The year 1865 was bloody on the Plains as various Indian tribes, including the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Sioux, joined with their northern relatives to wage war on the white man. They sought revenge for the 1864 massacre at Sand Creek, when John Chivington and his Colorado volunteers nearly wiped out a village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. The violence in eastern Colorado spread westward to Fort Laramie and Fort Caspar in southeastern and central Wyoming, and then moved north to the lands along the Wyoming-Montana border.

Fascinated by mechanical gadgetry and technology, Lincoln introduced breechloaders and machine guns into warfare and promoted the use of incendiary weapons, ironclad warships, breechloading cannons, and aerial reconnaissance. Robert Bruce chronicles the President's struggle against bureaucratic red tape and his dealings with the colorful parade of inventors, ordinance experts, bureaucrats, military officers, and lobbyists who heralded a new era in warfare.

Describes the fierce battle that erupted in post-Civil War America over the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the implications of the revolutionary addition to the U.S. Constitution, and the colorful cast of characters involved--including Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony.