Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has played a vital role in the maturing processes of both the United States Army and the United States. Lewis and Clark, whose expedition introduced the Louisiana Purchase to the American people, were the initial instruments of that spirit of "Manifest Destiny" which eventuated in the establishment of Fort Leavenworth, a post that was to play an instrumental role in the "settling" of the West and every American war fought after 1827. The fort, built by Colonel Leavenworth between Missouri and Little Platte rivers, was, from its inception, located in a storm center of American history. The area known as Kansas adapted violently to civilization's cultivating hoe. Indians, the original landowners, through unhonored treaties and brute force, were systematically pushed off their land; Brigham Young and his "fanatical" brethren tried unsuccessfully to sink roots there; ferocious fighting between slave owners and abolitionists gave currency to the term "Bleeding Kansas"; during the Civil War Kansas was the scene of the savage battle known as "Gettysburg of the West." After the Union's victory and the eventual pacification of the area, the post became the first Army Tactical School in a pilot program that proved to be extremely successful; Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton were three of many Leavenworth graduates who distinguished themselves in World War II. The Fort and Kansas have experienced numerous transitions, but the importance of Leavenworth in America's defense is still vital today. Carefully researched and vividly written, George Walton's Sentinel of the Plains follows in fascinating detail the forced march American civilization made "from Sea to shining Sea" -- Book jacket.

"Very comprehensive and authoritative." --Robert M. Utley, author of Cavalier in Buckskin "Jeff Barnes has really done his research. . . . Highly recommended." --James Donovan, author of A Terrible Glory Guide to forts, military posts, battlefields, and other sites that interpret George Armstrong Custer's decade of operations on the Great Plains Locations in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana Extended section on Little Bighorn Each entry includes directions, amenities, contact information, and recommended reading

A new scholarly edition of an Ohio boy soldier’s revealing post-Civil War memoir. This annotated edition of Holliday’s recollections—known primarily among historians of the American West—re-contextualizes his memoir to include his boyhood in southern Ohio and the largely untold story of the hundreds of Buckeyes who crossed the Ohio River to serve their country in Virginia (later West Virginia) regiments, ultimately traveling across Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming to safeguard mail and stage routes along the celebrated Oregon Trail during a pivotal time in American history. Glenn Longacre’s extensive research in federal, state, and local archives, manuscript collections, and period newspapers complements his correspondence with the living descendants of Holliday and other soldiers. His research integrates this story deservedly as part of Appalachian history before, during, and after the Civil War. From this perspective it addresses an entirely new audience of Appalachian studies scholars, Civil War and frontier history enthusiasts, students, and general readers.

Uncovers the hidden world of the military legal system and the intimate history of racism that pervaded the armed forces long after integration. Richard A. Serrano reveals how racial discrimination in the US military criminal justice system determined whose lives mattered and deserved a second chance and whose did not. Between 1955 and 1961, a group of white and black condemned soldiers lived together on death row at Fort Leavenworth military prison. Although convicted of equally heinous crimes, all the white soldiers were eventually paroled and returned to their families, spared by high-ranking army officers, the military courts, sympathetic doctors, highly trained attorneys, the White House staff, or President Eisenhower himself. During the same 6-year period, only black soldiers were hanged. Some were cognitively challenged, others addicted to substances or mentally unbalanced—the same mitigating circumstances that had won white soldiers their death row reprieves. These men lacked the benefits of political connections, expert lawyers, or public support; only their mothers begged fruitlessly for their lives to be spared. By 1960, John Bennett was the youngest black inmate at Fort Leavenworth. His lost battle for clemency was fought between 2 vastly different presidential administrations—Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s—as the civil rights movement was gaining steam. Drawing on interviews, trial transcripts, and rarely published archival material, Serrano brings to life the characters in this lost history: from desperate mothers and disheartened appeals lawyers, to the prison doctors, psychiatrists, and chaplains. He shines a light on the scandalous legal maneuvering that reached the doors of the White House and the disparity in capital punishment that was cut so strictly along racial lines.