During the Civil War cavalry troopers carried their carbines in what were called sockets. These were leather rings only about three or four inches...
Red, White, and Black: The US Army in the West 1866-1891
After four years of fighting, the Civil War ended. The victorious Union Army soon disbanded, leaving behind a small force of regulars to such...
General George Crook Crook was successful in bringing all of the Chiricahua Apache back to the reservation except for the wily Geronimo
George Crook graduated from West Point in 1852 was assigned to the 4th Infantry, serving in California and Oregon. When the Civil War began in 1861,...
Swung Into Eternity A minister’s anti-slavery views proved fatal.
Anthony Bewley was a fire and brimstone Methodist pastor outside Fort Worth, Texas just before the Civil War. He was an abolitionist, which made him...
When Did The Civil War Really Begin? “He who controls the mouth of the Mississippi River controls the West.”
In 1784, Spain, looking from her outposts in Louisiana and Florida, watched America’s growing western frontier with a menacing eye and made a...
The Artists Who Inspired a National Park
Photographer William Henry Jackson and artist Thomas Moran joined the 1871 Hayden Survey to Yellowstone and changed the world with their artwork.
Off The Road Stage driver Clark Foss courted disaster…and got it.
Clark Foss started a stage line in Napa Valley, CA during the Civil War. It was a route with sharp turns and huge drop-offs, and “Old Foss” gained...
Homesteaders, Heroines and Hell-Raisers
It was a century ago that American women were granted suffrage, but they had been proving their equality in the settlement of the West long before.
Disease In The Frontier Army Far more soldiers died from or were treated for Cholera, dysentery, malaria, fevers and other afflictions than from combat wounds...
General William Tecumseh Sherman reported in 1869: The efficiency of the frontier army which averaged about 20,000 men in the period 1855-1875...