The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that's the way we go,"" runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. ""Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!"" The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian's remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier. After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores. Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.'s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars' accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out. In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier's experience, giving voice to history in the making.

In "Custer and Me," renowned western historian and expert on historic preservation, Robert M. Utley, turns his talents to his own life and career. Through lively personal narrative, Utley offers an insider's view of Park Service workings and problems, both at regional and national levels, during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. Utley also details the birth of the Western History Association, early national historic-preservation programs, and the many clashes over "symbolic possession" of what is now the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Readers will discover how a teenager smitten with Custermania came as an adult to appreciate the full complexity of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and its interpretation and to research and write narrative histories of the American West that have appealed to popular audiences while winning highest honors from the scholarly and writing communities.

"His narrative is griping....Mr. Utley transforms Sitting Bull, the abstract, romanticized icon and symbol, into a flesh-and-blood person with a down-to-earth story....THE LANCE AND THE SHIELD clears the screen of the exaggerations and fantasies long directed at the name of Sitting Bull."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Reviled by the United States government as a troublemaker and a coward, revered by his people as a great warrior chief, Sitting Bull has long been one of the most fascinating and misunderstood figures in American history. Now, distinguished historian Robert M. Utley has forged a compelling new portrait of Sitting Bull, viewing the man from the Lakota perspective for the very first time to render the most unbiased and historically accurate biography of Sitting Buil to date.
WINNER OF THE SPUR AWARD FOR BEST WESTERN NONFICTION
HISTORICAL BOOK OF 1993
A MAIN SELECTIN OF THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB
A FEATURED ALTERNATE SELECTION OF THE QUALITY PAPERBACK BOOK
CLUB

When the gun smoke cleared, four men were found dead at the hardware store in a rural East Texas town. But this December 1934 shootout was no anomaly. San Augustine County had seen at least three others in the previous three years, and these murders in broad daylight were only the latest development in the decade-long rule of the criminal McClanahan-Burleson gang. Armed with handguns, Jim Crow regulations, and corrupt special Ranger commissions from infamous governors ""Ma"" and ""Pa"" Ferguson, the gang racketeered and bootlegged its way into power in San Augustine County, where it took up robbing and extorting local black sharecroppers as its main activity. After the hardware store shootings, white community leaders, formerly silenced by fear of the gang's retribution, finally sought state intervention. In 1935, fresh-faced, newly elected governor James V. Allred made good on his promise to reform state law enforcement agencies by sending a team of qualified Texas Rangers to San Augustine County to investigate reports of organized crime. In East Texas Troubles, historian Jody Edward Ginn tells of their year-and-a-half-long cleanup of the county, the inaugural effort in Governor Allred's transformation of the Texas Rangers into a professional law enforcement agency. Besides foreshadowing the wholesale reform of state law enforcement, the Allred Rangers' investigative work in San Augustine marked a rare close collaboration between white law enforcement officers and black residents. Drawing on firsthand accounts and the sworn testimony of black and white residents in the resulting trials, Ginn examines the consequences of such cooperation in a region historically entrenched in racial segregation. In this story of a rural Texas community's resurrection, Ginn reveals a multifaceted history of the reform of the Texas Rangers and of an unexpected alliance between the legendary frontier lawmen and black residents of the Jim Crow South.

Two men played a crucial role in the creation and early history of the National Park Service: Stephen T. Mather, a public relations genius of sweeping vision, and Horace M. Albright, an able lawyer and administrator who helped transform that vision into reality.

In Creating the National Park Service, Albright and his daughter, Marian Albright Schenck, reveal the previously untold story of the critical "missing years" in the history of the service. During this period, 1917 and 1918, Mather's problems with manic depression were kept hidden from public view, and Albright, his able and devoted assistant, served as acting director and assumed Mather's responsibilities.

Albright played a decisive part in the passage of the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916; the formulation of principles and policies for management of the parks; the defense of the parks against exploitation by ranchers, lumber companies, and mining interests during World War I; and other issues crucial to the future of the fledgling park system.

Rich in detail and insight, with sharply drawn personalities and engaging anecdotes, this authoritative behind-the-scenes history sheds light on the early days of the most popular of all federal agencies while painting a vivid picture of American life in the early twentieth century.

