"No more thrilling and heroic pages in American military annals exist than those written by the officers and men who fought the 'hostiles' on countless battlefields of the Far West. Fragments of this mighty saga of men in battle are known to many readers, but Mr. Downey has here, for the first time, gathered together all the facts and presented them in chronological and connected order to make a narrative of bravery and hardihood that rings like a trumpet call...It was not until so recent a year as 1915, when United States troops were required to overawe the Piutes in Colorado that the job of the 'Indian-Fighting Army' was really finished. It began in 1865 and continued actively until 1890 when the defeat of the Sioux at the Battle of Wounded Knee broke the last organized Indian resistance. Mr Downey traces the history of the Indian-Fighting Army through those three exciting decades. His story cover the whole West, from Fort Laramie in Montana to the mountain fortresses of the fierce Apaches in the painted buttes of Arizona and the sudden bloody raids of the Kiowas and Comanches in Texas. It is an epic of desperate bravery, of battles -- not all of them victories -- against tremendous odds and a wily, valiant foe. It is the story of a magnificent army that was neglected, forgotten, and frequently maligned and, until this book, as a whole unsung...Here is a book for all those, old or young, who thrill to the story of brave deeds and brave men and to whom that vast 'gladiatorial arena' of the closing decades of the nineteenth century -- the great West of America -- is still the home of adventure, daring, and heroism" -- Book jacket.

The long arrow --Army in the West -- Fort on the Frontier -- "We who are about to die" -- Blood on the snow -- They also served -- General Sherman's scalp -- "Hell with the fire out" -- The human tigers -- War of the Wild Roses -- War horse on a stricken field -- Revenge of the blue -- Rearguard action -- Bugles in the mountains -- Soldier vs. Apache -- Combat with ghosts -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- Index.