Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Winter 1999
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter 1999, pp. 54-55.
Abstract
Between 1854 and 1890, the military frontier in western Nebraska witnessed major events, including Harney's victory over the Sioux at Ash Hollow in 1855, the Republican River Expedition of 1869, the Battle of Massacre Canyon in 1873, skirmishes in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, and the killing of Crazy Horse in 1877. These years also featured the activities of such famous Lakota leaders as Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and Crazy Horse, the US Fifth Cavalry headquartered at Fort McPherson, as well as the "Dandy Fifth's" leading personalities, including General Eugene Carr, "Buffalo Bill" Cody (chief of scouts), and Major Frank North, leader of the Pawnee Scouts. Since no one-volume history of this subject exists, Paul's anthology provides the first book-length study of Plains Indian warfare in western Nebraska during the second half of the nineteenth century. He succeeds in putting together a thoughtful, absorbing book that fills an important niche in the existing historical literature of this era.
A compendium of past articles from Nebraska History, the volume focuses on the period from the end of the US Civil War to the death of Crazy Horse and is organized around four themes: the conquest of the Platte and Republican river valleys; the triumph and tragedy of the Pawnees; the history of the Red Cloud Agency; and the Great Sioux War.
Paul's selections include interpretive articles, such as James T. King's illuminating study of the Republican River Expedition, as well as eyewitness accounts. Among the latter are fascinating contributions by Paul Hedren and Eleanor Hinman. Hedren's chapter offers extensive selections from the diary and letters ofJames Frew, a young private in the Fifth US Cavalry, which provide the perspective of an ordinary cavalryman campaigning in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. Hinman's valuable chapter transcribes her 1930 interviews with Sioux elders reflecting on the life and death of Crazy Horse. Paul's reader also includes an excellent annotated bibliography, maps, and photographs. James Potter's epilogue, a study appearing for the first time here, revisits whiteIndian warfare in Nebraska between 1865 and the late 1870s by tracing the Medals of Honor awarded in this period.
Comments
Copyright 1999 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln