General George Crook's controversial “Horsemeat March” culminating in the battle at Slim Buttes is considered the turning point of the Sioux Wars. After Lieutenant General George A. Custer's shocking defeat at the Little Big Horn River, Montana Territory, in 1876, General Crook and the men of this Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition were given orders to pursue and subjugate restive tribes of the Northern Cheyenne and Teton Sioux Indians in the area. General Crook, an able and experienced Indian campaigner, insisted that his men travel light and fast. This tactic nearly proved disastrous. Provisions ran out, and, with the nearest settlements still far away in the Black Hills, Crook's troops were forced to abandon, and later to devour, their exhausted and stringy mounts. When a detachment under Captain Anson Mills was dispatched to bring provisions from the settlements ahead, Mills accidentally came across a large Indian village at Slim Buttes. Lured as much by supplies of food in the village as by a desire to subjugate the Indians, Mills attacked, Crook arrived with reinforcements, and by the evening of the second day, September 9, 1876, the battle was over. The climax of General Crook's career and of one of the most arduous military expeditions in American history, this battle was the first of a series of blows that ultimately broke the Indians' resistance and forced their submission. The victory was not without irony. Crook's starvation march, his troops' nearly unanimous criticism of his command, Mill's account of an Indian child's tears over her mother's corpse, and doubts about whether the Indians involved had indeed had anything to do with Custer's defeat combined to steal most of the glory from the victor. Slim Buttes, 1876 presents in vivid detail the grisly realities of the Indian Wars and the suffering experienced by both sides. For the troops who campaigned in the lonely hinterlands of America, it was bloody, dangerous, and exhausting warfare fought, as General Crook said, “without favor or hope of reward.”

This volume offers accounts of the many battles and skirmishes in the Great Sioux War as they were observed by participating officers, enlisted men, scouts, surgeons, and newspaper correspondents. The selections-some rendered immediately after the encounters and some set down in reminiscences years later - are important and little-known sources of information about the war. By their personal nature, they give a compelling sense of immediacy to the actions. The editor's introduction and commentary on each of the accounts help readers understand the interrelationship of events and appreciate the entire spectrum of the conflict.

Featuring specially commissioned artwork and full-color maps, this absorbing study investigates the origins, fighting techniques, and battlefield performance of the combatants fighting on both sides during the Black Hills War of 1876–77. Following the discovery of gold deposits, in December 1875 the US Government ordered the indigenous population of the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota and Wyoming, the Sioux, to return to the Great Sioux Reservation. When the Sioux refused, US Army sent forces into the area, sparking a conflict that would make Lieutenant Colonel George Custer, Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and others household names around the world. Examining a series of engagements in the Black Hills War, including Rosebud, Little Bighorn and Slim Buttes, this fully illustrated study assesses the forces fighting on both sides in this momentous campaign, casting light on the origins, tactics, armament, and battlefield performance of the US Cavalry and their Sioux opponents at the height of the Indian Wars.

The story of the Great Sioux War, including the battle of the Little Big Horn, as seen through the eyes of contemporary newspaper correspondents, both civilian and military. Many of these reports have not appeared in print since the first time they were published more than 130 years ago.

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.

George Crook was one of the most prominent military figures of the late-nineteenth-century Indian Wars. As Paul Magid portrays Crook in this highly readable second volume of a projected three-volume biography, the general was an innovative and eccentric soldier, with a complex and often contradictory personality, whose activities often generated intense controversy.

From a recognized authority on the High Plains Indians wars comes this narrative history blending both American Indian and U.S. Army perspectives on the attack that destroyed the village of Northern Cheyenne chief Morning Star. Of momentous significance for the Cheyennes as well as the army, this November 1876 encounter, coming exactly six months to the day after the Custer debacle at the Little Bighorn, was part of the Powder River Expedition waged by Brigadier General George Crook against the Indians. Vital to the larger context of the Great Sioux War, the attack on Morning Star’s village encouraged the eventual surrender of Crazy Horse and his Sioux followers. Unbiased in its delivery, Morning Star Dawn offers the most thorough modern scholarly assessment of the Powder River Expedition. It incorporates previously unsynthesized data from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Army Military History Institute, and other repositories, and provides an examination of all facets of the campaign leading to and following the destruction of Morning Star’s village.