Excerpt from The Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard, Chief of Scouts, U. S. A I first met Frank Grouard at Fort Washakie, Wyoming, in 1887, being introduced to him by Nelson (Charlie) Yarnell, then a scout in the government service. I remember that meeting very distinctly. I was prepared to meet a man who, at one period of his life, had been forced through capricious circumstances to not only abandon but partly forget his native tongue; but I imagined that he would not be loth to speak of his life among the Indians; that, having been freed from the bonds of captivity, and dwelt among his own people for the past thirteen years, ample time had been given him to acquire familiarity with his native tongue. In short, I supposed that he would be glad of an opportunity to open his lips, sealed for so long a time, and recount some of the experiences and adventures which had made his life of so much interest to people generally. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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That Frank Grouard was an important figure in the history of the Indian wars of the Great Plains is beyond any doubt. Nor can there be the slightest doubt of Grouard's position among his fellows, including General George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, and Chicago Times correspondent, John Finerty.Six feet tall and 200 pounds of muscle, Grouard (also spelled Gruard) was well acquainted with Indian life. He knew Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and most of the Native American leaders. Having been captured by the Sioux, he spent years with them learning their language and ways, becoming accepted as one of their own. Returning to white society, he put what he knew to use as one of the greatest army scouts of the Old West.In the Great Sioux War of 1876, he was a scout for General Crook's Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition that was supposed to unite with Custer's Seventh Cavalry to bring the Sioux and Cheyenne into reservations. Grouard fought with Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud just eight days before Custer was wiped out by the same Indians under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.By the time this book was written in 1894, Grouard was known all over the country. His exciting accounts of Indian life and the Indian Wars is a seminal contribution to our knowledge of the period.

“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.