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The Life And Adventures Of Frank Grouard: Chief Of Scouts, U.S.A.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

680 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1982

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5 stars
7 (36%)
4 stars
2 (10%)
3 stars
8 (42%)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for Henry Fellows Moss.
12 reviews
March 12, 2018
I'm afraid I have to give this one up only about 100 pages in. Grouard's own words constitute a great deal of the text, so the story is told in alternatum between Grouard and Joe De Barthe. The latter is good. He is reasonably talented and pleasant to read. He often waxes dramatic, and though he attempts literary stunts beyond his level of mastery, he is quite nice to read if you humor him. Grouard himself, however, lacks even this level of talent. I am hesitant to really blame him for his lack of polish, as he wasn't really a writer, but I deemed it a bad investment of time and energy to continue reading words that didn't much delight me.
Profile Image for Wayne Taylor.
100 reviews2 followers
January 9, 2020
Brown leather hardcover with gold lettering and stamped illustrations to spine and front; reprint of the 1894 edition.

"Every army needs its scouts. A good scout knows the enemy and the enemy's terrain as well as his own, and is resourceful and incisive, cool-headed and courageous. A great scout is irreplaceable. And no greater scout than Frank Grouard has ever served in the US Army. During the Indian Wars in the American West, he was so valuable that General George Crook, considered the greatest of Indian fighters, said he would rather have lost a third of his command than Frank Grouard.

Indeed, few lives rival Grouard's for sheer excitement, danger, and achievement. He claimed to have been born on an island in the South Pacific, the son of a Mormon missionary and his Polynesian wife although others said he was part Indian. Among his many admirers was the great warrior Chief Sitting Bull, who saved young Grouard from death, gave him the Sioux name Standing Bear, held him semi-prisoner, and raised him to be a Sioux warrior. He hunted with the Sioux, learned their language, and became skilled at reading the land for the presence of enemies. But when the chance came to escape, he took it, landing work as a scout for General Crook shortly thereafter.

Grouard once carried urgent dispatches over one hundred miles in less than four hours, an incredible feat on horseback, and was instrumental in setting up negotiations for the final surrender after Wounded Knee.

After the wars, he laid out the first all-weather mail route over the Big Horn Mountains, which he accomplished on foot in the dead of winter.

The Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard is the classic firsthand account dictated to Joe De Barthe, a young journalist - of one of the greatest men of the era.
Frank Benjamin Grouard (also known as Frank Gruard and Benjamin Franklin Grouard) 1850-1905 was a Scout and interpreter for General George Crook during the American Indian War of 1876.
For the better part of a decade he lived with the Sioux tribe before returning to the society of people of the U.S.A.

He was present at the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and several other historical fights of the 1800s including the Wounded Knee Massacre.
9 reviews1 follower
June 14, 2020
Frank is my GG Step Brother

I read this book wanting to know more about a member of my family. I learned far more than I thought I would . I had to put with two very annoying editor problems that included a lack of complete punctuation and many typos ! My guess is that to create this ebook they simply scanned the real book with ‘smart’ tech and never edited the mistakes!
This book is a collection of ‘sketches’, that create a historical book, however when the author has Frank telling his stories , the writing is a joy to read and easy to understand but when Mr De Barthe puts on his reporter hat , the writing is hard to read and follow. I would recommend this book to any family member. In fact I bought a hard copy to loan out.
200 reviews4 followers
July 17, 2019
Outstanding information about the Indian wars .

Great history lesson about Indian wars . A lot of information with the necessary documentation to show complete the stories . Well-written in a chronological order . The only bad part a lot of typos in the book , don't know if this is from the original era or something new . All-around great book if you like history in the 1800s .
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews