John William Dear was born in 1845 into a close-knit farming family in Northern Virginia. After the Civil War, when he fought as a Confederate soldier with Mosby's Rangers, he went West. For fifteen years, until his premature death, Dear lived a tumultuous life in the West as one of the last fur traders on the Upper Missouri and as the longest serving, government-appointed Indian Trader to Red Cloud's Sioux. But misfortune struck time and again: he was stripped of his lucrative tradership by a corrupt Commissioner of Indian Affairs and a former Governor of Nebraska and he lost his trading business when the President changed the border between Dakota Territory and Nebraska to prevent JW from trading with his Indian clientele. His is an authentic Wild West story, true and tragic. In the summer of 1871 JW met Red Cloud, the powerful leader of the Oglala who at that time was probably the most respected Indian chief in America. For the next twelve years the two men lived alongside each other on the vast Northern Plains. This was one of the most turbulent, violent, and controversial periods in the history of the American West. The end of the Civil War saw tens of thousands of emigrants brave the 2,000-mile journey across Indian territory in search of a better life in California and Oregon. It saw the coming of the trans-continental railroad across Indian land; the wanton slaughter of millions of buffalo the Indians depended upon for survival; the end of the fur trade; the emergence of cattle barons and open range ranching; the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota; the Great Sioux War of 1876; Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn; and the forcing of the Lakota onto reservations. This book is about two men caught up in these momentous events—Red Cloud, whose life has been well researched, and JW Dear, whose story has never been told. It is a story about the opening-up of the West and the process of nation building, driven by great vision, sacrifice, and human endeavor. But it is also a story of mismanagement, avarice, corruption, bigotry, extreme violence, and injustice. It is a very personal story of how Red Cloud and JW became caught up in these life-changing events, which bound the two men together as they fought for their survival. The book covers twenty-five tumultuous years of American history that includes the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the opening up of the West, and the forcing of the Lakota onto reservations.

Places the information about the Lakota chief's life within the larger context of Indian tribal conflicts and Anglo-Indian wars

The westward drive of the warlike Sioux Indians along a thousand miles of prairie and woodland, from the upper reaches of the Mississippi to the lower Powder River in Montana, is one of the epic migrations of history. From about 1660 to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the Teton Sioux swept away all opposition: Arikaras, Ponkas, Crees, Crows, Cheyennes--all fell away and dispersed as the Sioux advanced, until the invaders ranged over a vast territory in the northwest, hunting buffalo and raiding their neighbors. During the ensuing years of heavy conflict, between 1865 and 1877, Red Cloud of the Oglalas stood out as one of the greatest of the Sioux leaders. George E. Hyde was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1882. As a boy he became interested in Indians and began writing about them in 1910. He has produced some of the most important books on the American Indian ever written, including Indians of the High Plains, Indians of the Woodlands, Red Cloud's Folk, Spotted Tail's Folk, and Life of George Bent, all published by the University of Oklahoma Press. Hyde died in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1968 at the age of 86. Royal B. Hassrick was the author of serveral books on Indians and Indian art, including The Sioux: Customs of a Warrior Society, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

He was the only Native American chief to defeat the United States Army in a war. A renowned and respected leader in the vicious, bloody clashes for control over land in the Great Plains of the American West, his name came to represent the conflict itself: Red Cloud's War. The fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured, despite his staggering achievements. He was born in 1821 and advanced in Sioux culture as a warrior and leader through fearless raids against neighboring tribes, preparing him for the epic struggle his nation would face with an expanding United States. This is a story as big as the West, including portraits of General William Tecumseh Sherman, explorer John Bozeman, mountain man Jim Bridger, Red Cloud protégé Crazy Horse, and many others. It is a story about the birth of America as we know it today. Drawing on a wealth of evidence that includes Red Cloud's 134-page autobiography, lost for nearly a hundred years, award-winning authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin bring their subject to life again in a gripping narrative that places you at the center of the conflict over western expansion. Red Cloud finally gives the nation's greatest war leader and Native American legend the modern-day recognition he deserves.

The untold story of the great Ogala Sioux chief Red Cloud, the most powerful Indian commander of the Plains who witnessed the opening of the West and forced the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him.