Frontier Regulars

by Utley, Robert M.

• ISBN13: 9780803295513
• ISBN10: 0803295510
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1984-12-01
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

InFrontier RegularsRobert M. Utley combines scholarship and drama to produce an impressive history of the final, massive drive by the Regular Army to subdue and control the American Indians and open the West during the twenty-five years following the Civil War. Here are incisive accounts of the campaign directed by Major General William Tecumseh Shermanfrom the first skirmishes with the Sioux over the Bozeman Trail defenses in 1866 to the final defeat and subjugation of the Northern Plains Indians in 1890. Utley's brilliant descriptions of military maneuvers 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 the United States Army and often sympathetic toward the Indians, Utley presents a balanced overview of the long struggle. He concludes that the frontier army was not "the heroic vanguard of civilization" as sometimes claimed and still less "the barbaric band of butchers depicted in the humanitarian literature of the nineteenth century and the atonement literature of the twentieth." Rather, it was a group of ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) men doing the best they could.

Author Biography

Other Bison Books by Robert Utley are Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent life, Custer and the Great Controversy: The Origin and Development of a Legend, and Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865.

Table of Contents

Errata	p. ix
The Postwar Army: Command, Staff, and Line	p. 10
The Problem of Doctrine	p. 44
The Army, Congress, and the People	p. 59
Weapons, Uniforms, and Equipment	p. 69
Army Life on the Border	p. 80
Fort Phil Kearny, 1866	p. 93
Hancock's War, 1867	p. 111
The Peace Commission of 1867	p. 130
Operations on the Southern Plains, 1868-69	p. 142
Beyond the Plains, 1866-70	p. 163
Grant's Peace Policy, 1869-74	p. 188
The Red River War, 1874-75	p. 219
Sitting Bull, 1870-76	p. 236
The Conquest of the Sioux, 1876-81	p. 267
Nez Percé Bid for Freedom, 1877	p. 296
Bannock, Paiute, Sheepeater, and Ute, 1878-79	p. 322
Mexican Border Conflicts, 1870-81	p. 344
Geronimo, 1881-86	p. 369
Ghost Dance, 1890-91	p. 397
Bibliography	p. 414
Index	p. 435
Index	p. 437
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