Moon of Bitter Cold
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
By the summer of 1866, America was a changed nation. The Civil War has ended, and the West was calling as a place where the fresh wounds of a nation divided could heal. Many set out to heed that call and explore the land that the terrible war had not touched. Amid the beauty of the region, they found its native inhabitants-and a bloody collision of two cultures.
To the Lakota people, the white man-the wasichus-appeared first as a curiosity but soon turned into a plague. Frustrated and powerless, the proud Lakota Sioux war leader Red Cloud watched helplessly as the wasichus became as plentiful as the grass on the fields, draining the land of its resources, and introducing metal guns and knives, along with the water that makes men crazy. Red Cloud knows that if something is not done soon, there will be no land for his infant son to call his own.
To some he was controversial, to others he was charismatic, but in an unprecedented act, Red Cloud unites the Sioux with the Cheyenne, Arapho and Crow, assembling over three-thousand warriors in what will go down in history as "Red Clouds War." It was an act that would never be equaled, as the Indians defeat the white man in battle after battle, finally bring the U.S. government to the bargaining table, where they sue for peace.
Told with stunning humanity, Fred Chiaventone makes these historical figures, on both sides, living, real people. Combining vivid historical panorama with gritty and realistic drama. He has created a major narrative about a critical period and the pivotal figures on a frontier that won't know peace for decades.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this follow-up to his award-winning first novel, A Road We Do Not Know, about Custer's fight at Little Bighorn, Chiaventone delivers a stirring tale of the only frontier war the Native Americans actually won. Red Cloud's War (1866 1868) in Montana and Wyoming saw the U.S. government sue for peace, yielding to every Indian demand in the treaty. With the same skill and style he put to good use in his first novel, Chiaventone tells the violent and bloody story of a war that could not be avoided no matter how honorable the intentions of those involved. By 1866, with the Civil War over, settlers and gold miners swept into the Western plains and mountains. The Indians fiercely resisted, but it took Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux to unite the tribes and drive the whites from Indian land. Army Col. Henry Carrington, who did not want war with the Indians, commanded an infantry regiment sent up the Bozeman Trail to build Fort Phil Kearney in the middle of Sioux country. The Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho combined forces and Colonel Carrington soon found himself struggling with hostile Indians, harsh winter weather and poorly equipped, inexperienced troops. Chiaventone gives himself enough fictional license to bring the soldiers, Indians and their families to life, a talent he exercises well. The clash of cultures, rivalries among the Indians and grandstanding among the soldiers, as well as the vivid portrayal of the inhospitable environment, make this novel stand out.