Battles of the Red River War
Archeological Perspectives on the Indian Campaign of 1874
J. Brett Cruse
Contributions by Martha Doty Freeman and Douglas D. Scott
Foreword by Robert M. Utley

Battles of the Red River War unearths a long-buried record of the 
collision of two cultures.
    In 1874, U.S. forces led by Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie carried out 
a surprise attack on several Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa bands 
that had taken refuge in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas 
panhandle and destroyed their winter stores and horses. After this 
devastating loss, many of these Indians returned to their reservations 
and effectively brought to a close what has come to be known as the 
Red River War, a campaign carried out by the U.S. Army during 
1874 as a result of Indian attacks on white settlers in the region. 
After this operation, the Southern Plains Indians would never again 
pose a coherent threat to whites' expansion and settlement across 
their ancestral homelands.
    Until now, the few historians who have undertaken to tell the 
story of the Red River War have had to rely on the official records 
of the battles and a handful of extant accounts, letters, and journals 
of the U.S. Army participants. Starting in 1998, J. Brett Cruse, 
under the auspices of the Texas Historical Commission, conducted 
archeological investigations at six battle sites. In the artifacts they 
unearthed, Cruse and his teams found clues that would both correct 
and complete the written records and aid understanding of the 
Indian perspectives on this clash of cultures.
    Including a chapter on historiography and archival research by 
Martha Doty Freeman and an analysis of cartridges and bullets by 
Douglas D. Scott, this rigorously researched and lavishly illustrated 
work will commend itself to archeologists, military historians and 
scientists, and students and scholars of the Westward Expansion.

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J. BRETT CRUSE is the Cultural Resources Coordinator for the 
Historic Sites Division of the Texas Historical Commission, which 
sponsored the investigation of the Red River War battle sites. He 
lives in Round Rock.


What people are saying about this book
"The Red River War was a pivotal event in American history yet 
paradoxically it has been largely overlooked as a topic of serious 
research. Fortunately, this book makes up for lost time . . ."
—Charles M. Haecker, Archeologist, National Park Servicehttp://www.tamu.edu:80/upress/BOOKS/2008/cruse.htm