FRONTIER REGULARS : The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891

Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Press, 1977. First Edition, First Printing . Soft cover. Near Fine/None as Issued. Text/BRAND NEW & Bright. Illustrated blue soft cover/NF; trace edge rubs, and, slight, inoffensive pushes to lower front/back corner tips & lower back spine corner from poor shelving. Companion volume to Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian 1848-1865. This comprehensive and highly balanced historical review considers the Army's role as a frontier police force carrying out civilian policies, that were none too clear on goal nor strategy, in establishing control over the Great Plains. Utley shows the frontier army to be neither "the heroic vanguard of civilization, crushing savages and opening the West to settlers", nor "the barbaric band "eternally waging unjust war against unoffending Indians" often portrayed in subsequent humanitarian and atonement literature; it was instead a conventional military force trying to control a people that did not behave like a coventional enemy and, quite often were friendly. 20 chapters: 1, Return to the Fontier; 2, The Postwar Army: Command, Staff, & Line; 3, The Problem of Doctrine; 4, The Army, Congress, & the People. 5, Weapons, Uniform, & Equipment; 6, Army Life on the Border; 7, Fort Phil Kearny, 1866; 8, Hancock's War, 1867; 9, The Peace Commission of 1867; 10, Operation on the Southern Plains, 1868-69; 11, Beyond the Plains, 1866-70; 12, Grant's Peace Policy, 1869-74; 13, The Red River War, 1874-75; 14, Sitting Bull, 1870-76; 15, The Conquest of the Sioux, 1876-81; 16, Nez Perce Bid for Freedom, 1877; 17, Bannock, Paiute, Sheepeater, & Ute,1878-79; 18, Mexican Border Conflict, 1870-86; 19, Geronimo, 1881-86; and, 20, Ghost Dance, 1890-91. Illustrated w/maps, archival photos, and supported by a very strong bibliography. Written history at its best.