Assigned to the District of Utah during the Civil War, physician John Vance Lauderdale spent the next twenty-five years on army posts in the American West, serving in California, Arizona, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Texas. Throughout his career he kept a detailed journal and sent long letters home to his sister in upstate New York. This selection of Lauderdale's writings, edited and annotated by a premier historian of the American West, offers an insightful account of army life that will teach readers much about the settlement and growth of the West in a time of rapid change.

Lauderdale's observations are keen and critical. He writes about fellow officers, his army superiors, the civilians and American Indians he encountered, life on officers' row, and the day-to-day functioning of the army medical service. Particularly valuable are his insights into military interactions with local communities of Mormons, American Indians, and Hispanos.

Since the shocking news first broke in 1876 of the Seventh Cavalry's disastrous defeat at the Little Big Horn, fascination with the battle--and with Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer--has never ceased. Widespread interest in the subject has spawned a vast outpouring of literature, which only increases with time. This two-volume bibliography of Custer literature is the first to be published in some twenty-five years and the most complete ever assembled.
Drawing on years of research, Michael O'Keefe has compiled entries for roughly 3,000 books and 7,000 articles and pamphlets. Covering both nonfiction and fiction (but not juvenile literature), the bibliography focuses on events beginning with Custer's tenure at West Point during the 1850s and ending with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Included within this span are Custer's experiences in the Civil War and in Texas, the 1873 Yellowstone and 1874 Black Hills expeditions, the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, and the Seventh Cavalry's pursuit of the Nez Perces in 1877.
The literature on Custer, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and the Seventh Cavalry touches the entire American saga of exploration, conflict, and settlement in the West, including virtually all Plains Indian tribes, the frontier army, railroading, mining, and trading. Hence this bibliography will be a valuable resource for a broad audience of historians, librarians, collectors, and Custer enthusiasts.

When the gun smoke cleared, four men were found dead at the hardware store in a rural East Texas town. But this December 1934 shootout was no anomaly. San Augustine County had seen at least three others in the previous three years, and these murders in broad daylight were only the latest development in the decade-long rule of the criminal McClanahan-Burleson gang. Armed with handguns, Jim Crow regulations, and corrupt special Ranger commissions from infamous governors 'Ma' and 'Pa' Ferguson, the gang racketeered and bootlegged its way into power in San Augustine County, where it took up robbing and extorting local black sharecroppers as its main activity. After the hardware store shootings, white community leaders, formerly silenced by fear of the gang's retribution, finally sought state intervention. In 1935, fresh-faced, newly elected governor James V. Allred made good on his promise to reform state law enforcement agencies by sending a team of qualified Texas Rangers to San Augustine County to investigate reports of organized crime. In East Texas Troubles, historian Jody Edward Ginn tells of their year-and-a-half-long cleanup of the county, the inaugural effort in Governor Allred's transformation of the Texas Rangers into a professional law enforcement agency. Besides foreshadowing the wholesale reform of state law enforcement, the Allred Rangers' investigative work in San Augustine marked a rare close collaboration between white law enforcement officers and black residents. Drawing on firsthand accounts and the sworn testimony of black and white residents in the resulting trials, Ginn examines the consequences of such cooperation in a region historically entrenched in racial segregation. In this story of a rural Texas community's resurrection, Ginn reveals a multifaceted history of the reform of the Texas Rangers and of an unexpected alliance between the legendary frontier lawmen and black residents of the Jim Crow South.

When brothers William and John Wright arrived in the United States from Ireland in 1850 and could find no other suitable employment, they joined the U.S. Armys Regiment of Mounted Rifles, which served on the Texas frontier. Their description of their experiences is unusual on several counts: it is a view of Texas in the 1850s, when personal accounts were rare, and it is written from the point of view of visitors to this nation. And because the Wrights published their book in 1857, only three years after they left the army, their story has an immediacy lacking in many memoirs. He was a man in the prime of life, tall and slender, with black plaited hair descending all the way down his back, and a countenance, whose handsome, intelligent, and dignified expression, was scarcely concealed by the red streaks of war-paint that covered it. Little mercy is shown to an Indian in war, and especially by the Texan rangers, who are scarcely, if at all, advanced beyond the savage state themselves. So the prisoner was immediately tied to a tree, and a number of men were selected to shoot him. On ascertaining his fate, he instantly commenced singing his death-song...which vibrated like the notes of a clarion on the air of early night. ..until his voice was lost in the fatal volley, and all was over. This softcover facsimile of the Book Club of Texas' 1995 fine limited edition of 300 copies makes this classic firsthand account available to a broad audience for the first time since 1857. It is illustrated with wood engravings from William H. Emorys Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey.

