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In War-Path and Bivouac, published in 1890, John Finerty (1846–1908) recalled the summer he spent following George Crook's infamous campaign against the Sioux in 1876. Historians have long surmised that Finerty's correspondence covering the campaign for the Chicago Times reappeared in its entirety in Finerty's celebrated book. But that turns out not to be the case, as readers will discover in this remarkable volume. In print at last, this collection of Finerty's letters and telegrams to his hometown newspaper, written from the field during Crook's campaign, conveys the full extent of the reporter's experience and observations during this time of great excitement and upheaval in the West. An introduction and annotations by Paul L. Hedren, a lifelong historian of the period, provide ample biographical and historical background for Finerty's account. Four times under fire, giving as well as he got, Finerty reported on the action with the immediacy of an unfolding wartime story. To his riveting dispatches on the Rosebud and Slim Buttes battles, this collection adds accounts of the lesser-known Sibley scout and the tortures of the campaign trail, penned by a keen-eyed newsman who rode at the front through virtually all of the action. Here, too, is an intimate look at the Black Hills gold rush and at principal towns like Deadwood and Custer City, captured in the earliest moments of their colorful history. Hedren's introduction places Finerty not only on the scene in Wyoming, Montana, and Dakota during the Indian campaign, but also in the context of battlefield journalism at a critical time in its evolution. Publication of this volume confirms John Finerty's outsize role in that historical moment.

The Great Sioux War of 1876–77 began at daybreak on March 17, 1876, when Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds and six cavalry companies struck a village of Northern Cheyennes—Sioux allies—thereby propelling the Northern Plains tribes into war. The ensuing last stand of the Sioux against Anglo-American settlement of their homeland spanned some eighteen months, playing out across more than twenty battle and skirmish sites and costing hundreds of lives on both sides and many millions of dollars. And it all began at Powder River.Powder River: Disastrous Opening of the Great Sioux War recounts the wintertime Big Horn Expedition and its singular great battle, along with the stories of the Northern Cheyennes and their elusive leader Old Bear. Historian Paul Hedren tracks both sides of the conflict through a rich array of primary source material, including the transcripts of Reynolds's court-martial and Indian recollections. The disarray and incompetence of the war's beginnings—officers who failed to take proper positions, disregard of orders to save provisions, failure to cooperate, and abandonment of the dead and a wounded soldier—in many ways anticipated the catastrophe that later occurred at the Little Big Horn. Forty photographs, many previously unpublished, and five new maps detail the action from start to ignominious conclusion. Hedren's comprehensive account takes Powder River out of the shadow of the Little Big Horn and reveals how much this critical battle tells us about the army's policy and performance in the West, and about the debacle soon to follow.

Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer was widely known as a Civil War figure, author, and successful cavalry leader before his spectacular defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians. His actions—and those of his troops—would have been of public interest even without their final, bloody outcome. A ready audience of readers was hungry for information about the engagement and about their fallen hero when Frances Fuller Victor's book appeared in spring 1877.Published even before the Great Sioux War had ended, Our Centennial Indian War and the Life of General Custer was the first contemporary and comprehensive account of the successive army operations in 1876 and early 1877. It was a major accomplishment. Victor drew information from a wide range of sources—including personal letters, war correspondents'dispatches, and government documents—to explain the lengthy, disjointed struggle between the army and the Lakota-Cheyenne coalition. She also offered one of the earliest biographical assessments of Custer, its most noted military participant.Compared to other period writings, Victor's narrative is smooth and dispassionate, devoid of conjecture and judgment. In addition, her account contains rare Indian perspectives on the Little Bighorn battle, including Lakota testimony that has not previously appeared elsewhere. Featuring an introduction by historian Jerome A. Greene, this edition of Our Centennial Indian War provides a remarkable window into contemporary thinking about an iconic event

'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.