Discoverers: military scientists, ethnologists, and artists in the new empire -- Encountering the elephant: army aid to emigrants on the Platte River road -- Across and on the wide Missouri: the army's role in western transportation and communication -- Posse comitatus in blue: the soldier as frontier lawman -- Dining at the government trough: army contracts and payrolls as community builders -- Uncle Sam's farmers: soldiers as agriculturalists and meteorologists -- Hippocrates in blue: army doctors on the frontier -- Reform the man: post chapels, schools, and libraries -- Sharpening the eagle's talons for domestic duties: the army in public relief work and in protecting the national parks -- In defense of "Poor Lo": military advocacy for Native American rights -- Documenting the experience: soldier journalists, autobiographers, and novelists -- Life after soldiering: entrepreneurs, investors, and retirees.