Whatever his name or alias at the moment--Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, Billy Bonney--people always called him the Kid. Not until his final month did anyone call him Billy the Kid. Newspapers pictured him as a king of outlaws; and his highly publicized capture, trial, escape, and end fixed his image in the public mind for all time. He was only twenty-one years old when a bullet from Sheriff Pat Garett's six-shooter killed him on July 14, 1881. Within a year Billy the Kid became the subject of five dime-novel "biographies" as well as Garett's ghost-written account, and that was just the beginning. Robert M. Utley does what countless books, movies, television shows, musical compositions, and paintings have failed to do: he successfully strips off the veneer of legendry to expose the reality of Billy the Kid. Using previously untapped sources, he presents an engrossing story--the most complete and accurate ever--of a youthful hoodlum and sometime killer who found his calling in New Mexico's bloody power struggle known as the Lincoln County War. In unmasking the legend Utley also tells us much about our heritage of frontier vigilantism and violence.

"A fine book...In the twenty-two chapters that comprise the background and the campaign narrative, the author is at his best when he moves away from the Washington scene to detail the field operations. But it is the second part of the book--seven chapters labeled "Facets"--that moves Centennial Campaign into the realm of the exceptional. Here Dr. Gray combines impressive research, careful analysis, and sound deduction to reconstruct Indian movements, locations, and concentrations."--Western Historical Quarterly

"Frontiersmen in Blue" is a comprehensive history of the achievements and failures of the United States Regular and Volunteer Armies that confronted the Indian tribes of the West in the two decades between the Mexican War and the close of the Civil War. Between 1848 and 1865 the men in blue fought nearly all of the western tribes. Robert Utley describes many of these skirmishes in consummate detail, including descriptions of garrison life that was sometimes agonizingly isolated, sometimes caught in the lightning moments of desperate battle.

2021 Spur Award Winner for Best Historical Nonfiction from the Western Writers of America True West Magazine's 2020 Best Author and Historical Nonfiction Book of the Year The Last Sovereigns is the story of how Sioux chief Sitting Bull resisted the white man's ways as a last best hope for the survival of an indigenous way of life on the Great Plains-a nomadic life based on buffalo and indigenous plants scattered across the Sioux's historical territories that were sacred to him and his people. Robert M. Utley explores the final four years of Sitting Bull's life of freedom, from 1877 to 1881. To escape American vengeance for his assumed role in the annihilation of Gen. George Armstrong Custer's command at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapa following into Canada. There he and his people interacted with the North-West Mounted Police, in particular Maj. James M. Walsh. The Mounties welcomed the Lakota and permitted them to remain if they promised to abide by the laws and rules of Queen Victoria, the White Mother. But the Canadian government wanted the Indians to return to their homeland and the police made every effort to persuade them to leave. They were aided by the diminishing herds of buffalo on which the Indians relied for sustenance and by the aggressions of Canadian Native groups that also relied on the buffalo. Sitting Bull and his people endured hostility, tragedy, heartache, indecision, uncertainty, and starvation and responded with stubborn resistance to the loss of their freedom and way of life. In the end, starvation doomed their sovereignty. This is their story.

In Custer and Me, renowned western historian and expert on historic preservation, Robert M. Utley, turns his talents to his own life and career. Through lively personal narrative, Utley offers an insider's view of Park Service workings and problems, both at regional and national levels, during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. Utley also details the birth of the Western History Association, early national historic-preservation programs, and the many clashes over "symbolic possession" of what is now the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Readers will discover how a teenager smitten with Custermania came as an adult to appreciate the full complexity of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and its interpretation and to research and write narrative histories of the American West that have appealed to popular audiences while winning highest honors from the scholarly and writing communities.

