Waged over the glitter of Black Hills gold, the Sioux War of 1876-77 transformed the entire northern plains from Indian and buffalo country to the domain of miners, cattlemen, and other Euro-American settlers. Keyed to official highway maps, this richly illustrated guide leads the traveler to virtually every principal landmark associated with the war, from Fort Phil Kearny where the Sioux besieged soldiers sent to guard the Bozeman Trail in the 1860s to Fort Buford, the site of Sitting Bull's surrender in 1881.
Founded in 1834 on the high plains of present-day eastern Wyoming. Fort Laramie evolved into an organizational hub and chief supply center for the U.S. Army in its campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. Fort Laramie and the Great Sioux War focuses on a crucial year in the history of the fort, 1876. That was the year of General George Crook’s Big Horn; the Black Hills gold rush; and chaos at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Indian agencies. Paul Hedren draws upon official army records, diaries, and journals to illuminate a fort-based history of the Great Sioux War, and for this edition he also provides a new preface.
The Great Sioux War pitted almost one-third of the U.S. Army against Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyennes. By the time it ended, this war had played out on twenty-seven different battlefields, resulted in hundreds of casualties, cost millions of dollars, and transformed the landscape and the lives of survivors on both sides. In this compelling sourcebook, Paul Hedren uses extensive documentation to demonstrate that the American army adapted quickly to the challenges of fighting this unconventional war and was more effectively led and better equipped than is customarily believed.
In War-Path and Bivouac, published in 1890, John Finerty (1846–1908) recalled the summer he spent following George Crook’s infamous campaign against the Sioux in 1876. Historians have long surmised that Finerty’s correspondence covering the campaign for the Chicago Times reappeared in its entirety in Finerty’s celebrated book. But that turns out not to be the case, as readers will discover in this remarkable volume. In print at last, this collection of Finerty’s letters and telegrams to his hometown newspaper, written from the field during Crook’s campaign, conveys the full extent of the reporter’s experience and observations during this time of great excitement and upheaval in the West. An introduction and annotations by Paul L. Hedren, a lifelong historian of the period, provide ample biographical and historical background for Finerty’s account. Four times under fire, giving as well as he got, Finerty reported on the action with the immediacy of an unfolding wartime story. To his riveting dispatches on the Rosebud and Slim Buttes battles, this collection adds accounts of the lesser-known Sibley scout and the tortures of the campaign trail, penned by a keen-eyed newsman who rode at the front through virtually all of the action. Here, too, is an intimate look at the Black Hills gold rush and at principal towns like Deadwood and Custer City, captured in the earliest moments of their colorful history. Hedren’s introduction places Finerty not only on the scene in Wyoming, Montana, and Dakota during the Indian campaign, but also in the context of battlefield journalism at a critical time in its evolution. Publication of this volume confirms John Finerty’s outsize role in that historical moment.
Major help for American Indian History term papers has arrived to enrich and stimulate students in challenging and enjoyable ways. Students from high school age to undergraduate will be able to get a jump start on assignments with the hundreds of term paper projects and research information offered here in an easy-to-use format. Users can quickly choose from the 100 important events, spanning from the first Indian contact with European explorers in 1535 to the Native American Languages Act of 1990. Coverage includes Indian wars and treaties, acts and Supreme Court decisions, to founding of Indian newspapers and activist groups, and key cultural events. Each event entry begins with a brief summary to pique interest and then offers original and thought-provoking term paper ideas in both standard and alternative formats that often incorporate the latest in electronic media, such as iPod and iMovie. The best in primary and secondary sources for further research are then annotated, followed by vetted, stable Web site suggestions and multimedia resources, usually films, for further viewing and listening. Librarians and faculty will want to use this as well. With this book, the research experience is transformed and elevated. Term Paper Resource Guide to American Indian History is a superb source to motivate and educate students who have a wide range of interests and talents. The provided topics typify and chronicle the long, turbulent history of United States and Indian interactions and the Indian experience.
This volume offers accounts of the many battles and skirmishes in the Great Sioux War as they were observed by participating officers, enlisted men, scouts, surgeons, and newspaper correspondents. The selections-some rendered immediately after the encounters and some set down in reminiscences years later - are important and little-known sources of information about the war. By their personal nature, they give a compelling sense of immediacy to the actions. The editor's introduction and commentary on each of the accounts help readers understand the interrelationship of events and appreciate the entire spectrum of the conflict.
From the War of 1812 to the end of the nineteenth century, U.S. Army officers were instrumental in shaping the American West. They helped explore uncharted places and survey and engineer its far-flung transportation arteries. Many also served in the ferocious campaigns that drove American Indians onto reservations. Soldiers West views the turbulent history of the West from the perspective of fifteen senior army officers—including Philip H. Sheridan, George Armstrong Custer, and Nelson A. Miles—who were assigned to bring order to the region. This revised edition of Paul Andrew Hutton’s popular work adds five new biographies, and essays from the first edition have been updated to incorporate recent scholarship. New portraits of Stephen W. Kearny, Philip St. George Cooke, and James H. Carleton expand the volume’s coverage of the army on the antebellum frontier. Other new pieces focus on the controversial John M. Chivington, who commanded the Colorado volunteers at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1863, and Oliver O. Howard, who participated in federal and private initiatives to reform Indian policy in the West. An introduction by Durwood Ball discusses the vigorous growth of frontier military history since the original publication of Soldiers West.
The Great Sioux War of 1876–77 began at daybreak on March 17, 1876, when Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds and six cavalry companies struck a village of Northern Cheyennes—Sioux allies—thereby propelling the Northern Plains tribes into war. The ensuing last stand of the Sioux against Anglo-American settlement of their homeland spanned some eighteen months, playing out across more than twenty battle and skirmish sites and costing hundreds of lives on both sides and many millions of dollars. And it all began at Powder River. Powder River: Disastrous Opening of the Great Sioux War recounts the wintertime Big Horn Expedition and its singular great battle, along with the stories of the Northern Cheyennes and their elusive leader Old Bear. Historian Paul Hedren tracks both sides of the conflict through a rich array of primary source material, including the transcripts of Reynolds’s court-martial and Indian recollections. The disarray and incompetence of the war’s beginnings—officers who failed to take proper positions, disregard of orders to save provisions, failure to cooperate, and abandonment of the dead and a wounded soldier—in many ways anticipated the catastrophe that later occurred at the Little Big Horn. Forty photographs, many previously unpublished, and five new maps detail the action from start to ignominious conclusion. Hedren’s comprehensive account takes Powder River out of the shadow of the Little Big Horn and reveals how much this critical battle tells us about the army’s policy and performance in the West, and about the debacle soon to follow.
