After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country

by Paul L. Hedren

Between 1876 and 1877, the U.S. Army battled Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians in a series of vicious conflicts known today as the Great Sioux War. After the defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn in June 1876, the army responded to its stunning loss by pouring fresh troops and resources into the war effort. In the end, the U.S. Army prevailed, but at a significant cost. In this unique contribution to American western history, Paul L. Hedren examines the war’s effects on the culture, environment, and geography of the northern Great Plains, their Native inhabitants, and the Anglo-American invaders.

As Hedren explains, U.S. military control of the northern plains following the Great Sioux War permitted the Northern Pacific Railroad to extend westward from the Missouri River. The new transcontinental line brought hide hunters who targeted the great northern buffalo herds and ultimately destroyed them. A de-buffaloed prairie lured cattlemen, who in turn spawned their own culture. Through forced surrender

of their lands and lifeways, Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes now experienced even more stress and calamity than they had endured during the war itself. The victors, meanwhile, faced a different set of challenges, among them providing security for the railroad crews, hide hunters, and cattlemen.

Hedren is the first scholar to examine the events of 1876–77 and their aftermath as a whole, taking into account relationships among military leaders, the building of forts, and the army’s efforts to memorialize the war and its victims. Woven into his narrative are the voices of those who witnessed such events as the burial of Custer, the laying of railroad track, or the sudden surround of a buffalo herd. Their personal testimonies lend both vibrancy and pathos to this story of irreversible change in Sioux Country.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2011

About the author

A native Minnesotan, Paul Hedren retired from the National Park Service in 2007 after nearly thirty-seven years as a park historian and superintendent at such storied places as Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Wyoming, the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah, and the Niobrara National Scenic River in Nebraska.

Paul is also a lifelong writer and the author of scores of scholarly and popular articles plus eleven books, with stories largely focusing on the Great Sioux War of 1876-77 and particularly that conflict’s subtleties and consequences. Paul’s won numerous writing awards including a Spur from the Western Writers of America, the Vivian Paladin Award from the Montana Historical Society, and the Herbert Schell Award from the South Dakota State Historical Society. In 2011 his book After Custer: Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country won a prestigious Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and also the Sills Book Prize from the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association.

Reviews

[Ronnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book.

[Schoppie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is one of the most famous events in American History; however, the focus is so often on Custer and the details of the battle itself, that the consequences of the event become lost. Paul Hedren's book expertly details the changes brought to the Northern Great Plains in the wake of Custer's defeat. The book is, essentially, a geographical history of the area following the victory of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne in 1876.

Custer's defeat resulted in a flood of reinforcements into Sioux Country, as well as a new approach to campaigning. The U.S. Army built permanent posts on the Northern Plains, which protected the Northern Pacific Railroad as it advanced westward from Bismarck, North Dakota. The railroad made it possible to bring in buffalo hunters, ship the harvested hides out of the region, and permit the population of the area with Euro-American settlers.

The Sioux and Cheyenne were confined to reservations within a year of their celebrated victory, and the events which occurred later ensured that they remained there. The great northern buffalo herd was systematically destroyed within a few years of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Indeed, one of the most sad, graphic, and memorable segments of Hedren's book details the destruction of the buffalo.

The author has an engaging writing style. If you want to understand the settlement of the Northern Plains and the subjugation of the Native-Americans in that region, there is no better resource to begin with than this book!

[Brad Butturff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Hedren has done a marvelous job of explaining the events following the defeat of the Lakota and Cheyenne nations. Not many books venture into this area but this is when the real tragedies and triumphs took place. Hedren explains quite clearly how the plains and Black Hills were essentially occupied by the advance of settlers, miners, railroad men and ranchers. He also gives excellent service around the narrative of the twilight of the Lakota nation. This is a very readable and compelling account of the end of one era, when the tribes ruled the plains, to when the flood of Eastern civilization swept it all away under the guise of progress.