Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850-1890

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3 star:		(1)
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One can quickly understand the exerted effort that went into the research of this book. Encyclopedia of Indian Wars is a must have book for anyone interested in the battles fought between 1850-1890.

The book is organized in an easy but efficient way for the reader. The battles are first listed by year followed in order by date. Page 362 has a great graph that shows the years followed by how many battles occurred in each year.

Then, the reader comes to Appendix: Data and Commentary where the author provides tables of statistics that focus on everything from which tribes had the most battles to states ranked by number of battles with total white and Indian casualties.

But, forget all that - this book is worth it alone just for the maps with a legend key to every battle, location and date.

This is a book every Indian war enthusiast will want.

For anyone interested in any but the biggest, most famous of battles during the Indian Wars of the last half of the Nineteenth Century, there has been no reference work available to which the interested reader could turn to get the basic facts. Now, in the "Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850-1890", Greg Michno presents concise descriptions of over 600 fights, addressing the who-what-when-where of each incident. They are chronologically arranged, but keyed to excellent maps that allow the reader to quickly located battles that occurred in any particular region. Not all the fights involved the US Army; some were waged by volunteer troops or, occasionally, only civilians. In an appendix, summary statistics are given regarding the the frequency and time distribution of the battles, what Army units were involved, and what level of casualties were inflicted on both sides.

Many books call themselves an encyclopedia of this or that but turn out to be simply random collections of information on their topic. However, Gregory Michno's Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850-1890 really is a miniature encyclopedia of the Indian Wars fought between the U.S. Army and various Native American tribes or groups during the period when Euro-Americans came to dominate the western United States.

The bulk of the book (345 out of 438 numbered 5x9" pages) consists of brief descriptions of 840 major and minor battles and "firefights" that occurred in twenty Midwestern and Western states/territories and adjoining parts of Mexico. The descriptions are arranged chronologically within each year, 1850-1890. Drawing largely on Army after-action reports, Mr. Michno's narratives are heavy on facts for each event: when, where, who, casualty counts and immediate results. By providing the names of many Army officers and NCOs as well as significant members of their Native American opposition it is possible to get a feel for some of the participants' careers over a number of years.

One of the most useful features is a 32-page introductory section of state/territory maps showing the locations, tied to accompanying lists and page references, for every action described in the book. This allows readers to locate all the events in a particular locale regardless of when they took place.

A conclusion and appendix section has several interesting statistical tables summarizing the intensity of the actions in terms of numbers of actions each year, the number of combatants involved and casualties incurred. Twenty-two pages of reference notes, a 16-page bibliography and a 27-page index increase this book's value as a reference for further research or reading. In my opinion the most interesting of the scattered black and white photos of those showing the battle sites in recent years, but the photos are not a strong part of the book. There are no maps showing more detail than the simple state reference maps.

Some reviewers lament the author's supposed apologetic view of the Army's involvement, but I didn't read the book that way. The dominant perspective is that of the U.S. Army and other non-Indians because it is mostly from their records, the only ones available in many instances, that the descriptions are taken. The bulk of the narratives are summaries of facts included in the reports (the weakest link, as in any such war, being the casualty count inflicted on the adversary). If anything, the facts often portray the Army poorly in that its often impossible to glean from the description any rationale for the Army initiating a particular action - and sometimes getting beaten - and there are numerous occasions mentioning non-combatants (primarily women and children) being injured, killed or taken prisoner (i.e., hostage).

I don't think the author's perspective on the infamous Wounded Knee Creek action on December 29, 1890 is apologetic of the Army, just politically incorrect. That's because Michno points out not only that the Lakota suffered 128 killed and 33 wounded (a lerge number of whom were non-combatants), but that the Lakota, in turn, were not passively massacred but inflicted 60 casualties (25 KIA, 35 WIA) on their 7th Cavalry adversaries. That was the largest number of casualties suffered by the 7th Cavalry apart from the Little Bighorn battle. Who knew?

My main complaint is that the day-by-day format sometimes makes it hard (despite references to prior or subsequent related events) to trace a particular multi-day or even multi-week or month campaign. For instance, the 1877 Nez Perce War is hard to follow because unrelated events elsewhere are intertwined in the same months. If the author revises this book I'd like to see a reference section with maps and a listing that groups significant campaigns together in some fashion.

Highly recommended as background reading and a reference to keep for anyone interested in the Indian Wars, American history or military history. Makes an excellent companion book when touring historic sites associated with the Indian Wars (I bought my copy on a visit to the Little Bighorn Battlefield last spring).

What a valuable reference for devotees of the western Indian Wars! Detail-obsessed Gregory Michno had done us all a great service by putting in one volume nearly all of the small battles and skirmishes you probably never heard of. This is the point of this book. Do not expect exhaustive recounts of the larger, better known battles. Even Little Bighorn is not given a full page, but that's good. You won't buy this book for that. You will buy it IF you want information on the lesser battles and skirmishes that are very difficult to find any info about at all, let alone the details Michno has been able to gather.

There are no battle maps. There are only state maps showing the general location of each battle/skirmish. There are also photos thrown in every 3-4 pages usually of the site of one of the fights. That's a nice touch.

And what a deal! A great price for a 400+ page REFERENCE book crammed full of information, 3 indexes, an appendix, and a conclusion complete with tables and charts. Get it.

If you live in the West this book is absolutely fasinating. The familiar small city names and familiar places, together with an excellent set of maps adds depth to your understanding of your surroundings. But be prepared for an unflinching look at some very brutal episodes though, this is not a sanitized Hollywood version of the West. This is the real deal from a real deal historian.

