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(More customer reviews)Before historical author Dee Brown penned his ultimate and most famous work "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," he was out hiking in the sticks, so to say, with his carefully researched "The Fetterman Massacre."
Formerly known as "Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga," but re-named "The Fetterman Massacre" to emphasize the most famous battle which took place at the cursed frontier fort, Brown's work is a carefully researched examination of the few fatal years of existence of a small cavalry outpost located in the foothills of the Big Horn mountains in 1865-66. When reading this work today, it is extremely difficult to imagine the terrible conditions these men lived under on a daily basis.
Sent by the U.S. government into a hostile land that belonged to the Sioux and Cheyenne Native Americans, these soldiers built a fort along the Montana Road to protect travelers and prospectors. But harsh weather conditions and the ever-present threat of furious Native American warriors offended by the placement of this fort in the heart of their ancestor's land, eventually led to the infamous massacre.
On the morning of Dec. 21, 1866, Captain William Fetterman led 80 men out of Fort Phil Kearny to rescue woodcutters under assault by Red Cloud's Oglala Sioux. Crazy Horse, among others, set a decoy trap for Fetterman and his doomed troops, and as they rode over a hill were attacked and killed to the man in a furious battle lasting about 20 minutes. This massacre eventually led to the dismantling of the fort, a Congressional investigation, and the destruction of Kearny Commander Henry Carrington's military career.
When reading Brown's novel today, one realizes that the situation Carrington was forced into was an almost impossible responsibility. Fetterman and his men were not the only casualties at this doomed outpost. In fact, after reading "The Fetterman Massacre," one realizes men died on a monthly basis, including woodcutters, settlers, prospectors and soldiers going to a nearby stream to fill water buckets.
Brown's work is fascinating, and he draws from such historical documents as Army records and first-hand interviews to paint a vivid, if not heartbreaking picture of these terrible frontier wars. When one stands today at the desolate, almost gothic location of the fort outside of Sheridan, Wyoming, one can almost hear the trumpet calls, the crack of rifles and the cries of men losing their lives. The battlefield and the fort locations are almost pristine, with only a nearby Interstate visible on the far horizon.
With Brown's painstaking documentation in hand, one can almost step back in time to this lonely place. And perhaps that is the strongest recommendation for this book. It recreates a time and era in frontier history that was brutal, if not alien. "The Fetterman Massacre" is an eye-opening work about a little-known moment in American history.
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