The Plains Indian War was one of the most controversial conflicts in American military history, as the US Army faced a tough opponent that challenged it for decades following the end of the Civil War. The Army leadership endured a severe lack of resources, political constraints, an indifferent public, tough environmental conditions, and other problems of the frontier. Army officers and men had to adapt to these constraints, and this period also proved to be a trial of the ability and endurance of the common soldier. This title details the organization, development, training, tactics and command structures of the US Army during its subjugation of the Plains Indian tribes.
Thanks to Hollywood's many portrayals of the US Cavalry, it is little understood that the infantry played as great a part in the Indian Wars of the 1860s-80s, and were more consistently successful. The great Paiute War of 1866, where the infantry of the most renowned Indian-fighting general, George Cook, excelled in battle, together with the role of other infantry units in the final subjugation of Geronimo's Apaches in 1886, are but two instances of their achievements. Moreover, after the Custer massacre, it was the infantry under Gen Nelson Miles who out-fought Crazy Horse's Sioux in the Wolf Mountains in 1877; Crazy Horse christened them 'Walk-a-Heaps'. The struggle against the Indians was the longest war in American military history and the Indians were formidable opponents. They knew the terrain, could live off the land and fielded some of the finest light cavalry in the world. Facing such a determined foe, one soldier even wrote: "The front is all around and the rear is nowhere." The US Infantry endured years of sporadic battles that were bitterly contested against an enemy who was fighting for their very survival. Presenting an illustrated history of these critical but overlooked soldiers of the Indian Wars, and featuring their involvement in the legendary battles of Wounded Knee and Wolf Mountains, this narrative includes details of their tactics, training, uniforms and equipment culminating in the eventual "closing" of the American Frontier in 1890 and the final conquest of the indigenous inhabitants of North America.
The Plains Indian War was one of the most controversial conflicts in American military history, as the US Army faced a tough opponent that challenged it for decades following the end of the Civil War. The Army leadership endured a severe lack of resources, political constraints, an indifferent public, tough environmental conditions, and other problems of the frontier. Army officers and men had to adapt to these constraints, and this period also proved to be a trial of the ability and endurance of the common soldier. This title details the organization, development, training, tactics and command structures of the US Army during its subjugation of the Plains Indian tribes.
The enlisted men in the United States Army during the Indian Wars (1866-91) need no longer be mere shadows behind their historically well-documented commanding officers. As member of the regular army, these men formed an important segment of our usually slighted national military continuum and, through their labors, combats, and endurance, created the framework of law and order within which settlement and development become possible. We should know more about the common soldier in our military past, and here he is. The rank and file regular, then as now, was psychologically as well as physically isolated from most of his fellow Americans. The people were tired of the military and its connotations after four years of civil war. They arrayed their army between themselves and the Indians, paid its soldiers their pittance, and went about the business of mushrooming the nation’s economy. Because few enlisted men were literarily inclined, many barely able to scribble their names, most previous writings about them have been what officers and others had to say. To find out what the average soldier of the post-Civil War frontier thought, Don Rickey, Jr., asked over three hundred living veterans to supply information about their army experiences by answering questionnaires and writing personal accounts. Many of them who had survived to the mid-1950’s contributed much more through additional correspondence and personal interviews. Whether the soldier is speaking for himself or through the author in his role as commentator-historian, this is the first documented account of the mass personality of the rank and file during the Indian Wars, and is only incidentally a history of those campaigns.
The Plains Indian War was one of the most controversial conflicts in American military history, as the US Army faced a tough opponent that challenged it for decades following the end of the Civil War. The Army leadership endured a severe lack of resources, political constraints, an indifferent public, tough environmental conditions, and other problems of the frontier. Army officers and men had to adapt to these constraints, and this period also proved to be a trial of the ability and endurance of the common soldier. This title details the organization, development, training, tactics and command structures of the US Army during its subjugation of the Plains Indian tribes.
"A model of analytical history. In . . . spare, cogent prose, Wooster delineates military strategy against the western tribes, places the political influence of the Gilded Age military establishment in solid perspective, gives an able survey of the institutional structure of the postwar army, briefly describes key Indian campaigns, and presents pithy characterizations of leading western military personalities. . . . Wooster's book places events in a national, and in military terms international, context. In so doing he has made a major contribution to frontier and military scholarship".-Paul Andrew Hutton, American Historical Review. "A superior and important book. . . . [Wooster] succinctly identifies and illumines significant truths about the military establishment and its role in the final stages of confrontation and conflict along the western Indian frontier".-Robert M. Utley, Journal of American History. "A provocative example of the new historiography. . . . Students of the Indian wars have frequently suffered from a form of myopia. . . until now, no one has undertaken so comprehensive or critical a look at the army's role in formulating and implementing Indian policy".-Bruce Dinges, New Mexico Historical Review. Robert Wooster, an associate professor of history at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, is the author of Nelson A. Miles and the Twilight of the Frontier Army (Nebraska 1993).
This occasional paper is a concise overview of the history of the US Army's involvement along the Mexican border and offers a fundamental understanding of problems associated with such a mission. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the historic themes addressed disapproving public reaction, Mexican governmental instability, and insufficient US military personnel to effectively secure the expansive boundary are still prevalent today.
“The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that’s the way we go,” runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. “Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!” The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian’s remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers—drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs—to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier. After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores. Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.’s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars’ accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out. In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier’s experience, giving voice to history in the making.
Two events in the 19th century turned the minds of Americans westwards towards eventual and inevitable conflict with the Plains Indians. The first was victory in the Mexican-American War, which brought millions of acres of new land in the West. The second was the discovery of gold in California. One of the results of this migration was conflict with the Indians who inhabited the Plains. So it was natural that the Army, the nation's armed peace-keepers, should be sent to garrison the West. This book by Philip Katcher tells the absorbing story of the US cavalrymen who patrolled the Plains from 1850-90.
