Books about Plain old from Amazon.com

On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611  men of the United States 7th Cavalry rode toward the  banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana  Territory, where 3,000 Indians stood waiting for battle.  The lives of two great warriors would soon be  forever linked throughout history: Crazy Horse, leader  of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong  Custer. Both were men of aggression and supreme  courage. Both became leaders in their societies at  very early ages; both were stripped of power, in  disgrace, and worked to earn back the respect of  their people. And to both of them, the unspoiled  grandeur of the Great Plains of North America was an  irresistible challenge. Their parallel lives would  pave the way, in a manner unknown to either, for  an inevitable clash between two nations fighting  for possession of the open  prairie..
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Thousands of impoverished Northern European immigrants were promised that the prairie offered "land, freedom, and hope." The disastrous blizzard of 1888 revealed that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled, and America’s heartland would never be the same.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more..
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A major period of westward expansion took place in the United States during the first half of the 19th century Fur trading, the coast-to-coast railroad, the California gold rush and the removal of Native American tribes both facilitated and encouraged America's "manifest destiny" to become a transcontinental nation. The task of protecting the settlers from the tribes that inhabited the Great Plains fell to the US Army, and to do this an extensive network of permanent forts was created via construction and acquisition. This title examines why the forts were built, as well as their design, defensive features and the role they played in the settlement of the American West. The daily lives of the garrison soldiers and fort inhabitants are also covered, together with the fighting witnessed at key sites..
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Painstakingly researched with an eye for detail, They Never Surrendered: The Lakota Sioux Band That Stayed in Canada by Ron Papandrea covers a topic long neglected in the United States and Canada. After the defeat of General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the Great Sioux War of 1876, Sitting Bull and thousands of Lakota Sioux escaped the American army by going to Canada. Crazy Horse was killed while in American custody and many of his followers also went to Canada. The disappearance of the buffalo on the Canadian plains forced most of the Lakota Sioux in Canada to return to the United States within five years; they surrendered and settled on American reservations. More than 250 brave souls remained in Canada and never surrendered. This is their story..
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Although many books have been written about the Colorado gold rush, this one concentrates on assessing the cataclysmic changes that it brought to the Great Plains. In addition, rather than casting the story in the usual terms of heartless aggressors and hapless victims, it supplies a large and insightful interpretation that at once softens and increases our understanding of the Anglo disruption of Plains Indian cultures. The book's lucid writing and extensive research give meaning to the frontier concept that has been lambasted for 30 years or more. West's story is a story of cultural revisions - and thus the imaginations and aspirations of many people..
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Some of the most savage war in world history was waged on the American Plains from 1865 to 1879. As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued. Drawing heavily from diaries, letters, and memoirs from American Plains settlers, historian Thomas Goodrich weaves a spellbinding tale of life and death on the prairie, told in the timeless words of the participants themselves. "Scalp Dance" is a powerful, unforgettable epic that shatters modern myths. Within its pages, the reader will find a truthful account of Indian warfare as it occurred..
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Prior to his fateful meeting with the Plains Indians at Little Big Horn in 1876, General George Armstrong Custer wrote of his experiences with the Seventh Cavalry. Detailing the Winter Campaign of 1868, his writings cover the years 1867 through 1869..
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"Battles of the Red River War" unearths a long-buried record of the collision of two cultures.In 1874, U.S. forces led by Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie carried out a surprise attack on several Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa bands that had taken refuge in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas panhandle and destroyed their winter stores and horses. After this devastating loss, many of these Indians returned to their reservations and effectively brought to a close what has come to be known as the Red River War, a campaign carried out by the U.S. Army during 1874 as a result of Indian attacks on white settlers in the region. After this operation, the Southern Plains Indians would never again pose a coherent threat to whites' expansion and settlement across their ancestral homelands.Until now, the few historians who have undertaken to tell the story of the Red River War have had to rely on the official records of the battles and a handful of extant accounts, letters, and journals of the U.S. Army participants. Starting in 1998, J. Brett Cruse, under the auspices of the Texas Historical Commission, conducted archeological investigations at six battle sites. In the artifacts they unearthed, Cruse and his teams found clues that would both correct and complete the written records and aid understanding of the Indian perspectives on this clash of cultures.Including a chapter on historiography and archival research by Martha Doty Freeman and an analysis of cartridges and bullets by Douglas D. Scott, this rigorously researched and lavishly illustrated work will commend itself to archeologists, military historians and scientists, and students and scholars of the Westward Expansion..
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- 51 fort sites in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana
- More than 100 photographs and drawings illustrate life at the forts
- Directions, visitor information, and nearby points of interest for every site

As the first official symbols of U. S. government presence on the Western frontier, the forts of the Northern Plains were both centers of commerce and sources of conflict. The integral role 51 of those forts played during decades of warfare with the Plains Indians tribes--and the posts_ fates after those wars ended--is recounted in this informative guidebook. Included are histories, up-to-date descriptions of what remains today, and directions and visitor information for each post.

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