"We are brave and ready to fight for our lands . I will go now and I will fight you. As long as I live, I will fight you for the last hunting grounds of my people," said Red Cloud, war chief of the Oglala Lakota, to Colonel Carrington. The year was 1866, the Civil War had just ended, and the Bozeman Trail was the shortest route for prospectors to reach the gold rush territory of Montana except that it passed straight through the lands of the powerful Oglala Lakota When the US government demanded the construction of forts along the trail, the situation quickly dissolved into war. Captain William Fetterman had proudly boasted that he could destroy the entire Lakota nation with just 80 men. Red Cloud, with the support of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, had other ideas. In this commemorative edition, marking the 150th anniversary of Red Cloud s War, Goble recounts the tale of events through the eyes of Brave Eagle, a fictional young Lakota warrior. This new edition features an original never-before-published layout, updated and edited text, digitally enhanced artwork, and a new foreword by Robert Lewis, a Cherokee, Navaho, and Apache storyteller."

On a cold December day in 1866, Captain William J. Fetterman disobeyed orders and spurred his men across Lodge Trail Ridge in pursuit of a group of retreating Lakota Sioux, Arapahos, and Cheyennes. He saw a perfect opportunity to punish the tribes for harassing travelers on the Bozeman Trail and attacking wood trains sent out from nearby Fort Phil Kearny. In a sudden turn of events, his command was, within moments, annihilated. John D. McDermott's masterful retelling of the Fetterman Disaster is just one episode of Red Cloud's War, the most comprehensive history of the Bozeman Trail yet written. In vivid detail, McDermott recounts how the discovery of gold in Montana in 1863 led to the opening of the 250-mile route from Fort Laramie to the goldfields near Virginia City, and the fortification of this route with three military posts. The road crossed the Powder River Basin, the last, best hunting grounds of the Northern Plains tribes. Oglala chief Red Cloud and his allies mounted a campaign of armed resistance against the army and Montana-bound settlers. Among a host of small but bloody clashes were such major battles as the Fetterman Disaster, the Wagon Box Fight, and the Hayfield Fight, all of them famous in the annals of the Indian Wars. McDermott's spellbinding narrative offers a cautionary tale of hubris and mis-calculation. The United States Army suffered one setback after another; what reputation for effectiveness it had gained during the Civil War dissipated in the skirmishing in faraway Big Horn country. In a thoughtful conclusion, McDermott reflects on the tribes' victories and the consequences of the Treaty of 1868. By successfully defending their hunting grounds, the Northern Plains tribes delayed an ultimate reckoning that would come a decade later on the Little Bighorn, on the Red Forks of the Powder River, at Slim Buttes, at Wolf Mountain, and in a dozen other places where warrior and trooper met in the final clashes on the western plains. The leather-bound collector's edition is limited to fifty-five numbered and signed copies in a handsome slipcase, of which fifty are offered for sale.

"Explains Red Cloud's War, including its chronology, causes, and lasting effects"--

One of the most dramatic battles of the Indian Wars is described in a revised edition with new material including official army reports and recent archaeological evidence.

Map of Red Cloud's territory at the height of his power on lining papers.

The Fetterman Fight ranks among the most crushing defeats suffered by the U.S. Army in the nineteenth-century West. On December 21, 1866—during Red Cloud’s War (1866–1868)—a well-organized force of 1,500 to 2,000 Oglala Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors annihilated a detachment of seventy-nine infantry and cavalry soldiers—among them Captain William Judd Fetterman—and two civilian contractors. With no survivors on the U.S. side, the only eyewitness accounts of the battle came from Lakota and Cheyenne participants. In Eyewitness to the Fetterman Fight, award-winning historian John H. Monnett presents these Native views, drawn from previously published sources as well as newly discovered interviews with Oglala and Cheyenne warriors and leaders. Supplemented with archaeological evidence, these narratives flesh out historical understanding of Red Cloud’s War. Climate change in the mid-nineteenth century made the resource-rich Powder River Country in today’s Wyoming increasingly important to Plains Indians. At the same time, the discovery of gold in Montana encouraged prospectors to pass through the Powder River region on their way north, and so the U.S. Army began to construct new forts along the Bozeman Trail. In the resulting conflict, the Lakotas and Cheyennes defended their hunting ranges and trade routes. Traditional histories have laid the blame for Fetterman’s 1866 defeat and death on his incompetent leadership—and thus implied that the Indian alliance succeeded only because of Fetterman’s personal failings. Monnett’s sources paint another picture. Narratives like those of Miniconjou Lakota warrior White Bull suggest that Fetterman’s actions were not seen as rash or reprehensible until after the fact. Nor did his men flee the field in panic. Rather, they fought bravely to the end. The Indians, for their part, used their knowledge of the terrain to carefully plan and execute an ambush, ensuring them victory. Critical to understanding the nuances of Plains Indian strategy and tactics, the firsthand narratives in Eyewitness to the Fetterman Fight reveal the true nature of this Native victory against regular army forces.