Author: David E. Wagner
Publisher:
Published: 2023
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780806192178
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Author: Helena Huntington Smith
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 1966-01-01
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13: 9780803251885
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Account of the Wyoming range war of the Johnson County Stock Growers Association against homesteading cowboys and small ranchers.
Author: A. S. Mercer
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2019-02-21
Total Pages: 162
ISBN-13: 9781797726809
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Author: John H. Monnett
Publisher: UNM Press
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 364
ISBN-13: 9780826345035
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Author: David E. Wagner
Publisher:
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The entry for September 8, 1865, is terse: “We marched and fought over 15 miles today.” With these few words civilian military engineer Lyman G. Bennett characterized the experience of the 1,400 men of the Powder River Expedition’s Eastern Division as they trudged through largely unexplored territory and faced off with American Indians determined to keep their hunting grounds. David E. Wagner’s Powder River Odyssey: Nelson Cole’s Western Campaign of 1865 tells the story of a largely forgotten campaign at the pivotal moment when the Civil War ended and the Indian wars captured national attention. The expedition’s mission seemed simple: punish the bands of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho that had attacked white emigrants and commercial traffic moving west along the Oregon Trail. But the army’s western command failed to appreciate either the resolve of their enemies or the difficulties of the terrain. Cole’s men, ill-provisioned from the outset, began to die of scurvy two months into the campaign and contemplated mutiny. Bennett’s previously unpublished journal and other primary sources clarify and correct previous accounts of the expedition. Fifteen detailed maps reflect the author’s intimate knowledge of the topography along the expedition’s route. Wagner’s documentary account reveals in stark detail the difficulties inherent in the army’s attempt to pacify the American West.
Author: Charles River
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2020-11-07
Total Pages: 46
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading The Bozeman Trail ran through the Powder River country, which included the traditional hunting grounds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. Attempts by the natives to prevent encroachment and armed defense of settlers along the trail led to conflicts in short order. Due to the presence of the Sioux in the region, as early as 1864, travelers were advised not to traverse the Bozeman Trail except in very large wagon trains. The U.S. Army also suffered - that year, when a party led by Captain Townshend and several soldiers set out along the Trail with a wagon train, the Sioux attacked his train, killing four soldiers in the assault. In response to Sioux raids along the Bozeman Trail, the United States Army closed the trail in 1865 to mount the Powder River Expedition against the Sioux alliance that kept ravaging settlers and the beleaguered Crows. With the Civil War nearing its end, spare men were hard to come by, but still the Powder River Expedition was prepared under the leadership of Brigadier General Patrick Connor. Charged with keeping the roads and trails of the plains open, Connor's expedition was war in all but name. Underequipped, and without enough men, the expedition turned out to be little more than a series of limited skirmishes, fortification construction, and requisitions for more men and materiel. Almost from the start, the expedition faced trouble. The various division commanders had a foggy notion of which parts of the Powder River Country they were to march through, with the varied surveys of the region not helping. The biggest problem, however, was the soldiers' refusal to march. Occurring at the climax of the Civil War, the expedition's soldiers expected to be discharged and allowed to return to their homes, not stuck in the middle of nowhere fighting another battle. Dissuaded from mutiny with the helpful aid of artillery, the various divisions finally got under way in July. The expedition faced vast open country, and that, coupled with lack of supplies, logistics, and communication beyond runners and scouts, quickly took their toll. Men succumbed to scurvy, and the east and middle divisions failed to link up on schedule, thanks largely to the lack of proper surveys of the region and general lack of knowledge of the terrain. This lack of knowledge resulted in supply failures, further exacerbating the expedition's plight. With the soldiers lacking food in a region sparse of forage for anything except oxen and birds, the natives pounced, attacking the separated divisions. The natives' attacks were a rude awakening for the soldiers, as among the three divisions only the Native American scouts had knowledge of the area or experience fighting in the West. Expecting nearly nude savages flinging spears and arrows, the natives' use of rifles and captured Army uniforms took them completely by surprise. Despite the lack of supplies and the Native American raids, the middle and east divisions managed to link up in early September, but as the united divisions marched onward to join with General Connor's division, 225 horses and mules died from heat exhaustion, starvation, or cold thanks to a recent mountain storm. Both the natives' view of the expedition and General Connor's offer an idea of the end result. "The Indians, thinking that the commander had voluntarily retired from their front, again hastened to the road, passing General Connor's retiring column to the east of his line of march, and again commenced their devilish work of pillage, plunder and massacre." General Connor himself is reported to have stated in regard to the expedition, "You have doubtless noticed the singular termination of the late campaign against the Indians. The truth is, rather harm than good was done, and our troops were, in one sense, driven out of their country by the Indians..."
Author: Richard Irving Dodge
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2015-11-09
Total Pages: 221
ISBN-13: 0806176857
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Lt. Col. Richard Irving Dodge’s journals, written with utter candor for his eyes only, are the fullest firsthand account we possess of Gen. George Crook’s Powder River Expedition against the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, which culminated in Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie’s resounding destruction of Dull Knife’s forces on November 25, 1876. Editor Wayne R. Kime, with his customary flair, has transcribed the journals from Dodge’s pocket-size notebooks and has provided a pertinent introduction and well-crafted, thoroughly illuminating annotations. Dodge’s journals will clearly prove useful to specialists in U.S. -Indian relations and the Great Sioux War, but they will also appeal to a variety of readers because of Dodge’s lively style and his range of subject matter. With vigorous intelligence, he describes such topics as General Crook as a military leader and strategist, the merits of infantry versus cavalry against the Plains Indians, the effects of subzero weather in Wyoming on a large army far from its sources of supply, and of course, the elusiveness of military glory.
Author: Ralph Cotton
Publisher: Cotton-Branch Publishing
Published: 2018-10-19
Total Pages: 354
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In Powder River, outlaw Jeston Nash—the look-alike cousin of Jesse James and horse-man for the infamous James-Younger Gang—and his partner, Quiet Jack Smith, find themselves entangled in the onrush of historical events leading up to the Powder River Indian War. Attracted by rumors and the profits of war, a strange assortment of characters—outlaws, loose women, lawmen, bounty hunters, preachers, and Washington attachés—lay in wait like vultures to pick the bones of the mighty Sioux Nation as it reels on the verge of extinction. In Old West Tradition, Powder River is a richly woven earth colored tapestry that brings together the best and worst of our Western Heritage. Like all western classics, the pages turn quickly and leave a lasting impression.