Customer Reviews

Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay: The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars

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As I cast about for research material for an upcoming book, several American Indian War experts recommended Don Rickey's book as the "Bible" on the frontier soldier's life. I am not an Indian War buff, but I can tell you this book is chocked full of details and insights that are not likely to be found collected in any other single volume.

The book is broken down into logical chapters, from a description of the Western troubles to the typical routines of the soldiers' discharges. We are treated to what might be some of the last in-depth interviews with Indian War veterans and, as has been pointed out, we begin to get a feel of the frontier soldier's daily life as 99 percent boredom and physical labor and 1 percent terror.

Many books have been written around the edges of this subject, and several were awful in their historical value. But this is a solid history, well-researched and full of interesting anecdotes to boot!

This book really enlightens the reader with interesting personal narratives. The book also dispells the myth of a "John Wayne, She wore a Yellow Ribbon" frontier Army. It picks up from the end of the Civil War and leads you straight into the Spanish American War. A wonderful book for those interested in in the daily lives of the soldiers form typical daily lives to military justice. This book also helped with my summer Interpretation job at Fort Mackinac. Michigan were we portray 1880's U.S. Army.

This is a great look at the gritty life of a soldier during the Indian Wars period. It wasn't glamorous. Rickey boils down some general themes, though the reader doesn't lose sense that different units all experienced different lives.

During my first hitch in the Army, I was stationed at Fort Sill, Okla., the only active Army post that dates back to the Indian Wars. The original buildings still stand, and are still in daily use. Walking across Old Post is like stepping back in time.
"Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay" told me what it was like, what it was REALLY like, to soldier at such a post during its early days.
The period between the Civil War and 1900 is a neglected era in American military history, and the viewpoint of the enlisted men is neglected in ANY era. "Forty Miles A Day On Beans And Hay" is a fascinating look at Army life on the frontier, not as Hollywood glamorized it, or the historian studied it, but as the common soldier endured it, day after day.

What I liked about Don Rickey, Jr.'s FORTY MILES A DAY ON BEANS AND HAY is that it offered up a time machine look at a soldier's life in the west during the Indian Wars. And that's everything from a recruit's introduction to the Army, the daily routine of life in the western posts, training or lack of it, it's Privates, NCOs and Officers, the discipline involved, desertion rates, campaign preperation, combat and its inevitable after effects. Rickey also provides numerous first hand accounts on each aspect so that what you read and hear are the long lost voices and various accents of those who served.
This is a valuable hsistorical resource and assest to anyone researching the subject or anyone who's interested in a more realistic look at a soldier's life in the 'Old West,' with better hues and tones than any picture that we ever got from Hollywood. Better still, it's a good read!

Between the end of the Civil War and the War with Spain that effectively opened the 20th century, the Regular Army -- the "Old Army" -- had as its primary business the suppression of the Indians on the Great Plains and in the western mountains and deserts. There was no conscription and all the rank and file were volunteers -- but that didn't mean the Army was getting the cream of the American crop of young men. Enlisting was seen by the majority of civilians (most of whom had never met a Regular) as the last attempt at survival by society's failures. The government, while aware of the need for a small standing army to defend settlers filling up the west, begrudged the expense until well into the 1880s, when a military management revolution began to turn the U.S. Army into a profession at all levels. Dr. Rickey, a long-time employee of the National Park Service, was a leading expert on the military history of the American West and this volume has become the standard work on the role of the enlisted man. The treatment is generally topical rather than chronological, with chapters devoted to recruitment and enlistment, the distinctions between the ranks, military administration and organization, the routine of garrison duty, the material side of life on a post, discipline and the desertion problem (which was huge throughout this period), crime and punishment, recreation and relaxation, preparing for campaigns, the enlisted man's weapons and equipment, the nature of field service and combat in the West, cowardice and heroism, and discharge and re-enlistment. Besides official reports and Congressional testimony, which provide useful context, Rickey makes use of a very extensive array of soldiers' diaries and letters, both published and in archival collections, as well as a large number of surveys which he mailed to surviving veterans of the Indian Wars during the early 1950s. Some of the latter led to extended correspondence with veterans, some of whom became officers in the War with Spain and in World War I. The most notable thing about the Regular Army in the West was the appalling degree of hardship it underwent in all sorts of conditions -- and not just when campaigning at forty degrees below zero or a hundred above. Disease was rife, supplies were usually short, rations were barely edible, and some members of the officer class were uncontrolled. Today's volunteer soldier would find himself hard put to survive. The style of the book is straightforward and anecdotes crowd every page as examples of the points the author makes. This is a work unlikely ever to be replaced.

This fascinating book was written by a very knowledgable author. He created a sense of the feelings and hardships experienced by the enlisted men in the U.S. Army in the wesr during the period of the Indian Wars by including numerous excerpts from personal interviews that he conducted, and by including quotations from various diaries and documents. I believe it is a "Must Read" for anyone interested in the history of the U.S. Army in the west, and in American military history in general, during this period.

An excellent account of the enlisted man's life in the Indian Wars cavalry. This book doesn't try to varnish the truth but thoroughly describes the soldiers as they were. Every detail of soldier life is covered from enlistment to retirement. The good, bad, and ugly of living conditions, discipline, food, desertion, training, combat and much more is all covered in fascinating detail. This is mandatory reading for any student of the U.S. Army cavalry.

Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay is an interesting look at the life of the enlisted soldier during the Indian Wars 1866-91. Most books of this time period deal with the campaigns and battles of the US Army and the Indians or are the subject of the personalities of more famous commanders. In this work we find the stories of the forgotten soldiers, the enlisted men, and how he endured army life.

Don Rickey takes up through the daily life of these soldiers starting from enlistment through final discharge or retirement. Along the way we meet and view the recruit depots, an introduction to army life, the noncommissioned officers, assignment to companies or troops and venture forth into the daily life of the ordinary common soldier. There are no high-powered generals here or very important people deciding crucial matters of policy; just the average soldier as he struggles to endure life as a common soldier.

Extremely well researched and first published in 1963, Don Rickey spent hours in actual interviews with then aged veterans who has served during this period, along with pouring over a great many diaries, personal papers, newspapers and journals of the time. There are very few books cited in the bibliography as this work is compiled almost exclusively from first hand source materials. There is no romanticism here, no glory. This book tells life, as it was, the true story of the enlisted soldier and his buddies serving on the frontier.

Although it has been a few years since I have read this book in its entirety, I have continued to reference it and as I am in a book reviewing mood, thought I would write this one up. First published in 1963, this book has become a bible of sorts for all those interested in the everyday details of frontier army life. Dr. Rickey, who once served as historian at the Little Bighorn battlefield, benefitted from actually talking to many old veterans of the late Indian Wars period (1880s/1890s) who were still alive when this was being compiled in the 1950s. Beyond that, he drew from diaries, contemporary newspapers and regimental records to give the reader a very complete view of typical frontier army life. Chapters detail officers, non-coms, enlisted men, army discipline, the recruit depots, life at army posts, field service, combat, etc. All of this adds up to an intimate portrait of the hum-drum and the exciting, the trivial and important, all the events and places that made up the frontier army experience. Also included is a nice map of the West, showing the location of key forts and battle sites. Photographs of soldiers and army posts are intermingled throughout the book. Many of these I do not recall encountering elsewhere.

A few years back, a now-retired NPS hsitorian who worked at the Little Bighorn as well as Fort Davis told me that he was on his second copy of this book. Over the years, he had literally worn out the first one as he constantly referenced it on an almost daily basis. No higher compliment as to its value can I make.