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Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865
The year 1865 was bloody on the Plains as various Indian tribes, including the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Sioux, joined with their northern relatives to wage war on the white man. They sought revenge for the 1864 massacre at Sand Creek, when John Chivington and his Colorado volunteers nearly wiped out a village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. The violence in eastern Colorado spread westward to Fort Laramie and Fort Caspar in southeastern and central Wyoming, and then moved north to the lands along the Wyoming-Montana border.
1 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
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December 9, 2014
John D. McDermott's book "Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865" is a fine work about the topic. As I have come to expect from this author, the research is impeccable and the treatment of the subject relatively balanced in nature.
While other historians largely criticize the expeditions of General Patrick Connor and Colonels Cole and Walker (and yes - much of it is justified!), McDermott points out that those expeditions did achieve a measure of success, albeit a small one, and they kept the Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapahoe alliance away from the Oregon/Mormon/California Trails during the late summer and early fall of 1865. The author also details the "what-might-have-beens" of the conflict by referencing the subsequent Bozeman Trail War and the Great Sioux War of 1876. He makes the argument that, perhaps, if General Connor's superiors had been willing to let him complete his campaign that the later conflicts might have been unnecessary. With Connor operating in the heart of the Powder River Country and able to strike in the winter, the allied tribes would have been forced to fight significant, offensive-minded U.S. forces on unfavorable terms. As it turned out, instead of a strong volunteer force operating on the offensive, a weakened Regular U.S. Army was sent to fight a defensive war against an emboldened force of allied tribes the next summer.
The actions of the U.S. Army throughout the campaign are described in minute detail, and the grand picture is provided along with the view of the private soldiers. The operations of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe are also detailed, with special emphasis on the reminiscences of George Bent.
However, there is one significant point of which the author utterly failed to convince me. In the closing chapter of the book, McDermott maintains that both sides committed atrocities in the conflict, which is certainly true; however, he does not classify mutilation of soldiers by Native-Americans as an atrocity because, as he argues, those acts were committed after the soldiers had already been killed in combat (though some troops were scalped while they were still alive, which disproves this claim in part). McDermott cites the belief among the Lakota and Cheyenne that the Spirit remained in the body for a short time after death, and that the amputation of a hand meant that the soldier would not be able to hold anything in the next life, or that the removal of other body parts would deny the person fulfillment in the next life in some way or another. The argument is made that the Native-Americans did not consider that as an atrocity. Is the reader then expected to believe that something is not an atrocity simply because the perpetrating party does not consider it to be so? I, for one, fail to see how hacking a body beyond recognizance and sentencing the victim, according to their tribal beliefs, to eternal suffering is not an atrocity. Colonel John Chivington and his troops committed atrocities at Sand Creek in November of 1864, which started the Indian War of 1865, but the other side committing comparable acts of butchery of the bodies of opponents does not suddenly become acceptable just because it has a basis in the society's culture. Butchery of human bodies is a grotesque act of cruelty no matter the culture or society of the perpetrator, and the loved ones of the fallen (on both sides) justly decried the butchery of their family members and friends. In the opinion of this reviewer, the author falls on the wrong side of that argument.
With that said, McDermott's book is an excellent read, and perhaps the best single volume on the Indian War of 1865 as-a-whole. This book is an excellent overview of the campaign! Students of this campaign will also benefit by reading David E. Wagner's fine works on the Connor and Cole-Walker portions of the campaign as well. If you are interested in this topic, start by reading McDermott's book! You won't regret it!
While other historians largely criticize the expeditions of General Patrick Connor and Colonels Cole and Walker (and yes - much of it is justified!), McDermott points out that those expeditions did achieve a measure of success, albeit a small one, and they kept the Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapahoe alliance away from the Oregon/Mormon/California Trails during the late summer and early fall of 1865. The author also details the "what-might-have-beens" of the conflict by referencing the subsequent Bozeman Trail War and the Great Sioux War of 1876. He makes the argument that, perhaps, if General Connor's superiors had been willing to let him complete his campaign that the later conflicts might have been unnecessary. With Connor operating in the heart of the Powder River Country and able to strike in the winter, the allied tribes would have been forced to fight significant, offensive-minded U.S. forces on unfavorable terms. As it turned out, instead of a strong volunteer force operating on the offensive, a weakened Regular U.S. Army was sent to fight a defensive war against an emboldened force of allied tribes the next summer.
The actions of the U.S. Army throughout the campaign are described in minute detail, and the grand picture is provided along with the view of the private soldiers. The operations of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe are also detailed, with special emphasis on the reminiscences of George Bent.
However, there is one significant point of which the author utterly failed to convince me. In the closing chapter of the book, McDermott maintains that both sides committed atrocities in the conflict, which is certainly true; however, he does not classify mutilation of soldiers by Native-Americans as an atrocity because, as he argues, those acts were committed after the soldiers had already been killed in combat (though some troops were scalped while they were still alive, which disproves this claim in part). McDermott cites the belief among the Lakota and Cheyenne that the Spirit remained in the body for a short time after death, and that the amputation of a hand meant that the soldier would not be able to hold anything in the next life, or that the removal of other body parts would deny the person fulfillment in the next life in some way or another. The argument is made that the Native-Americans did not consider that as an atrocity. Is the reader then expected to believe that something is not an atrocity simply because the perpetrating party does not consider it to be so? I, for one, fail to see how hacking a body beyond recognizance and sentencing the victim, according to their tribal beliefs, to eternal suffering is not an atrocity. Colonel John Chivington and his troops committed atrocities at Sand Creek in November of 1864, which started the Indian War of 1865, but the other side committing comparable acts of butchery of the bodies of opponents does not suddenly become acceptable just because it has a basis in the society's culture. Butchery of human bodies is a grotesque act of cruelty no matter the culture or society of the perpetrator, and the loved ones of the fallen (on both sides) justly decried the butchery of their family members and friends. In the opinion of this reviewer, the author falls on the wrong side of that argument.
With that said, McDermott's book is an excellent read, and perhaps the best single volume on the Indian War of 1865 as-a-whole. This book is an excellent overview of the campaign! Students of this campaign will also benefit by reading David E. Wagner's fine works on the Connor and Cole-Walker portions of the campaign as well. If you are interested in this topic, start by reading McDermott's book! You won't regret it!
Displaying 1 of 1 review