3 Review(s)

Popularised by Mari Sandoz's "Cheyenne Autumn", the Northern Cheyennes' 1878 escape from their Indian Territory Reservation to their native homeland beyond the Platte River has become a subject of renewed academic interest. But unlike other books written about the exodus of the Northern Cheyennes, Stan Hoig's "Perilous Pursuit" provides a full account of not only the determined flight of the Northern Cheyennes, but also of the beleaguered US cavalry ordered to pursue them.In a well-paced dramatic narrative, Hoig tells the story of betrayed people, incompetent military leadership, a penurious Congress, a hard-pressed Indian Bureau, the suffering troops saddled with the task of stopping a foe far more prepared to fight than they, and an American nation almost totally insensitive to the welfare of its native people. By fully utilising the previously neglected Cheyenne/Arapahoe Agency papers, the officer reports, and court-martial testimonies of the Fourth Cavalry officers and enlisted men, Hoig explains how and why this journey damaged so many lives, both white and native.