The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that's the way we go,"" runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. ""Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!"" The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian's remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier.
After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores.
Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.'s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars' accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out.
In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier's experience, giving voice to history in the making.
The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that's the way we go,"" runs the chorus in a Harrigan and Hart song from 1874. ""Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army O!"" The last three words of that lyric aptly title Douglas C. McChristian's remarkable work capturing the lot of soldiers posted to the West after the Civil War. At once panoramic and intimate, Regular Army O! uses the testimony of enlisted soldiers - drawn from more than 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs - to create a vivid picture of life in an evolving army on the western frontier.
After the volunteer troops that had garrisoned western forts and camps during the Civil War were withdrawn in 1865, the regular army replaced them. In actions involving American Indians between 1866 and 1891, 875 of these soldiers were killed, mainly in minor skirmishes, while many more died of disease, accident, or effects of the natural environment. What induced these men to enlist for five years and to embrace the grim prospect of combat is one of the enduring questions this book explores.
Going well beyond Don Rickey Jr.'s classic work Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay (1963), McChristian plumbs the regulars' accounts for frank descriptions of their training to be soldiers; their daily routines, including what they ate, how they kept clean, and what they did for amusement; the reasons a disproportionate number occasionally deserted, while black soldiers did so only rarely; how the men prepared for field service; and how the majority who survived mustered out.
In this richly drawn, uniquely authentic view, men black and white, veteran and tenderfoot, fill in the details of the frontier soldier's experience, giving voice to history in the making.
Douglas C. McChristian (1947-2018) was a research
historian for the National Park Service and a former National Park
Service field historian at Fort Davis and Fort Laramie National
Historic Sites and at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National
Monument. He is the author of numerous books, including Fort Bowie,
Arizona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858-1894 and Fort Laramie:
Military Bastion of the High Plains.
Robert M. Utley served in the National Park Service for 25
years in various capacities, including Chief Historian from 1964 to
1972. Since his retirement from the federal government in 1980, he
has devoted himself full-time to historical research and writing
with a specialty in the American West. He is author, among many
articles and books he has published, of Cavalier in Buckskin:
George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier, Revised
Edition; Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life; Lone Star Lawmen:
The Second Century of the Texas Rangers; and The Commanders: Civil
War Generals Who Shaped the American West. A founder of the Western
History Association, Utley has served on its governing council and
as its president.
This monumental study is the most complete rendering of the topic I
have ever seen. With superb scholarship, Douglas McChristian
provides in-depth knowledge on virtually every page. As one of the
finest narrative writers working today, he writes entertainingly
with subtle wit that can be hilarious, yet he concludes with all
appropriate gravity that soldiers of the period, a racially and
ethnically diverse lot, were competent overall and performed their
duties earnestly and faithfully. McChristian knows his subject like
no one else."" - Jerome A. Greene, author of American Carnage:
Wounded Knee, 1890
""Drawn from more than 350 diaries, reminiscences, and narratives
preserved in libraries and archives far and wide, Doug
McChristian's thoughtful narrative is a revealing and deserved
homage to a remarkable class of ordinary men, soldiers barely known
beyond their time but rightly remembered for their grit,
steadfastness, and unfailing honor in a difficult and challenging
time. This is a smart, richly rewarding book."" - Paul L. Hedren,
author of Powder River: Disastrous Opening of the Great Sioux
War
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