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Historian Jerome A. Greene is renowned for his memorable chronicles of egregious events involving American Indians and the U.S. military, including Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee. Now, in January Moon, Greene draws from extensive research and fieldwork to explore a signal—and appallingly brutal—event in American history: the desperate flight of Chief Dull Knife's Northern Cheyenne Indians from imprisonment at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. In the wake of the Great Sioux War of 1876–77, the U.S. government expelled most Northern Cheyennes from their northern plains homeland to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. Following mounting hardships, many of those people, under Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf, broke away, seeking to return north. While Little Wolf's band managed initially to elude pursuing U.S. troops, Dull Knife's people were captured in 1878 and ushered into a makeshift barrack prison at Camp (later Fort) Robinson, where they spent months waiting for government officials to decide their fate. It is here that Greene's riveting narrative edges toward its climax. On the night of January 9, 1879, in a bloody struggle with troops, Dull Knife's people staged a massive breakout from their barrack prison in a last-ditch bid for freedom. Greene paints a vivid picture of their frantic escape, which took place under an unusually brilliant moon that doomed many of those fleeing by silhouetting them against the snow. A climactic engagement at Antelope Creek proved especially devastating, and the helpless people were nearly annihilated. In gripping detail, Greene follows the survivors'dreadful experiences into their aftermath, including creation of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Carrying the story to the present day, he describes Cheyenne tribal events commemorating the breakout—all designed to ensure that the injustices of nineteenth-century U.S. government policy will never be forgotten.

In the aftermath of the December 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, U.S. Army troops braced for retaliation from Lakota Sioux Indians, who had just suffered the devastating loss of at least two hundred men, women, and children. Among the soldiers sent to guard the area around Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, was twenty-two-year-old Private Hartford Geddings Clark (1869–1920) of the Sixth U.S. Cavalry. Within three days of the massacre, he began keeping a diary that he continued through 1891. Clark's account—published here for the first time—offers a rare and intimate view of a soldier's daily life set against the backdrop of a rapidly vanishing American frontier. According to editor Jerome A. Greene, Private Clark was a perceptive young man with wide-ranging interests. Although his diary begins in South Dakota, most of its entries reflect Clark's service at Fort Niobrara, located amid the sand hills of north-central Nebraska. There, beginning in February 1891, five troops of the Sixth Cavalry sought to protect area citizens from potential Indian disturbances. Among his hard-drinking fellow soldiers, “Harry,” as Clark was called, stood out as a teetotaler. He was also an avid horse racer, huntsman, and the leading pitcher on Fort Niobrara's baseball team. Beyond its descriptions of a grueling training regimen and off-duty entertainment, the diary reveals Clark's evolving perception of Native peoples. Although he initially viewed them as savage enemies, Private Clark's attitude softened when the army began enlisting Indian men and he befriended a Lakota soldier named Yellow Hand, who shared Clark's love of sports. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century military history, Greene offers a richly annotated version of Private Clark's remarkable original text, replete with information on the U.S. Army's final occupation of the American West.

As the year 1890 wound to a close, a band of more than three hundred Lakota Sioux Indians led by Chief Big Foot made their way toward South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation to join other Lakotas seeking peace. Fearing that Big Foot's band was headed instead to join “hostile” Lakotas, U.S. troops surrounded the group on Wounded Knee Creek. Tensions mounted, and on the morning of December 29, as the Lakotas prepared to give up their arms, disaster struck. Accounts vary on what triggered the violence as Indians and soldiers unleashed thunderous gunfire at each other, but the consequences were horrific: some 200 innocent Lakota men, women, and children were slaughtered. American Carnage—the first comprehensive account of Wounded Knee to appear in more than fifty years—explores the complex events preceding the tragedy, the killings, and their troubled legacy.In this gripping tale, Jerome A. Greene—renowned specialist on the Indian wars—explores why the bloody engagement happened and demonstrates how it became a brutal massacre. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including previously unknown testimonies, Greene examines the events from both Native and non-Native perspectives, explaining the significance of treaties, white settlement, political disputes, and the Ghost Dance as influential factors in what eventually took place. He addresses controversial questions: Was the action premeditated? Was the Seventh Cavalry motivated by revenge after its humiliating defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn? Should soldiers have received Medals of Honor? He also recounts the futile efforts of Lakota survivors and their descendants to gain recognition for their terrible losses.Epic in scope and poignant in its recounting of human suffering, American Carnage presents the reality—and denial—of our nation's last frontier massacre. It will leave an indelible mark on our understanding of American history.