Washita Memories

"In this documentary history, Richard G. Hardorff presents a broad range of views of the Washita battle. Eyewitnesses to the destruction of the Southern Cheyenne village included soldiers, officers, tribal members, Indian and white scouts, and government officials. Many of these witnesses recorded their memories of the event. With Washita Memories, Hardorff has collected these surviving documents into a one-of-a-kind primary resource.".

Bringing together Custer, Sherman, Grant, and other fascinating military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, this “sweeping work of narrative history” (San Francisco Chronicle) is the fullest account to date of how the West was won—and lost. After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the intertribal strife over whether to fight or make peace; explores the dreary, squalid lives of frontier soldiers and the imperatives of the Indian warrior culture; and describes the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. In dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers, and Indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led. The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today.

A brief history of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the deadly clash between U.S. soldiers and Native American forces in 1876. Commonly known as Custer’s Last Stand, the Battle of Little Bighorn may be the best recognized violent conflict between the indigenous peoples of North America and the government of the United States. Incorporating the voices of Native Americans, soldiers, scouts, and women, Tim Lehman’s concise, compelling narrative will forever change the way we think about this familiar event in American history. On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer led the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry in an attack on a massive encampment of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians on the bank of the Little Bighorn River. What was supposed to be a large-scale military operation to force U.S. sovereignty over the tribes instead turned into a quick, brutal rout of the attackers when Custer’s troops fell upon the Indians ahead of the main infantry force. By the end of the fight, the Sioux and Cheyenne had killed Custer and 210 of his men. The victory fueled hopes of freedom and encouraged further resistance among the Native Americans. For the U.S. military, the lost battle prompted a series of vicious retaliatory strikes that ultimately forced the Sioux and Cheyenne into submission and the long nightmare of reservation life. Grounded in the most recent research, attentive to Native American perspectives, and featuring a colorful cast of characters, this account elucidates the key lessons of the conflict and draws out the less visible ones. This may not be the last book you read on Little Bighorn, but it should be the first.

"An engrossing and tautly written account of a critical chapter in American history." --Los Angeles Times Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Hurricane's Eye, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mayflower, and Valiant Ambition, is a historian with a unique ability to bring history to life. The Last Stand is Philbrick's monumental reappraisal of the epochal clash at the Little Bighorn in 1876 that gave birth to the legend of Custer's Last Stand. Bringing a wealth of new information to his subject, as well as his characteristic literary flair, Philbrick details the collision between two American icons- George Armstrong Custer and Sitting Bull-that both parties wished to avoid, and brilliantly explains how the battle that ensued has been shaped and reshaped by national myth.

During the nineteenth century, the U.S. military fought numerous battles against American Indians. These so-called Indian wars devastated indigenous populations, and some of the conflicts stand out today as massacres, as they involved violent attacks on often defenseless Native communities, including women and children. Although historians have written full-length studies about each of these episodes, Massacring Indians is the first to present them as part of a larger pattern of aggression, perpetuated by heartless or inept military commanders. In clear and accessible prose, veteran historian Roger L. Nichols examines ten significant massacres committed by U.S. Army units against American Indians. The battles range geographically from Alabama to Montana and include such well-known atrocities as Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee. Nichols explores the unique circumstances of each event, including its local context. At the same time, looking beyond the confusion and bloodshed of warfare, he identifies elements common to all the massacres. Unforgettable details emerge in the course of his account: inadequate training of U.S. soldiers, overeagerness to punish Indians, an inflated desire for glory among individual officers, and even careless mistakes resulting in attacks on the wrong village or band. As the author chronicles the collective tragedy of the massacres, he highlights the roles of well-known frontier commanders, ranging from Andrew Jackson to John Chivington and George Armstrong Custer. In many cases, Nichols explains, it was lower-ranking officers who bore the responsibility and blame for the massacres, even though orders came from the higher-ups. During the nineteenth century and for years thereafter, white settlers repeatedly used the term “massacre” to describe Indian raids, rather than the reverse. They lacked the understanding to differentiate such raids—Indians defending their homeland against invasion—from the aggressive decimation of peaceful Indian villages by U.S. troops. Even today it may be tempting for some to view the massacres as exceptions to the norm. By offering a broader synthesis of the attacks, Massacring Indians uncovers a more disturbing truth: that slaughtering innocent people was routine practice for U.S. troops and their leaders.

In June of 1876, on a desolate hill above a winding river called "the Little Bighorn," George Armstrong Custer and all 210 men under his direct command were annihilated by almost 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne. The news of this devastating loss caused a public uproar, and those in positions of power promptly began to point fingers in order to avoid responsibility. Custer, who was conveniently dead, took the brunt of the blame. The truth, however, was far more complex. A TERRIBLE GLORY is the first book to relate the entire story of this endlessly fascinating battle, and the first to call upon all the significant research and findings of the past twenty-five years--which have changed significantly how this controversial event is perceived. Furthermore, it is the first book to bring to light the details of the U.S. Army cover-up--and unravel one of the greatest mysteries in U.S. military history. Scrupulously researched, A TERRIBLE GLORY will stand as ta landmark work. Brimming with authentic detail and an unforgettable cast of characters--from Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to Ulysses Grant and Custer himself--this is history with the sweep of a great novel.

Custer’s Last Stand remains one of the most iconic events in American history and culture. Had Custer prevailed at the Little Bighorn, the victory would have been noteworthy at the moment, worthy of a few newspaper headlines, but only a few among the many battles with the Plains Indians. In defeat, however tactically inconsequential in the larger conflict, Custer became legend. In Inventing Custer, Edward Caudill and Paul Ashdown bridge the gap between the Custer who truly existed and the one we’ve immortalized and mythologized into legend in our generally accepted reading of American history and his significance to it.

Western Heritage Award, Best Western Nonfiction Book, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Nothing can change the terrible facts of the Sand Creek Massacre. The human toll of this horrific event and the ensuing loss of a way of life have never been fully recounted until now. In Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway, Louis Kraft tells this story, drawing on the words and actions of those who participated in the events at this critical time. The history that culminated in the end of a lifeway begins with the arrival of Algonquin-speaking peoples in North America, proceeds through the emergence of the Cheyennes and Arapahos on the Central Plains, and ends with the incursion of white people seeking land and gold. Beginning in the earliest days of the Southern Cheyennes, Kraft brings the voices of the past to bear on the events leading to the brutal murder of people and its disastrous aftermath. Through their testimony and their deeds as reported by contemporaries, major and supporting players give us a broad and nuanced view of the discovery of gold on Cheyenne and Arapaho land in the 1850s, followed by the land theft condoned by the U.S. government. The peace treaties and perfidy, the unfolding massacre and the investigations that followed, the devastating end of the Indians’ already-circumscribed freedom—all are revealed through the eyes of government officials, newspapers, and the military; Cheyennes and Arapahos who sought peace with or who fought Anglo-Americans; whites and Indians who intermarried and their offspring; and whites who dared to question what they considered heinous actions. As instructive as it is harrowing, the history recounted here lives on in the telling, along with a way of life destroyed in all but cultural memory. To that memory this book gives eloquent, resonating voice.