The Fetterman Massacre was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1962 (also published as Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga). The book recounts one of the most significant — and least remembered — battles of the Plains Indian wars: the destruction of Captain William Fetterman’s command on December 21, 1866, near Fort Phil Kearny in present-day Wyoming.
Fetterman had boasted that with eighty men he could ride through the entire Sioux nation. He got his eighty men (plus one civilian volunteer, making eighty-one total) and led them in pursuit of a decoy party. The decoys — led by Crazy Horse, then a young warrior of about twenty-five — drew Fetterman over a ridge and into an ambush by somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. The fight lasted less than half an hour. There were no survivors among Fetterman’s command.
Brown reconstructs the events from military records, personal diaries, and Native oral histories, giving balanced attention to both sides. The military perspective reveals institutional arrogance and logistical incompetence; the Native perspective reveals strategic sophistication and tactical brilliance. Red Cloud’s War, of which the Fetterman fight was the decisive engagement, resulted in the Army’s abandonment of the Bozeman Trail forts — one of the few clear military victories Native forces achieved against the United States.
Collecting The Fetterman Massacre
First edition (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1962): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $50–$150
- Very good/very good: $20–$60