Forts And Forays James A Bennett

Forts and Forays is a rare account of frontier soldiering in the pre-Civil War Southwest by an enlisted man. James A. Bennett joined the regular army in 1849 and was stationed in New Mexico for six years before he deserted to Mexico. Assigned to the First Dragoons, he visited most major New Mexico posts such as Forts Union, Craig, and Fillmore. His company was stationed at or passed through Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Socorro, and other New Mexico settlements. In six years, his rank climbed from private to sergeant before an unknown infraction reduced him to the ranks. Bennett served under future Civil War generals Edwin V. Sumner, Richard S. Ewell, and John W. Davidson. During his service, Bennett waged war on the Kicarilla, Mogollon, Mescalero, and Mimbres Apaches, the Navajos, and the Utes, suffering serious wounds at the Battle of Cienguilla Forts and Forays is a unique glimpse into the routine duties and terrifying ordeals of soldiering in the antebellum Southwest.

Captivity narratives have been a standard genre of writings about Indians of the East for several centuries.a Until now, the West has been almost entirely neglected.a Now Gregory and Susan Michno have rectified that with this painstakenly researched collection of vivid and often brutal accounts of what happened to those men and women and children that were captured by marauding Indians during the settlement of the West."

John Adams is best remembered as one of the four Confederate generals who lay on the porch of the Carnton House, dead, when the Battle of Franklin ended on December 1, 1864. Unfortunately he did not leave much in the way of personal papers, and this biography has been pieced together from Army records and other sources, including accounts of his contemporaries. Adams's career in the U.S. Army gives us a good look at the military, the concept of Manifest Destiny, and the relations with those conquered by the Army, the Indians. This book also considers one of the more debated topics in Civil War history: why did a man who served the United States for most of his life resign his commission and side with the Confederacy?

The first full-length life of the Apache warrior-leader, Mangas Coloradas, describes his outstanding qualities, the Apache culture in which he rose to power, and the battles against white and Mexican settlements in New Mexico that made him widely feared. UP.