Account of the Wyoming range war of the Johnson County Stock Growers Association against homesteading cowboys and small ranchers.

The Great Sioux War of 1876–77 began at daybreak on March 17, 1876, when Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds and six cavalry companies struck a village of Northern Cheyennes—Sioux allies—thereby propelling the Northern Plains tribes into war. The ensuing last stand of the Sioux against Anglo-American settlement of their homeland spanned some eighteen months, playing out across more than twenty battle and skirmish sites and costing hundreds of lives on both sides and many millions of dollars. And it all began at Powder River. Powder River: Disastrous Opening of the Great Sioux War recounts the wintertime Big Horn Expedition and its singular great battle, along with the stories of the Northern Cheyennes and their elusive leader Old Bear. Historian Paul Hedren tracks both sides of the conflict through a rich array of primary source material, including the transcripts of Reynolds’s court-martial and Indian recollections. The disarray and incompetence of the war’s beginnings—officers who failed to take proper positions, disregard of orders to save provisions, failure to cooperate, and abandonment of the dead and a wounded soldier—in many ways anticipated the catastrophe that later occurred at the Little Big Horn. Forty photographs, many previously unpublished, and five new maps detail the action from start to ignominious conclusion. Hedren’s comprehensive account takes Powder River out of the shadow of the Little Big Horn and reveals how much this critical battle tells us about the army’s policy and performance in the West, and about the debacle soon to follow.

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.

The summer of 1865 marked the transition from the Civil War to Indian war on the western plains. With the rest of the country's attention still focused on the East, the U.S. Army began an often forgotten campaign against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Led by Gen. Patrick Connor, the Powder River Indian Expedition into Wyoming sought to punish tribes for raids earlier that year. Patrick Connor's War describes the troops' movement into hostile territory while struggling with bad weather, supply shortages, and communication problems. David E. Wagner's carefully assembled account carries readers along the trail of Connor's men and allows soldiers to give firsthand impressions of the land and campaign. The author draws on journals, letters, and reports--especially the James H. Kidd Papers, a copy of Connor's expedition report previously believed burned, and the newly discovered C. M. Lee diary--to reconstruct a day-by-day chronology that finds the men trudging, sometimes barefoot and half starved, over unforgiving terrain. The thrill and danger of buffalo hunts and skirmishes with Indians punctuated an arduous trek across the northern plains. Copious maps tie narrative to topography by plotting Connor's route and the paths of the units under him. Also included is a detailed account of the civilian road-building expedition of James Sawyers, whose fate became intertwined with the Powder River expedition. Two dozen illustrations and biographical sketches of main players round out the work. This first major campaign of the post-Civil War Indian wars has been largely overlooked by historians--but should be no longer. Patrick Connor's War breaks new ground by bringing the expedition to life in fascinating detail that will satisfy scholars and engage general readers.

The true story of the Johnson County War written by the crusading local journalist who had once been on the side of the cattle barons.Asa Shinn Mercer is best known today as one of the Mercer brothers who brought pioneer brides from the east coast to the frontier town of Seattle in the 1860s. That story was fictionalized in the 1960s TV hit, "Here Come the Brides."Thirty years later, Mercer moved his family to Cheyenne, Wyoming to run the public relations newspaper for the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association. He soon found that the cattle barons were engaged in theft, extortion, and even murder to drive out small ranchers from Johnson County and claim exclusive rights to grazing and water.Turning his journalistic sights on the cattlemen, Mercer was threatened, beaten, his office taken over, and his newspaper suspended for a time. But he persevered, writing this account of the dangerous men he knew and had once worked for.The first edition of this book, "The Banditti of the Plains," was suppressed and today is extremely rare, fetching prices in the thousands of dollars. In 1923, John Mercer Boots republished the book and this edition expands on that one.Updated with an extensive new introduction and annotations about the principal actors in the drama, which did not appear in Mercer's or Boots' editions, this important work is now available for a 21st century audience.

Monnett takes a closer look at the struggle between the mining interests of the United States and the Lakota and Cheyenne nations in 1866 that climaxed with the Fetterman Massacre.