"The Battle of Beecher Island — How a Small Frontier Clash" Topic

…Became a Harbinger of Decades of War on the American Plains

"IN THE summer of 1868 the Cheyenne and their Sioux and Arapaho allies were spreading havoc on America's Central Plains. Their targets were railroad construction crews, isolated stagecoach stations and the farms and ranches that lay along the main east-west travel routes, particularly in Kansas and Colorado.

General Phil Sheridan was responsible for that part of the Trans-Mississippi. But the former commander of the Union's Army of the Shenandoah didn't have enough men to protect the territory, and the troops he had were mostly the wrong kind…"

Congress, which was desperate to save money after accumulating a massive national debt during the Civil War, had reduced the regular army to its barest bones. To further reduce spending, the legislature favored the infantry over the much more expensive cavalry. Consequently, the western posts were manned primarily by foot soldiers whom the Plains tribes scorned as "walk-a-heeps." The fact that the Cheyenne were highly mobile and nomadic and that their warriors were arguably the finest light cavalry in the world meant that infantry would never be able to find, let alone trouble, the Cheyenne or any of their allies…"

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Armand

Thanks Armand, an interesting read!

Been to the battlesite. My family for the area and the really location got wipe out in a flood.

A votre service mon ami…

Armand

I've also visited the site, around 1987. You know the thing about "Inquire locally?" I asked at the convenience store in the town. "Nope, nope, nope, no idea. Oh, wait, maybe that's the place high school seniors go to celebrate the night after graduation." There was an auto repair place perhaps a quarter mile north of the battlefield, and they sold copies of a book on the battle!
Nice to see there is a new book on the battle.

Grelber

Thanks.

Armand