Taking a novel approach to the military history of the post-Civil War West, distinguished historian Robert M. Utley examines the careers of seven military leaders who served as major generals for the Union in the Civil War, then as brigadier generals in command of the U.S. Army's western departments. By examining both periods in their careers, Utley makes a unique contribution in delineating these commanders' strengths and weaknesses. While some of the book's subjects - notably Generals George Crook and Nelson A. Miles - are well known, most are no longer widely remembered. Yet their actions were critical in the expansion of federal control in the West. The commanders effected the final subjugation of American Indian tribal groups, exercising direct oversight of troops in the field as they fought the wars that would bring Indians under military and government control. After introducing readers to postwar army doctrine, organization, and administration, Utley takes each general in turn, describing his background, personality, eccentricities, and command style and presenting the rudiments of the campaigns he prosecuted. Crook embodied the ideal field general, personally leading his troops in their operations, though with varying success. Christopher C. Augur and John Pope, in contrast, preferred to command from their desks in department headquarters, an approach that led both of them to victory on the battlefield. And Miles, while perhaps the frontier army's most detestable officer, was also its most successful in the field. Rounding out the book with an objective comparison of all eight generals' performance records, Utley offers keen insights into their influence on the U.S. military as an institution and on the development of the American West.

The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that's the way we go,"" runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. ""Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!"" The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian's remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier. After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores. Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.'s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars' accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out. In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier's experience, giving voice to history in the making.

A fast-paced biography of the most famous North American Indian of all time, with new material to reveal the man behind the legend Renowned for ferocity in battle, legendary for an uncanny ability to elude capture, feared for the violence of his vengeful raids, the Apache fighter Geronimo captured the public imagination in his own time and remains a figure of mythical proportion today. This thoroughly researched biography by a renowned historian of the American West strips away the myths and rumors that have long obscured the real Geronimo and presents an authentic portrait of a man with unique strengths and weaknesses and a destiny that swept him into the fierce storms of history. Historian Robert Utley draws on an array of new sources and his own lifelong research on the mountain West and white-Indian conflicts of the late nineteenth century to create an updated, accurate, and highly exciting narrative of Geronimo's life. Utley unfolds the story through the alternating perspectives of whites and Apaches, and he arrives at a more nuanced understanding of Geronimo's character and motivation than ever before. What it was like to be an Apache fighter-in-training, why Indians as well as whites feared Geronimo, how Geronimo maintained his freedom, and why he finally surrendered-the answers to these questions and many more fill the pages of this irresistable volume.

"Custer and the Great Controversy" was the first book to focus on the origins of what has come to be called the Custer myth. The Battle of the Little Bighorn has always been wrapped in mystery and controversy because none of Custer's men survived to tell what happened, because press accounts circulated much misinformation and editors politicized the event, because popular writers repeated the errors of journalists, because a court of inquiry issued in bitter debate, and because Indian testimony was hard to gauge. This book, originally published in 1962, helps the reader understand the sources of the confusion and controversy surrounding the Custer fight and the beginning of the legend.

"Custer and the Great Controversy" was Robert M. Utley's debut, coming after six years of service as a ranger-historian at the Little Bighorn National Monument. His distinguished career as a historian has produced many books, including "Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865" and "Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891," both available as Bison Books.

George Armstrong Custer, America's most famously unfortunate soldier, has been the subject of scores of books, but "The Custer Reader" is unique as a substantial source of classic writings about and by him. Here is Custer as seen by himself, his contemporaries, and leading scholars. Even those steeped in Custeriana will discover new insights in these pieces. Combining first-person narratives, essays, and photographs, this book provides a complete introduction to Custer's controversial personality and career and the evolution of the Custer myth.

In a career forged in the saddle on scout duty along the Rio Grande, Arthur Hill witnessed dramatic changes from 1947 to 1974. Whether inspecting brands, deterring smugglers of everything from cattle to candelilla wax, or giving chase on horseback across merciless terrain-often into Mexico-Hill found himself immersed in a world that straddled centuries as well as cultures. Promotion to sergeant of Ranger Company B in 1957 took Hill to Dallas, where he brought his brush-country methods to bear on urban crimes. Yet after only a year, and despite the opportunity for advancement to captain, Hill knew his place and heart were back in the Big Bend, where rampant drug trade was altering his beloved border irrevocably from an existence that had remained the same for hundreds of years. From the Lone Star Steel strike, the KKK, and the "Dixie Mafia" to problems of drug-running and illegal immigration, Arthur Hill's life as a Texas ranger illuminates both the present and the past.

