Perilous pursuit: the U.S. Cavalry and the northern Cheyennes

Description

Popularised by Mari Sandoz's "Cheyenne Autumn", the Northern Cheyennes' 1878 escape from their Indian Territory Reservation to their native homeland beyond the Platte River has become a subject of renewed academic interest. But unlike other books written about the exodus of the Northern Cheyennes, Stan Hoig's "Perilous Pursuit" provides a full account of not only the determined flight of the Northern Cheyennes, but also of the beleaguered US cavalry ordered to pursue them.In a well-paced dramatic narrative, Hoig tells the story of betrayed people, incompetent military leadership, a penurious Congress, a hard-pressed Indian Bureau, the suffering troops saddled with the task of stopping a foe far more prepared to fight than they, and an American nation almost totally insensitive to the welfare of its native people. By fully utilising the previously neglected Cheyenne/Arapahoe Agency papers, the officer reports, and court-martial testimonies of the Fourth Cavalry officers and enlisted men, Hoig explains how and why this journey damaged so many lives, both white and native.