Customer Reviews

Circle of Fire

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This book has two things going for it:

1. It covers an often overlooked period of the Indian Wars of the West.

2. It is footnote heavy, for those of us who want to explore more deeply into this period.

It has six things going against it:

1. Dryly written. McDermott just doesn't have a flare for writing interesting narrative.

2. Poor maps. The course/routes of the Connor, Cole and Walker prongs of the summer/fall offensive is not mapped, but McDermott, for some inexplicable reason, includes a useless map showing 10 "avenger" campsites in the Julesberg area from December 1864 to February 1865 without dates for the 10 sites. It is of no value to the narrative.

3. Editor mistakes. The footnote numbers for Chapter 9 are one out of sequence for their explanation in the Notes section at the end of the book. There are also several index listings that are erroneous (can't be found on the page listed).

4. Incongruity. McDermott for some reason devotes over a full page to a menu of food served at a banquet in honor of General Connor after his campaign was completed. This is not important or necessary.

5. Misstatements. The one that comes to mind was the statement McDermott makes concerning the range of the Spencer carbine being 900 yards! Perhaps if it was fired at a 45 degree angle. The EFFECTIVE range of a Spencer carbine is around 150 yards.

6. PCness. As mentioned by another reviewer, McDermott refers to the Indians throughout his book as "avengers". He dismisses the Indian custom of horribly mutilating white dead/captives as just part of Indian culture. He amazingly accepts at face value George Bent's claim that no white prisoners were ever tortured (p. 165). Yet McDermott mentions a case of a white captive having his tongue cut out by his Indian captors because he was screaming too much while being slowly roasted (p. 151). George Bent, as one of the Indian leaders in the 1865 war, would have a rather good reason to deny any torture took place.

The book is not all bad, but needs re-writing and re-editing in my opinion.

In all honesty, I got a better overall view of the 1865 Sioux War by reading the long chapter 15 of Robert Utley's "Frontiersmen in Blue". Check that out.

The events of 1865 were decisive in determing whether American Indians or Euroamericans would control passage over and use of the Great Plains. The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 awakened and motivated the peoples of the central and northern Plains as few other events ever would. The result, as author McDermott concludes, was a rare series of events in which the Indians assumed the initiative. Meanwhile, the United States government--which was about to economize on military spending with the close of the Civil War--had to decide how serious a commitment it had to military solutions to Indian conflict. The Indian War of 1865 is probably--with the possible exception of the wars in the Pacific Northwest--the hardest Indian conflict to study and understand. The records are dispersed, the participants diverse, and the geographical range of the events far spread. Yet McDermott has managed to see the "big picture" rather than simply focus on disperate local violence. The book is unique in its examination of the pattern of events. It is not a "fast read" and at times the wealth of details can be overwhelming. However, the footnotes--unlike those in many other studies--are genuinely useful and the conclusions chapter is a masterpiece. This is a book that should be in the library of every school with a course touching upon the American West. Dr. Michael A. Hughes, Editor Emeritus of the Journal of the Indian Wars

Although not as engaging as some of his earlier works, this is an invaluable book on many levels. The author's topic is a challenging one, since he must tie together Indian battles across a geographically diverse area, from Kansas and Colorado, all the way to northern Wyoming. Trying to link a tight narrative across this wide area may somewhat interfere with the flow of the narrative but not to the detriment of the knowledge and insight conveyed.

For anyone, such as myself, who has visited the Big Horn Mountains area of northern Wyoming and wanted more detail on both the Sawyers Expedition and the Conner Battle site on Tongue River, this book is indispensible. Sites relating to those two little-known campaigns are dutifully marked but little information has been readily available (at least to this reader)until Mr. McDermott's excellent book. The author shows how the army's failure to subjugate those areas served as a prelude to Red Cloud's War, after which the military withdrew from the region until the Great Sioux War of 1876, best known for the Custer massacre. My interest in these events justifies the purchase of this book. The book contains in depth, insightful analysis of various aspects of what distinguished Indian warfare from the more conventional Civil War. Full attention is paid to the overwhelming importance of logistics in these campaigns, especially the army's inability to field healthy horses that could hold up to the rigors of campaigning. If your bookshelves bulge with books pertaining to the much better known and written about Custer battle, you owe it to your overall background knowledge to include this one with them.

This book by John D. McDermott, in my view, parallels his other fine Indian wars books. It deals with the complexities of the Indian war that followed the Sand Creek Massacre on the northern plains, and provides an understanding of what happened among the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes after that event and how they struck out to retaliate against the white Americans. I thought that the author told the difficult story very well and with understanding for both sides. General Connor's campaign in the end largely failed, but it set the stage for upcomcing conflicts and battles in the years ahead leading to Little Bighorn. The author's research was thorough and his writing style was lucid and interesting. This is undoubtedly the best book available about the Indian war of 1865.

At last, a book that puts the whole story together. As an amateur historian I devoured every scholarly morsel. I am swept away with the depth, scope and substance of Circle of Fire. This book provides for the first time a comprehensive, integrated view of The Indian War of 1865 in context with the times. The narrative of the events is delicately woven with exhaustive research achieving a wholeness that enables the reader to better understand the events, the impact they had on public and the resulting tragic legacy. It's bound to be come a classic.

This book is useful as a reference to the Indian War of 1865 only. Anyone merely looking for names, dates, and places will be well-served by this title. For those looking for an engaging read, look elsewhere. Author McDermott seems to sleep-walk through Circle of Fire. It's like reading a batch of research notes. McDermott barely bothered to put them into narrative form. At 175 pages (the rest of the "book" is taken up by notes, bibliography and index), the book is WAY too short. Couple this with McDermott's teeth-grindingly annoying insistance on referring to Indian raiders as "avengers" (ostensibly for Sand Creek), and this is a book to avoid at all costs.

As a counterpoint, readers might want to look at "Massacre Along the Medicine Road." Although I detest the PC sensibilities of this title, it is beautifully written and a pleasure to read. McDermott makes frequent mention of it in Circle of Fire. Unfortunately, he wasn't more successful in emulating it.

Another excellent book by a great author. This may be the definitive work on this subject. Great job keeping the balence of perspective between the Indians and the soldiers.

This is a good book on a period of the west that is not well known. The author does a good job of researching his topic. Although the writing is somewhat dry and to the point, there appears to be little truthful that can be said and this period is not well documented. Some sections that I like especially where the early parts when about the Indian raiding that closed the roads in Colorado in 1865 and the fear that spread into Denver. The section on the Connor campaign in August/September was also interesting. Especially about the one unit attacked by thousands of Indians and the excerpts on Roman Nose who road in front of the soliders guns without getting touched. Although this isn't a great book, it is an interesting book and one worth looking at if you are interested in the Indian wars in the west.

If Amazon gave six stars, I would give Circle of Fire six stars. This book is a masterful work; full of insight, interesting, and accessible to all history lovers. The chapter on "Conclusions" is one of the best pieces of analytical writing on the conditions, problems, and limitations of the Indian Wars that I have ever read. While the conclusions concern the Indian War of 1865, they are indeed applicable to the two succeeding decades of warfare.