Customer Reviews

Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and Nee-Me-Poo Crisis

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One word adequately describes this book-Superb! I have read other accounts of the Nez Perce conflict but none with this degree of detail. For example, other authors have skimmed over some of the smaller engagements of the campaign (such as Canyon Creek) but Greene gives this as well as other episodes the full treatment they deserve. In his introduction, Greene clearly states that he mainly relied on primary source material, using secondary sources for background only. This decision clearly paid off.

Footnotes are used extensively to bring to the fore conflicting testimony as well as useful background information. All of this is augmented by excellent maps that illustrate the action. Greene avoids wasting the reader's time with moralizing sermons. He correctly portrays the military as simply trying to do the job thrust upon them by their civilian masters.

Truly, the best parts of this work are the final chapters detailing the culminating conflict at Bear Paw Mountain. At last, I feel like I am on the way towards understanding this battle. I walked away from this book with new respect and understanding for Greene, the Nez Perce and the much-maligned frontier army.

Over the years I've read a lot on the subject of the Indian Wars. However, it seems that many recent publications are just a re-hash of materials, from secondary sources, presented as a new thesis or from a new perspective. Nez Perce Summer is a notable exception. Greene has used a wealth of primary sources, many never used before, in order to turn up new information and call old notions into question.

This is not a history of the Nez Perce, it is a military history of the campaign against them. While many these days prefer their Indian wars history from an Indian perspective, they should not be deterred from reading this work. This is a history of the military campaign, not a support of it. Indeed, one cannot come away from this without being amazed at how the Nez Perce continually stumped the most experienced Indian fighters of the time.

The narrative is well-written, and Greene holds our attention as well as any fiction writer could. I highly recommend !this book to anyone--scholar or casual reader--interested in the study of the Indian Wars.

In Nez Perce Summer 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis, research historian Jerome Green provides an informative, superbly researched, and wonderfully written account of the Nez Perce conflict with the larger white culture as represented by the U.S. Army. Green is one of those rare historians able to combine meticulous scholarship with a genuine flair for vividly drawn and engaging presented storytelling. Nez Perce Summer 1877 is ardently recommended reading for students of American frontier history in general, and Native American studies in particular.

Published in 2000, Jerome A. Greene's NEZ PERCE SUMMER, 1877 isn't the most recent work on the Nez Perce tragedy, but it does the best job of combining a detailed, blow-by-blow account with a larger overview of this enormously complex and panoramic event, which stretched over three and a half months in the summer of 1877 and constituted one of the saddest mass injustices in the history of the Indian Wars.

Greene, who wrote the book under the aegis of the National Park Service--it's available online at their website, but I wouldn't recommend reading it that way--is especially good at explaining where things happened in relation to other things that were going on at the same time and what all the parties concerned were doing simultaneously-- an invaluable asset in an account of a military campaign. And his final chapter, "Consquences," does a splendid job of drawing back and fairly and objectively evaluating the outcome and import of the campaign, not only for the Nez Perces but for the American army and also some of the individuals involved. (Which reminds me to say that the backnotes are often as interesting as the book itself.)

There are other good books about the Nez Perce campaign, notably Bruce Hampton's more passionate and journalistic CHILDREN OF GRACE (1994), as well as Mark H. Brown's pathbreaking THE FLIGHT OF THE NEZ PERCE (1967); all three are highly readable. But if you have time for only one, it should probably be Greene's, since Brown's account has been superceded and Hampton's book, though it has many virtues, ultimately leaves you without the grand picture.

In fact, my one major complaint about NEZ PERCE SUMMER, 1877 is that it doesn't provide a timeline (neither do the other two books). This would have helped enormously in getting a handle on the complicated, multi-layered events of the story, and while an author can be excused for failing to realize how important this is for his readers, his editor shouldn't be. Luckily, you can get a great timeline on the Internet, put together--very well, as far as I can see--by Montana schoolchildren! ([...])

Aside from this flaw, NEZ PERCE SUMMER, 1877 is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand what it all meant.

Jerome Greene has written the standard for those studying the War of 1877. I am currently using this book as the master reference for my writings. I am very pleased with the List of References, and the Summary Appendix Listing the known Army and Tribesmen casualties; what's missing is the Civilians and Noncoms casualties. Through out, Mr. Greene maintained a neutral viewpoint, something that is absolutely necessary for a serious and worthwhile reference work.

Mr. Greene is now to the Nez Perce War what Bruce Cotton was to the Civil War. It is the "master", to which all other work must be reviewed against. Incidentally, the famous author, Terry C. Johnston used a prerelease draft supplied by Jerome Greene as the basis for his novels on the first half of this conflict.

I am very pleased with this book and I wish all the historical events making up the history of the American West had such a through, scholarly work summarizing the events and identifying those involved. It is something other scholars should think about; it sure makes research easy for a novel writer like me.

Of course, no work can cover all the facts and neither does Mr. Greene's. Further research into the works of those actually involved would be the next level of detail, the serious students will go to.

Mr. Greene's approach to a very complicated series of events, making up this Indian outbreak, was to discuss one subject at a time, while ignoring the others until that subject was complete, then take-up another and do the same. The result became a saw tooth of events that jumps the reader back and forth through history, none seemly related to the others. That is why I rated the work as I did. That aside, it's nothing a good set of notes can't correct.

Nevertheless, this is an important work and a must copy for every library covering the history of the American West.

Thank you Mr. Greene.