This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom. To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers' invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain. He gives a full reckoning of the campaigns and battles--and the unexpected turns, brilliant stratagems, and grand heroism that occurred along the way. And he brings to life the complex characters from both sides of the conflict, including cavalrymen, officers, politicians, and--at the center of it all--the Nez Perce themselves (the Nimiipuu, "true people"). The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood that was bestowed upon Chief Joseph, whose speech of surrender, "I will fight no more forever," became as celebrated as the Gettysburg Address. Based on a rich cache of historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, The Last Indian War offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity--who was and who was not a citizen--was being forged.

Providing an indispensable overview of the American Indian Wars, this book focuses on Native American tribes and warriors and their varying responses to the onslaught of European colonists and American settlers in the centuries following contact. This work provides an overview of the Indian Wars from the arrival of Europeans until 1890. The work focuses primarily on Native American tribes and warriors and their role in battles and campaigns against other Native Americans and Europeans/Americans, while also including key European/American leaders and soldiers as well as treaties between Native Americans and Europeans/Americans. The introduction provides a broad overview of the Indian Wars and also considers whether the Indian Wars should be considered genocide. The bibliography focuses on the most important works published on the Indian Wars. Each entry also includes a list of references for readers to consult. The work also includes a collection of primary source documents that span the entire time period.

Bringing together Custer, Sherman, Grant, and other fascinating military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, this “sweeping work of narrative history” (San Francisco Chronicle) is the fullest account to date of how the West was won—and lost. After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the intertribal strife over whether to fight or make peace; explores the dreary, squalid lives of frontier soldiers and the imperatives of the Indian warrior culture; and describes the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. In dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers, and Indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led. The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today.

Traces the history of the U.S. Army's campaign against the Native American population during the nineteenth century, describing major battles and legendary figures on both sides.

Acclaimed independent history scholar Gregory Michno has created a chronological listing of every significant fight between Indians and the United States Army, as well as better-known Indian battles with civilian emigrants. This detailed study is more tha

In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Silver presents an astonishingly vivid picture of 18th-century America. 13 illustrations; 2 maps.

Battles of the Red River War unearths a long-buried record of the collision of two cultures. In 1874, U.S. forces led by Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie carried out a surprise attack on several Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa bands that had taken refuge in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas panhandle and destroyed their winter stores and horses. After this devastating loss, many of these Indians returned to their reservations and effectively brought to a close what has come to be known as the Red River War, a campaign carried out by the U.S. Army during 1874 as a result of Indian attacks on white settlers in the region. After this operation, the Southern Plains Indians would never again pose a coherent threat to whites’ expansion and settlement across their ancestral homelands. Until now, the few historians who have undertaken to tell the story of the Red River War have had to rely on the official records of the battles and a handful of extant accounts, letters, and journals of the U.S. Army participants. Starting in 1998, J. Brett Cruse, under the auspices of the Texas Historical Commission, conducted archeological investigations at six battle sites. In the artifacts they unearthed, Cruse and his teams found clues that would both correct and complete the written records and aid understanding of the Indian perspectives on this clash of cultures. Including a chapter on historiography and archival research by Martha Doty Freeman and an analysis of cartridges and bullets by Douglas D. Scott, this rigorously researched and lavishly illustrated work will commend itself to archeologists, military historians and scientists, and students and scholars of the Westward Expansion.

Tragic historic story of the destruction of Native American peoples as a result of the Civil War, including their own service in both the Union and Confederate armies.

"Crossing the Pond also chronicles the unsuccessful efforts of Nazi propagandists to exploit Native Americans for the Third Reich, as well as the successful efforts of the United States government and the media to recruit Native Americans, utilize their resources, and publicize their activities for the war effort. Attention is also given to the postwar experiences of Native American men and women as they sought the franchise, educational equality, economic stability, the right to purchase alcohol, and the same amount of respect given to other American war veterans."--BOOK JACKET.

The decades-long military campaign for the American West is an endlessly fascinating topic, and award-winning author Jerome A. Greene adds substantially to this genre with Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life and Campaigns in the West, 1864-1898. Greene’s study presents the first comprehensive collection of veteran (primarily former enlisted soldiers’) reminiscences. The vast majority of these writings have never before seen wide circulation. Indian War Veterans addresses soldiers’ experiences throughout the area of the trans-Mississippi West. As readers will quickly discover, the depth and breadth of coverage is truly monumental. Topics include recollections of fighting with Custer and the mutilation of the dead at Little Bighorn, the Fetterman fight, the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, battles at Powder River and Rosebud Creek, fighting Crazy Horse at Wolf Mountains, Geronimo and the Apache wars, the Ute and Modoc wars, Wounded Knee, and much more. The remembrances also include selections as diverse as “Christmas at Fort Robinson,” “Service with the Eighteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry,” and “Chasing the Apache Kid.” These carefully drawn recollections derive from a wide array of sources, including manuscript and private collections, veterans’ scrapbooks, obscure newspapers, and private veterans’ statements. A special introductory essay about Indian war veterans contains new material about their post-service organizations all the way into the 1960s. Complimenting the riveting entries are dozens of previously unpublished photographs. Readers will additionally find a gallery of never-before-seen full-color plates displaying a wide variety of Indian War Veterans’ badges, medals, and associated materials. No other book discusses the post-army lives of these men or presents their recollections of army life as thoroughly as Greene’s Indian War Veterans. This groundbreaking study will appeal to lay readers, historians, site visitors and interpreters, Civil War and Indian wars enthusiasts, collectors, museum curators, and archeologists. "A treasure-trove of original sources on the Indian wars, an essential addition to every library on the subject." --Paul A. Hutton, University of New Mexico, and the author of "Phil Sheridan and his Army and "The Custer Reader." About the Author: Jerome A. Greene is an award-winning author and historian with the National Park Service. His books include The Guns of Independence: The Siege of Yorktown, 1781, Lakota and Cheyenne: Indian Views of the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877, Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyenne, 1876, and Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869. He resides in Colorado.