowing full well they will most likely live to write their acknowledgments page. In either case, the proximity to peril is intentional, and that makes the risk less compelling. Obviously, Parrado survives to tell his side of things, but the story of how he does it should humble even the most jaded adventure seeker. **__Two Different Views__** History often repeats itself. That is a fact. Whether it is war tactics or the fashion of the crashing of the stock market, history always leaves an echo of its odd pattern. There are some events that you hope could only happen once. The tragic tale of the Donner Party is one of those events. This historic event left about eighty people trapped in the mountains, eventually losing their hope and sanity, and leaves some resorting to cannibalism to survive. How could this ever be allowed to happen again? It seems impossible. Unfortunately in 1972, a plane carrying a team full of rugby players crashed in remote section of the Andes. With no hope of rescue, injured, freezing, and quickly running out of food, they were forced to eat the flesh of the dead bodies in order to survive. And like Donner Party, a number of survivors had to walk out of the mountains to get help. They seem so alike, but their stories and how they were told to the world was different in every way. The first article, written in 1846, was the first news to get to San Francisco of the Donner Party. The message was later published in the //California Star// after the first rescue party, the First Relief, left Sutter’s Fort to look for survivors. The title is “Distressing News,” and the author does live up to that title with what he says, saying that it was the “most distressing account of the situation of the emigrants in the mountains.” But then just a few seconds later, it seems like he is agreeing with another man saying the men did not exert themselves and that is why they were there in the first place. It was almost like they, the writers, were blaming the whole thing on all the men. This nearly contradicts the title “Distressing News,” assuming the author feels sympathy, but instead goes and said the ordeal was their fault. The article is full of dates and quick facts—also containing many spelling and grammar errors—that basically summarize what happened on the trail with Lansford Hastings. It swiftly describes the Donner Party taking the wrong route and stating that they would have been in California by the time they got to the lake if they had just taken the original road. It also describes the sight of the survivors of the Snowshoe Party and how horrible they looked with simple facts. The author tells of how sixteen of the strongest people—which is incorrect; there were only fifteen—walked out of the mountains to find help. Only seven made it. The author does describe the Herculean effort the Party went through, though. It seems that he had some admiration for these people for conquering the mountains, which contra-dicts the statement he made in the beginning paragraph. This author seems to be always changing his mind. The author does briefly touch upon the disgustingness of the cannibalism. He uses a word like “horrid” often and to put emphasis on parts, he uses italics to get his point across. Also, the author does not mention the fact that the Snowshoe Party murdered Luis and Salvador. He is hiding the truth or just does not know of it. The person writing this article does mention the terribleness of what people faced: the eating of family members, the roasting of organs. The author is sympathetic, but he is also somewhat emotionless. I found him just stating the facts, his own opinion just barely slipping into the work. The second article, written by Louise Jarvis Flynn in 2006, is much like the first one in 1846, but it is also incredibly different. It starts out at once telling of the terrors Nando Parrado and the others faced from start to finish in the whole ordeal. She uses words like “tragedy” and “grisly” and “horrors.” You can tell the author has great respect for the survivors of //Miracle in the Andes//, the book she is reviewing, telling of the amazing perseverance and stamina the young men faced. Unlike the first article where the author was simply stating facts, this article displays the people as the true survivors they were. Flynn easily does this while also summarizing the exposition of the book. She describes the setting containing “subzero winds” and people falling into “the teeth of the mountains.” You can easily picture the chaos of the crash and the mountains with her imagery and fast-paced summary. As Flynn goes into the more horrifying part of the true story, her information about cannibalism and freezing temperatures becomes blunt, much different than the first article when emphasis was on the cannibalism. This is not an accident. How she says these things so factual and casually makes it more terrifying. The words like “cutters” and her quick, effective sentence: “Slivers of flesh are dried in the sun like jerky,” send a cool shiver down your spine and makes you come aware of the true barbarism of the situation. But what I found alike in both articles was the fact that both authors felt sympathy for the victims. Though the first author’s sympathy may be slight, he does portray it when he describes the fetes the Snowshoe Party had to come over, comparing it to Napoleon’s journey over the Alps. The second article’s author’s sympathy is very obvious. But she also shows something of the survivors of the plane crash that the first article did not: she shows them as heroes. She displays Nando Parrado and his traveling partner, Roberto Canessa, as saviors as they make it out of the mountains to bring rescue to the others back in the plane. Flynn explains their lack of any equipment and no ego, which reinforces the incredible-ness of their survival and their bravery. She even says “the story of how he does it should humble even the most jaded adventure seeker.” Two tragedies. Alike in so many ways, yet told to the world so differently. Times were different, times have changed. But we will always remember both forever.