Bozeman Paymaster: A Tale of the Fetterman Massacre

by Robert Lee Murphy

Reminiscent of the Taliban prevailing in Afghanistan, Bozeman Paymaster is the story of how in the nation’s drive to advance Manifest Destiny it blundered into one of its most distressing reverses. Fighting to defend their favorite buffalo hunting grounds following the Civil War, Lakota Chief Red Cloud’s coalition of Sioux, Northern Cheyennes, and Arapahos drove the military forces out of the Powder River country of modern-day Wyoming. On a bone-chilling day in December 1866, Captain William Fetterman led eighty men into the army’s worst defeat at the hands of the Indians until Custer’s Last Stand a decade later. Despite the turmoil of virtually constant Indian attacks at Fort Phil Kearny, a youthful paymaster clerk and a beautiful young schoolteacher fall in love. Their future is torn asunder when in the aftermath of the Fetterman Massacre the United States abandons the forts protecting the Bozeman Trail, closing the shortest route used by immigrants to reach Montana’s goldfields. Red Cloud’s War was the only war the American Indians won fighting the U.S. Army.

453 pages, Hardcover

Published June 22, 2022

About the author

Award winning author Robert Lee Murphy graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a business degree. Throughout his career, he worked with national and international agencies and institutions on all seven continents, including Antarctica, where Murphy Peak bears his name.

In conducting research for The Iron Horse Chronicles trilogy, Murphy traveled the route of the transcontinental railroad and walked the ground where the action takes place.

Eagle Talons,the first book in The Iron Horse Chronicles was awarded the 2015 Bronze Will Rogers Medallion. In 2016, Bear Claws, the second book, received the Silver Will Rogers Medallion and was awarded First Place in Fiction by The Wyoming Historical Society. Golden Spike, the final book in the trilogy, won the Silver Will Rogers Medallion in 2018.

Bozeman Paymaster: A Tale of the Fetterman Massacre was awarded First Place in Fiction by the Wyoming Historical Society in 2023. Bozeman Paymaster: A Tale of the Fetterman Massacre also received a Copper Will Rogers Medallion in 2023.

Robert's latest historical novel, Bear Flag Revolt was released by Thorndike Press in March 2025. This tells the tale of how Kit Carson and John Frémont "steal" California from Mexico in the 1840s.

Robert is a member of Western Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and the Historical Novel Society.

Reviews

[Lisa Horsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting account of the struggles to build and maintain a fort in the Wyoming/Montana area of what was then Dakota/Montana territories of the US. People in the fort talk about going back to the states. 150 degrees difference between incredibly hot summer days and the inhospitably cold winter. When you are wearing two winter shirts, a coat, a buffalo hide and more, and are still cold, it is a wonder anyone could survive. The life details were very interesting to read. Living in tents, eating mostly meat, fighting natives all of the time - this was stark and not sugar coated. Nicely done. 5 stars for the information conveyed, 3 stars for the writing.

[Don Diego · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story has some very interesting details about life in a US Army frontier post, in the post-Civil War 1860s. It is based on actual events.

[Janice Tolifson]

About the people and soldiers in 1866 that was protecting people on the Boseman trail in Montans