Annual Report of Brigadier General George Crook. Military Operations Department of the Platte [wrapper title].

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A rare and important account of the massacre of the Cheyenne at Camp Robinson. This example is further distinguished by being the Siebert copy. Brigadier General George Crook (1828-90), in command of the U.S. Army’s Department of the Platte, gives details of the bloody attempted escape by Cheyenne prisoners from Fort Robinson in northwest Nebraska and criticizes the Army for its treatment of the tribe. In the mid-1870s the Army resolved to remove the Lakota and Cheyenne from their lands in the Powder River watershed, with the Northern Cheyenne relocated to Indian Territory. Within just a couple of years the tribe - suffering from malnutrition and the diseases of the malarial plains of Oklahoma - saw scores of their people dying, and so the Northern Cheyenne decided to escape Indian Territory and march back north. Confronted by American troops they fought and moved into Kansas, where they killed settlers and took supplies and food necessary to survive. By October 1878, they surrendered to the army and were taken to Camp Robinson in northwest Nebraska, where they suffered through a brutal winter. On the evening of January 9, 1879, their attempted escape from the camp resulted in the deaths of two soldiers. Forty Cheyenne were killed, more than fifty surrendered or were captured, and the rest fled to the bluffs northwest of the post. Here Crook relates the Cheyennes’ reason for escaping Indian Territory and notes with gratitude the assistance they gave his own forces against the

• Binding: Hardcover

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