CHEYENNE SUMMER

A history of a significant 1868 U.S.–Native clash near the Kansas-Colorado border.

A Navy veteran who has written novels and multiple books about Native history, Mort spends the majority of his latest laying out the historical and cultural background against which the Battle of Beecher Island unfolded in September 1868. In the years after the Civil War, the completion of a railroad connecting the states on both coasts was a national priority. At the same time, the railroad—and the settlements along its route—posed a direct threat to the Native way of life across the Plains. For the Cheyenne, the ideal to which young men aspired was the life of a warrior, which was incompatible with daily life in the region, and the extreme individualism of the Cheyenne lifestyle meant that treaties signed by chiefs meant nothing to most of their people. Meanwhile, the prevailing attitude of the White settlers was that the Natives should be displaced so western expansion could continue. On the frontier, the Army, drastically reduced in size since the end of the war, was charged with keeping the peace. That was the situation when, in 1868, a scouting party set out to pursue a Cheyenne war party. Maj. George Forsyth decided to seek a battle despite the misgivings of Lt. Frederick Beecher, for whom the battle is named. The troops ended up surrounded by hundreds of Cheyenne and Sioux on a small island in a narrow creek, holding off attackers with their repeating rifles. Mort bases his detailed, page-turning account largely on recollections by Forsyth and by Cheyenne warrior George Bent, creating a nuanced portrayal of a battle that epitomizes the struggle to settle the Plains. The story will appeal to readers interested in U.S.–Native conflict after the Civil War.

A rich addition to the popular military history of the late-18th-century frontier.