Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891

450 Pages·1984·11.38 MB·English

by  Robert M. Utley

Copyright 1973 by Robert M. Utley
All rights reserved
First Bison Book printing: September 1984
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Utley, Robert Marshall, 1929—
Frontier regulars.
Reprint. Originally published: New York: Macmillan, cl973.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
I. Indians of North America—Wars—1866—1895. 2. United States. Army—
History. 3. West (U.S.)—History—1848—1950. 4. United States. Army—
Military life—History—19th century. I. Title.
[E83.866.U87 1984] 973.8 84–7484
ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-9551-3 (paper: alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-9568-1 (electronic: e-pub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-9569-8 (electronic: mobi)
Reprinted by arrangement with Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any
responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Introduction
Return to the Frontier
ONE
The Postwar Army: Command, Staff, and Line
TWO
The Problem of Doctrine
THREE
The Army, Congress, and the People
FOUR
Weapons, Uniforms, and Equipment
FIVE
Army Life on the Border
SIX
Fort Phil Kearny, 1866
SEVEN
Hancock’s War, 1867
EIGHT
The Peace Commission of 1867
NINE
Operations on the Southern Plains, 1868–69
TEN
Beyond the Plains, 1866–70
ELEVEN
Grant’s Peace Policy, 1869–74
TWELVE
The Red River War, 1874–75
THIRTEEN
Sitting Bull, 1870–76
FOURTEEN
The Conquest of the Sioux, 1876–81
FIFTEEN
Nez Percé Bid for Freedom, 1877
SIXTEEN
Bannock, Paiute, Sheepeater, and Ute, 1878–79
SEVENTEEN
Mexican Border Conflicts, 1870–81
EIGHTEEN
Geronimo, 1881–86
NINETEEN
Ghost Dance, 1890–91
TWENTY
Bibliography
Index
The Northern Plains, 1866–68
Bozeman Trail Forts, 1866–68
Hancock’s War, April–July 1867
The Southern Plains War, 1868–69
The Southern Plains and Texas, 1867–69
The Snake War, 1866–68; The Modoc War, 1872–73; Area of Operations
Crook’s Tonto Basin Campaign, 1872–73
The Southern Plains, 1869–75
The Red River War, 1874–7 5
The Northern Plains, 1870–90
The Sioux War of 1876; The Battle of the Little Bighorn, June 25–26, 1876
The Nez Percé and Bannock-Paiute Wars, 1877–78
The Ute War, 1879
Border Conflict, 1870–86
ERRATA
p. 25, 1. Merrit should be Merritt
28:
p. 112, 1. restored should be resorted
31:
p. 116, eleven troops should be eight troops
1.6:
p. 118, 1. May 2 should be May 3
29:
p. 120, 1. August 22–23 should be August 21–22
17:
p. 132, 1. Department of Dakota, not the Dakota
23:
p. 150, 1. Kansas should be Kansans
9:
p. 155, 1. three chiefs should be four
33:
p. 181, has should be had
1.2:
p. 193, 1. Freedman’s should be Freedmen’s
37:
p. 296, 1. Same
19:
p. 194, 1. Cohise’s should be Cochise’s
32:
p. 205, 1. June 3 should be June 1
23:
p. 213, 1. wtih should be with
27:
p. 230, Henely should be Heneley
11. 20,
24:
p. 241, 1.
p. 241, 1.
Nabraska should be Nebraska
21:
p. 246, 1. Serman should be Sherman
24:
pp. 253– John S. Gray, Centennial Campaign, makes a persuasive case for
54: fewer Indians than given here.
p. 260, 1. trumpeter orderly should be orderly trumpeter
7:
p. 268, 1. Bonnett should be Bonnet
19:
p. 303, 1. on should be of
9:
p. 315, 1. Wallowa Valley
10:
p. 323, 1. subsitute should be substitute
14:
p. 326, 1. trial should be trail
10:
p. 327, 1. Piautes should be Paiutes
11:
p. 335, 1. Chief Douglas should be Chief Johnson
21:
p. 351, 1. Zargosa should be Zaragosa
16:
p. 362, 1. May 23 should be May 24
14:
p. 364, 1. 1,000 should be 350
2:
p. 364, should read “trapped Victorio amid three peaks called Tres Castillos.”
11. 13– Dead Indians numbered 62. Who fired fatal bullet not known.
18:
p. 377, 1. guage should be gauge
29:
p. 380, 1. Benito should be Bonito
4:
p. 389, 1. bed should be bend
14:
14:
p. 407, 1. At should be as
28:
Introduction
I
volume of this series, I sketched the story of the handful of blue-clad
N A PREVIOUS
frontiersmen who contended with the Indian tribes of the trans-Mississippi West
in the years between the Mexican War and the Civil War.1 I also dealt with the
Volunteers who replaced the Regulars during the Civil War years and who on
almost every front stepped up the scale and effectiveness of warfare against the
Indians. In the present volume my subject is the Regular Army that took up the
task after Appomattox and carried the Indian Wars to their tragic and bloody
conclusion at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890.
The frontier Regulars saw themselves as the advance guard of civilization,
sweeping aside the savage to make way for the stockman, the miner, the farmer,
and the merchant. This stereotype is evident in the writings of officers such as
Nelson A. Miles, George A. Custer, George A. Forsyth, John G. Bourke, George
F. Price, T. F. Rodenbough, James Parker, and William H. and Robert G. Carter;
of officers’ wives such as Mrs. Custer, Mrs. Biddle, Mrs. Summerhayes, and
Mrs. Boyd; and of friendly newsmen such as John F. Finerty. It is to be glimpsed
in the art of Frederic Remington and Charles Schreyvogel. Above all, it is to be
credited to Captain Charles King, who in dozens of novels reinforced the army’s
view of itself. King summed it up years later in an address to Indian War
veterans:
It is all a memory now, but what a memory, to cherish! … A more thankless
task, a more perilous service, a more exacting test of leadership, morale and
discipline no army in Christendom has ever been called upon to undertake than
that which for eighty years was the lot of the little fighting force of Regulars
who cleared the way across the continent for the emigrant and settler.2
Others saw the Regulars in a different light. Eastern humanitarians assailed
them as butchers, rampaging around the West gleefully slaughtering peaceable
Indians and taking special delight in shooting down women and children.
Antislavery leaders such as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison turned
energies liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation to a crusade in behalf of
the red men, and the army felt the sting of rhetoric sharpened in the long war
against the slavocracy. “I only know the names of three savages upon the