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.
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