Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891.

Abstract

An excellent piece of scholarship and writing. Lucid, balanced, comprehensive, interpretative, and thoroughly documented, it is a scholar's dream and a layman's delight.--Library Journal In Frontier Regulars Robert M. Utley combines scholarship and drama to produce an impressive history of final, massive drive by Regular Army to subdue and control American Indians and open West during twenty-five years following Civil War. Here are incisive accounts of campaign directed by Major General Wil-liam Tecumseh Sherman--from first skirmishes with Sioux over Bozeman Trail defenses in 1866 to final defeat and subjugation of Northern Plains Indians in 1890. Utley's brilliant descriptions of military ma-neuvers and flaming battles are juxtaposed with a careful analysis of Sherman's army: its mode of operation, equipment, and recruitment; its lifestyle and relations with Congress and civilians. Proud of United States Army and often sympathetic toward Indians, Utley presents a balanced overview of long struggle. He concludes that frontier army was not the heroic vanguard of civilization as sometimes claimed and still less the barbaric band of butchers depicted in humanitarian literature of nineteenth century and atonement literature of twentieth. Rather, it was a group of ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) men doing best they could. Other Bison Books by Robert Utley are Billy Kid: A Short and Violent life, Custer and Great Controversy: The Origin and Development of a Legend, and Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and Indian, 1848-1865.