Fort Robinson and the American West, 1874-1899


Book Description

Established in 1874 just south of the Black Hills, Fort Robinson witnessed many of the most dramatic, most tragic encounters between whites and American Indians, including the Cheyenne Outbreak, the death of Crazy Horse, the Ghost Dance, the desperation and diplomacy of such famed plains Indian leaders as Dull Knife and Red Cloud, and the tragic sequence of events surrounding Wounded Knee.




Fort Robinson and the American Century, 1900-1948


Book Description

Most fort histories end when the military lowers the flag for the last time and the soldiers march out. In contrast, Fort Robinson—occupied and used for more than fifty years since its abandonment by the U.S. army—has taken on new roles. This book recounts the story of this famous northwestern Nebraska army post as it underwent remarkable transformation in the first half of the twentieth century. In the early 1900s, Fort Robinson hosted the last of the African American buffalo soldiers to serve in Nebraska. In the 1920s and 1930s the fort procured and issued thousands of horses for the U.S. army’s largest remount depot. During World War II, Fort Robinson housed the army’s primary war dog training center and served as a major internment camp for German prisoners of war. After 1948, Fort Robinson became a beef research center and is now the state’s premier park. Fort Robinson and the American Century, 1900-1948, is based on more than twenty years of archival research as well as the personal recollections of the men and women who served at the fort. More than ninety photographs and five maps supplement the narrative.




Army Architecture in the West


Book Description

By examining the three exemplary Wyoming forts of Laramie, Bridger, and D. A. Russell, the author explains how widely varying architectural designs, rather than standardized plans, were used to construct western American forts.




Military Review


Book Description




Atlas of the Indian Tribes of North America and the Clash of Cultures


Book Description

Atlas of the Indian Tribes of the Continental United States and the Clash of Cultures The Atlas identifies of the Native American tribes of the United States and chronicles the conflict of cultures and Indians' fight for self-preservation in a changing and demanding new word. The Atlas is a compact resource on the identity, location, and history of each of the Native American tribes that have inhabited the land that we now call the continental United States and answers the three basic questions of who, where, and when. Regretfully, the information on too many tribes is extremely limited. For some, there is little more than a name. The history of the American Indian is presented in the context of America's history its westward expansion, official government policy and public attitudes. By seeing something of who we were, we are better prepared to define who we need to be. The Atlas will be a convenient resource for the casual reader, the researcher, and the teacher and the student alike. A unique feature of this book is a master list of the varied names by which the tribes have been known throughout history.




After Custer


Book Description

Between 1876 and 1877, the U.S. Army battled Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians in a series of vicious conflicts known today as the Great Sioux War. After the defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn in June 1876, the army responded to its stunning loss by pouring fresh troops and resources into the war effort. In the end, the U.S. Army prevailed, but at a significant cost. In this unique contribution to American western history, Paul L. Hedren examines the war’s effects on the culture, environment, and geography of the northern Great Plains, their Native inhabitants, and the Anglo-American invaders. As Hedren explains, U.S. military control of the northern plains following the Great Sioux War permitted the Northern Pacific Railroad to extend westward from the Missouri River. The new transcontinental line brought hide hunters who targeted the great northern buffalo herds and ultimately destroyed them. A de-buffaloed prairie lured cattlemen, who in turn spawned their own culture. Through forced surrender of their lands and lifeways, Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes now experienced even more stress and calamity than they had endured during the war itself. The victors, meanwhile, faced a different set of challenges, among them providing security for the railroad crews, hide hunters, and cattlemen. Hedren is the first scholar to examine the events of 1876–77 and their aftermath as a whole, taking into account relationships among military leaders, the building of forts, and the army’s efforts to memorialize the war and its victims. Woven into his narrative are the voices of those who witnessed such events as the burial of Custer, the laying of railroad track, or the sudden surround of a buffalo herd. Their personal testimonies lend both vibrancy and pathos to this story of irreversible change in Sioux Country.




Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian


Book Description

Mention “ethnic cleansing” and most Americans are likely to think of “sectarian” or “tribal” conflict in some far-off locale plagued by unstable or corrupt government. According to historian Gary Clayton Anderson, however, the United States has its own legacy of ethnic cleansing, and it involves American Indians. In Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian, Anderson uses ethnic cleansing as an analytical tool to challenge the alluring idea that Anglo-American colonialism in the New World constituted genocide. Beginning with the era of European conquest, Anderson employs definitions of ethnic cleansing developed by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to reassess key moments in the Anglo-American dispossession of American Indians. Euro-Americans’ extensive use of violence against Native peoples is well documented. Yet Anderson argues that the inevitable goal of colonialism and U.S. Indian policy was not to exterminate a population, but to obtain land and resources from the Native peoples recognized as having legitimate possession. The clashes between Indians, settlers, and colonial and U.S. governments, and subsequent dispossession and forcible migration of Natives, fit the modern definition of ethnic cleansing. To support the case for ethnic cleansing over genocide, Anderson begins with English conquerors’ desire to push Native peoples to the margin of settlement, a violent project restrained by the Enlightenment belief that all humans possess a “natural right” to life. Ethnic cleansing comes into greater analytical focus as Anderson engages every major period of British and U.S. Indian policy, especially armed conflict on the American frontier where government soldiers and citizen militias alike committed acts that would be considered war crimes today. Drawing on a lifetime of research and thought about U.S.-Indian relations, Anderson analyzes the Jacksonian “Removal” policy, the gold rush in California, the dispossession of Oregon Natives, boarding schools and other “benevolent” forms of ethnic cleansing, and land allotment. Although not amounting to genocide, ethnic cleansing nevertheless encompassed a host of actions that would be deemed criminal today, all of which had long-lasting consequences for Native peoples.




General Crook and the Western Frontier


Book Description

General George Crook was one of the most prominent soldiers in the frontier West. General William T. Sherman called him the greatest Indian fighter and manager the army ever had. General Crook and the Western Frontier, the first full-scale biography of Crook, uses contemporary manuscripts and primary sources to illuminate the general's personal life and military career.




Rosebud, June 17, 1876


Book Description

The Battle of the Rosebud may well be the largest Indian battle ever fought in the American West. The monumental clash on June 17, 1876, along Rosebud Creek in southeastern Montana pitted George Crook and his Shoshone and Crow allies against Sioux and Northern Cheyennes under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It set the stage for the battle that occurred eight days later when, just twenty-five miles away, George Armstrong Custer blundered into the very same village that had outmatched Crook. Historian Paul L. Hedren presents the definitive account of this critical battle, from its antecedents in the Sioux campaign to its historic consequences. Rosebud, June 17, 1876 explores in unprecedented detail the events of the spring and early summer of 1876. Drawing on an extensive array of sources, including government reports, diaries, reminiscences, and a previously untapped trove of newspaper stories, the book traces the movements of both Indian forces and U.S. troops and their Indian allies as Brigadier General Crook commenced his second great campaign against the northern Indians for the year. Both Indian and army paths led to Rosebud Creek, where warriors surprised Crook and then parried with his soldiers for the better part of a day on an enormous field. Describing the battle from multiple viewpoints, Hedren narrates the action moment by moment, capturing the ebb and flow of the fighting. Throughout he weighs the decisions and events that contributed to Crook’s tactical victory, and to his fateful decision thereafter not to pursue his adversary. The result is a uniquely comprehensive view of an engagement that made history and then changed its course. Rosebud was at once a battle won and a battle lost. With informed attention to the subtleties and significance of both outcomes, as well as to the fears and motivations on all sides, Hedren has given new meaning to this consequential fight, and new insight into its place in the larger story of the Great Sioux War.




Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment


Book Description

An unheralded military hero, Charles Young (18641922) was the third black graduate of West Point, the first African American national park superintendent, the first black U.S. military attachÉ, the first African American officer to command a Regular Army regiment, and the highest-ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death. Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment tells the story of the man who-willingly or not-served as a standard-bearer for his race in the officer corps for nearly thirty years, and who, if not for racial prejudice, would have become the first African American general.