Additional Editor Is A. R. Mortensen. Introduction By Ray A. Billington. Contributing Authors Include France Scholes, Dale Morgan, And Many Others.

A Special Report on the Early Cattle Industry of the Big Bend Country of Texas.

Was Sheriff William Brady a willing pawn in the hands of a crooked political faction or was he an honest man dedicated to law and order? After his extensive research, Donald R. Lavash thinks Brady deserves a more realistic evaluation of his part in the Lincoln County Was in New Mexico. In 1873, crime and violence were rampant in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Land fraud, cattle and horse stealing were common. Outlaws, including Billy the Kid, swarmed in to join hands with dishonest citizens. Although Brady tried to stem the growing tide of anarchy, his efforts ended when he was ambushed by Billy the Kid and his gang. This book is not only a biography of a man but the history of an era in the American Southwest. More information on this controversial period will be found in these other Sunstone Press books: "Alias Billy the Kid" by Donald Cline, "Sheriff Pat Garrett's Last Days" by Colin Rickards, "The Death of Billy the Kid" by John William Poe, "The Real Billy the Kid" by Miguel Antonio Otero, "Stalking Billy the Kid" by Marc Simmons, "The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid" by Pat Garrett, "Kit Carson's Own Story of His Life" by Blanche Grant, and "Dynamite and Six-Shooter" by Jeff Burton. Donald R. Lavash was a historian on the staff of the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives and was a specialist in American Southwest history. An author of numerous articles and the book, "A Journey Through New Mexico History" also published by Sunstone Press, he received his Ph.D. from the International Institute for Advanced Studies.

Hailed as "a rip-snortin', six-guns-blazin' saga of good guys and bad guys who were sometimes one and the same," Robert M. Utley's Lone Star Justice captured the colorful first century of Texas Ranger history. Now, in the eagerly anticipated conclusion, Lone Star Lawmen, Utley once again chronicles the daring exploits of the Rangers, this time as they bring justice to the twentieth-century West.
Based on unprecedented access to Ranger archives, this fast-paced narrative stretches from the days of the Mexican Revolution (where atrocities against Mexican Americans marked the nadir of Ranger history) to the Branch Davidian saga near Waco and the recent bloody standoff with "Republic of Texas" militia. Readers will find in these pages one hundred years of high adventure. Utley follows the Rangers as they pursue bank robbers, bootleggers, moonshiners, and "horsebackers" (smugglers who used mule trains to bring liquor across the border). We see these fearless lawmen taming oil boomtowns, springing the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, facing down angry lynch mobs, and tracking the "Phantom Killer" of Texarkana. Utley also highlights the gradual evolution of this celebrated force, revealing that while West Texas Rangers still occasionally ride the range on horseback and crack down on smugglers and rustlers, East Texas Rangers--who work mostly in big cities--now ride in high-powered cars and contend with kidnappers, forgers, and other urban criminals. But East or West, today's Rangers have become sophisticated professionals, backed by crime labs and forensic science.
Written by one of the most respected Western historians alive, here is the definitive account of the Texas Rangers, a vivid portrait of these legendary peace officers and their role in a changing West.

On September 8, 1886, soldiers and Indians gathered on the parade ground of a frontier post nestled amid cactus-studded hills. A cordon of blueclad troopers formed around a train of open wagons loaded with Indian families. As a military band drawn up at the base of the flagstaff played "Auld Lang Syne," the procession moved out of the fort and headed north. The post was Fort Bowie, Arizona, for a quarter of a century a lonely bastion in Apache Pass, the heart of Apacheria. The Indians were Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apaches, for more than a decade scourges of the southwestern frontier. Now the warfare had ended, and with a touch of musical irony the victors bade farewell as the vanquished were escorted to the railroad cars that would bear them eastward to an uncertain future. Today the gaunt ruins of Fort Bowie, set in an environment otherwise uncluttered by man's works, recall a dramatic and significant phase of the American past"Ythe struggle of a dynamic and aggressive people to conquer the wilderness, and the struggle of a proud and independent people to retain the wilderness and the way of life they had known.