This work by author Michno clearly demonstrates that scholarship trumps polemics based in political agendas, particularly the politically correct agendas currently fashionable. Mr Michno has created both a wonderful reference work, but he is so thorough for the time covered (1850-1890) that I simply started at the front of his book and read to the last. There is much to learn here, and the author fills in many blanks in the knowledge of those who have only read various works on Custer, MacKenzie, Crook, Crazy Horse, Cohise, etc., etc. The Indian wars of the West were fought much more often by citizen volunteers and very small detachments of troops against Indians under a wide variety of circumstances than by large Army units against swirling clouds of fierce warriors. As the author concludes, the West was a very WILD place.

There is something for everyone here. For example I am relatively unknowledgeable concerning Indian conflicts in California, Oregon and Washington except for the Modoc War in 1873. This volume greatly enhanced my knowledge and pointed the way to future reading. My apologies to the West Coast for overlooking the Indian conflicts there.

The maps in the beginning of the book was interesting and helpful, but their most impressive feature was to demonstrate that Indian conflicts were extremely widespread throughout the West. And as the author notes, his work is only the tip of the iceberg being based primarily on military reports and newspaper accounts. Probably tens of thousands of incidents where stray Indians or small bands were killed, or prospectors, trappers, settlers, emigrants or cowboys were captured or killed went unrecorded. The total human toll will never be known, but the author's appendices are extremely useful.

My sole criticism of the book was that the maps needed to be larger (or smaller scale) with modern place names superimposed for reference. The location descriptions in the entries were excellent, and as a Westerner who has been to most of the locales given in the book, I could form a picture in my mind as to the location and terrain -- but that will undoubtedly not be true for most of the readers. Another criticism, not of this book, is that its time span was too short -- I hope the author will someday complete a work of Indian wars from the beginning of the European conquest of North America. Unfortunately that is probably more than a single lifetime of work, but if anyone could do it, I believe it is author Michno.

With respect to the book's political incorrectness, it definitively rebuffs many of the current revisionist works by relatively anti-American (or pro-Indian) authors. Specifically, Dee Brown's awfull polemic on Wounded Knee is put in its place as fiction when one considers that the soldiers lost twenty-five dead and thirty-five wounded against 128 Indian dead and thirty-three wounded. In fact I was struck by how often the fights were one-sided. Very often an incident would have some number of civilians or troops killed with minimal or no Indian casualties or exactly the opposite. Much of the warfare involved suprise attacks where the surprising force held a very great advantage. Somewhat contrary to folklore, Indian camp security was often very lax, and troops were able to surprise, ambush or force the Indians to fight at a disadvantage twice as often as the other way around. Often the Army troops would attack with a numerical inferiority -- essentially, if the troops could find the Indians they would attack regardless of the situation, particularly if they held the advantage of surprise. Hence, Custer's attack at Little Big Horn.

I was also struck by the very large numbers of officers involved in actual combat from 1850 to 1861 who later became prominent in the Civil War. Clearly the Indian Wars provided useful combat training at the small unit level to many who later developed into competent commanders of larger formations. There may be a lesson here -- that the Army needs small conflicts to train unit commanders in the business of war and to allow brave and intrepid officers to emerge and be recognized.

The author's conclusions and analysis of the data alone are worth the price of the book. In short, this is a very fine work and the author is to be commended.

I recommend this book to everyone interested in the development of the American West and the resulting Indian Wars.

This book attempts to catalog every major hostility between American Indians and the US during the Indian Wars period. The battles are all arranged chronologically and there is no overarching narrative to tie them together. It's just "this happened on this day, then this happened, then this happened."

The maps near the front are helpful for identifying where events occurred (yet, unforgivably, there is no cross-reference between the map and the encyclopedia entries, requiring one to look at the date and then page through to find that date in the book). The entries are very broad, mainly acknowledging the circumstances, number and people of note involved, and results of battles.

This is a useful tool for exploring where and when certain events happened, but it isn't a standalone book. You might use it to look for interesting sites to visit while traveling, or to assemble in your mind some chronology of events. But there is a lot of the story of all the battles that does not get told in this book. You will need other books to fill that in. I think this would work a lot better if it were web-based and you could filter results by state, by tribe, by unit, etc.

Bottom line: if you're interested in Indian Wars and battle sites, this is a useful reference, but it is not the sort of thing you will want to read from front to back. You will need other sources if you want to know anything worth knowing about any of the battles discussed here.

When an important yet underresearched subject in U.S. western history is tackled by a skilled scholar and author such as Gregory F. Michno, the result is a "must have" book. Most scholarship on U.S.-Indian conflicts has concentrated on a few of the more dramatic battles and campaigns of the 1870s. Michno has done historians and history buffs a great service by producing a sound "ready reference" that covers the events of four additional decades. His research is extensive and his style clear and concise. A section of general conclusions at the end corrects many popular misconceptions about the western frontier and its Indian conflicts. All of this information comes at an unusually reasonable price. Public and school libraries should definitely consider purchasing this book along with John D. McDermott's Guide to Indian Wars of the West.
Dr. Michael A. Hughes, Editor-Emeritus, Journal of the Indian Wars

I gave this book five stars because of the all the reasons mentioned by the previous reviewers. After reading Michno's accounts of the battles in my area, I am left with the impression that he's been out here walking the battlefields himself.

That shows the kind of dedication needed to make a reference book like this really valuable. If you don't already have a copy, you'd better get one. It's going to be a classic.

For anyone interested in the late 19th century, this will be an invaluable reference and a healthy counterbalance against some of the politically correct fantasies being churned out by Hollywood and the scattered remains of our once great educational system. I use mine all the time and learn something new every time I pick it up.

The author covers in detail some 650 battles and skirmishes of the roughly 1900 that occured. I would have appreciated convenient references to more unit actions.