Red Cloud’s Revenge is a historical novel about the grim recollection
of detailed events and days/months before the showdown between the US
Cavalry & Sioux Indians on the northern plains of 1867. Fetterman, Brown
& Grummond rode out ahead of seventy-eight soldiers that day on December
21st 1866. In hopes of driving out some Sioux Indians and bring some
scalps home. Many soldiers’ guard was down when Fetterman’s entire force
disappeared over Trail Lodge Ridge. None of them were ever seen alive
again.
Seven months after the tragic bloodshed of the Fetterman Massacre by
a band of Lakota; Sargent Seamus Donegan was stationed near Fort Phil
Kearney recovering from the horror and bloodbath in which he participated.
Several Sergeants searching for him after the Fetterman Massacre directed
orders in expectation of Donegan. Traveling along the Bighorn River/Mountains
to Fort C.F. Smith, two thirds away from his destination Seamus along
with the small camp he stopped at was attacked by a band of Lakota Indians.
Narrowly escaping with his life, Donegan set off again to Fort C.F. Smith
and fatefully stumbled upon James W. Thompson’s path. Private Thompson
told Donegan that Chief Iron Bull requested his presence at sundown.
After his encounter with the Crow Indians and discussions of peace/alliance
with Chief Iron Bull, Thompson then took Seamus to Fort C.F. Smith by
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In Indian Killer A lexie uses a pulp-fiction form, the serial killer mystery, to frame the social issues facing American Indians. He populates the book with stock characters such as a grizzled ex-cop, a left-wing professor, a right-wing talk radio personality, drunken bums, thuggish teenagers and a schizophrenic main character who serves as the most obvious suspect in a mystery that never quite ...
horseback.
Several silent days following Donegan’s arrival, his long time friend
Captain Samuel Marr departed from Fort C.F. Smith. Heading to Fort Phil
Kearney in orders given to lead Privates to form additional relief teams.
Gunfire had erupted in a scuffle between Lakota forces and US Cavalry
troops. Soon both forts under siege as well as camps nestled along the
route from the advancing Indians. Red Cloud and Crazy Horse were determined
their warriors to crush the white settlers to returning their land and
departing forever.
Using an ancient tactic of warfare, the Sioux waited until troops thought
the fighting had halted. Setting up decoys and the strategy plans, Red
Cloud was ready to see the white man’s blood fall on the plains. When
US Calvary men began to advance outside their fort range in search of
a plea or peace treaty. Red Cloud gave the order for Crazy Horse to commence
a raid. White men were butchered like cattle on the battlefield where
they lay. A Lakota named Roman Nose took the command from Crazy Horse
to burn down the wagons and dead. “Cleanse this land of the white man’s
stain. Purify this land once again, no white men may leave here alive
or in ashes.”
In the end, the Wagon Box Flight took many men to their deaths and renewed
the terror of the Lakota. Captain Samuel Marr was returned to Fort C.F.
Smith after being shot in the leg by friendly fire. Private Thompson
was knocked out cold in the field and left for scalping in the blazing
firefight. He survived the close encounter and didn’t remember what happened
or where he was for a few days. While battered and wrecked, Sargent Seamus
Donegan traveled with Captain Jim Bridger and Private Reuben Waller down
south to Fort Laramie in search of relief.
The Wagon Box Fight & Hay Field Fight were perhaps Red Cloud & Crazy
Horse’s last stand towards victory. These two battles clearly depict
the climax and actual bloodshed of both sides. As soldiers met death
with arrows, clubs, and knifes from the Lakota in which they greeted
death with lead bullets and swords from the US Cavalry. Heavy losses
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from the US Cavalry proved that it was an outcry to seek a bloodthirsty
revenge and drive the Lakota off the northern plains.
I believe Terry C. Johnston wrote these novels for the sole purpose of
enlightenment and education of our own history. Hundreds of hours must
have been put into each novel in the recollection of events, conversations,
and descriptions of grim scenes. The accounts and accuracy is astonishing
and really pulls you into the story as well as puts a deep level of thinking
into the plot which is all real.
Red Cloud’s Revenge really helped to open up my eyes and understand our
history a bit better than before. Now I know who died for our country
and fought to preserve freedom from the source. Each chapter of the novel
explained in detail another day the people and positions under pressure
by the Lakota in 1867.
Red Cloud as a man was a genius in warfare and in preservation of his
people. Crazy Horse was a grand warrior in his passion for fighting in
what he believed in and would die for this family, friends, and tribe.
In the US Cavalry, Sargent Seamus Donegan was a real soldier who fought
hard and died hard. Surviving through the Fetterman Massacre, Wagon Box
Fight, Beecher Island, all the way though until the opening battle of
the Great Sioux War in Powder River on March 17th, 1876.
