After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country

273 Pages·2011·2.82 MB·English

by  Paul L. Hedren

After Custer
Also by Paul L. Hedren
First Scalp for Custer: The Skirmish at Warbonnet Creek, Nebraska,
July 17, 1876(Glendale, 1980)
With Crook in the Black Hills: Stanley J. Morrow’s 1876 Photo-
graphic Legacy(Boulder, 1985)
Fort Laramie in 1876: Chronicle of a Frontier Post at War(Lincoln, 1988)
(ed.)The Great Sioux War 1876–77: The Best from Montana The
Magazine of Western History (Helena, 1991)
(ed.) Campaigning With King: Charles King, Chronicler of the Old
Army(Lincoln, 1991)
Traveler’s Guide to the Great Sioux War: The Battlefields, Forts, and
Related Sites of America’s Greatest Indian War(Helena, 1996)
We Trailed the Sioux: Enlisted Men Speak on Custer, Crook, and
the Great Sioux War(Mechanicsburg, 2003)
Great Sioux War Orders of Battle: How the United States Army
Waged War on the Northern Plains, 1876–1877(Norman, 2011)
After Custer
Loss and Transformation
in Sioux Country
Paul L. Hedren
University of Oklahoma Press : Norman
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hedren, Paul L.
After Custer : loss and transformation in Sioux country / Paul L. Hedren
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8061-4216-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Dakota Indians—History—19th century. 2. Cheyenne Indians—History—
19th century. 3. Dakota Indians—Wars, 1876—Influence. 4. Cheyenne
Indians—Wars, 1876—Influence. 5. United States. Army. Cavalry—History—
19th century. 6. United States. Army.Infantry—History—19th century. 7. Dakota
Indians—Government relations. 8. Cheyenne Indians— Government relations.
9. Great Plains—Historical geography. I. Title.
E99.D1H44 2011
978.004'975243—dc22
2011007486
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on LibraryResources, Inc.∞
Copyright © 2011 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing
Division of the University.Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
aretrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under
Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—without the prior
written permission of the University of Oklahoma Press.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
To my daughters, Ethne and Whitney,
who are grown now and married
but continue to make this father very proud

Contents
List of Maps ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
1. A Good Year to Die? 3
2. Sheridan and Sherman Explore Sioux Country 27
3. New Forts and a New Mission 50
4. The Army and the Northern Pacific Railroad 70
5. “The Buffaloes Are Gone” 92
6. The Beef Bonanza 111
7. Cycles of Despair and Death 133
8. Sacred Ground 176
Notes 199
Bibliography 227
Index 243
vii

Maps
The NorthernPlains, 1868–1890 14–15
The Teton Sioux Reservations, 1890 169
ix