Customer Reviews

Perilous Pursuit: The Us Cavalry and the Northern Cheyennes

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stan Hoig's new book "Perilous Pursuit" is highly sympathetic to the Northern Cheyennes who, mistreated and betrayed by the US Government, were exiled from their Northern Plains homeland to the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma). After a year of misery, a few hundred of the Cheyennes fled from their new reservation and headed north towards their old home. Immediately, the US Army was ordered to find them and force their return. Despite Hoig's sympathy for the fleeing Indians, he does not make the easy mistake of depicting the pursuing cavalry as villains. Instead, they are viewed as ordinary soldiers doing a difficult, dangerous job as best they can. Hoig does not hesitate to point out where individual soldiers stepped over the lines of acceptable conduct to murder indiscriminately, but he also does not draw back from recounting the murders and rapes carried out by young Cheyenne warriors during their exodus across Kansas. Plainly, virtue was not universally on one side.

My major criticism of "Perilous Pursuit" is the lack of adequate maps to clearly depict the movements of Cheyennes and Army units. What maps exist are somewhat generalized, lacking in details.

On the whole, however, I would recommend Hoig's book for anyone wishing to read a balanced account of a tragic event.