The Indian Territory Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge Hardcover - 2000

First line

ON THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 9, 1878, A BODY OF 353 Northern Cheyenne Indians slipped away from their encampment not far from the Cheyenne and Arapaho agency, in Indian Territory, beginning a desperate journey away from reservation life and toward their ancestral homeland in the northern plains and mountains.

From the jacket flap

In these journals, Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, a well-known chronicler of western history and an authority on Plains Indians, provides an important account of conditions in Indian Territory from 1878 to 1880, a period of rapid transition.

The Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation in present-day western Oklahoma was the center of Dodge's activity. His writings offer a firsthand record of the 1878 retreat of the Northern Cheyenne, the conditions endured by Indians who remained on the reservation, and the jurisdictional conflicts between Army personnel and representatives of the Office of Indian Affairs.

These journals also provide insight into Dodge's character, with reports of his official duties as a military man and of several landmark events in his family life. Extensive commentaries and notes by Wayne R. Kime provide further detail, including a history of Cantonment North Fork Canadian River, a six-company post Dodge established and commanded in the region.