The Ute Campaign of 1879 is a study of linkages. Major Russel D. Santala's work not only explores the threads of continuity between engagements and campaigns but also examines the relationship of government policy to one of the instruments of that policy-the Army. Ten years before the events of this study occurred, General William T. Sherman made note of this connection. In a commencement address to the West Point class of 1869, he compared the Army to the steam engine and warned that it is "held together by an organization and discipline demanding great knowledge and labor, moved into action by causes more powerful than steam, and so intimately connected with the whole fabric of government that ignorance and mismanagement would result in a catastrophe more fatal than could result from the explosion of any steam engine." This study chronicles the Army's role in the struggle between two cultures. At the same time, it serves to illuminate the problems of utilizing the military instrument in an environment of transitory national policy and competing national and local interests.

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