The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

by Peter Cozzens

Overview

Bringing together Custer, Sherman, Grant, and other fascinating military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo, this “sweeping work of narrative history” (San Francisco Chronicle) is the fullest account to date of how the West was won—and lost.

After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the intertribal strife over whether to fight or make peace; explores the dreary, squalid lives of frontier soldiers and the imperatives of the Indian warrior culture; and describes the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. In dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, the Sierra Madre campaign, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters, including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of officers, soldiers, and Indian agents, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led.

The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307948182
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	592
Sales rank:	63,041
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

PETER COZZENS is the author or editor of seventeen acclaimed books on the American Civil War and the Indian Wars of the American West, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Lincoln Prize. In 2002 he was awarded the American Foreign Service Association's highest honor, the William R. Rivkin Award, given annually to one Foreign Service Officer for exemplary moral courage, integrity, and creative dissent.

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Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
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Table of Contents

List of Maps xi

Chronology xix

Prologue: Our Children Sometimes Behave Badly 3

Part 1

Chapter 1 The Plains Aflame 13

Chapter 2 Red Cloud's War 32

Chapter 3 Warrior and Soldier 47

Chapter 4 Hancock's War 64

Chapter 5 The Last Treaty 76

Chapter 6 Of Garryowen in Glory 93

Chapter 7 The Bloody Policy of Peace 112

Part 2

Chapter 8 Tragedy in the Lava Beds 137

Chapter 9 The Buffalo War 155

Chapter 10 No Rest, No Peace 174

Chapter 11 Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse 191

Chapter 12 The Thieves' Road 208

Chapter 13 Guard Us Against All Misfortune 221

Chapter 14 Last Stand 249

Chapter 15 The Great Father's Fury 270

Chapter 16 A Warrior I Have Been 299

Part 3

Chapter 17 I Will Fight No More Forever 315

Chapter 18 The Utes Must Go! 341

Chapter 19 Return to Apacheria 358

Chapter 20 Like So Many Vultures, Greedy for Blood 380

Chapter 21 Once I Moved Like the Wind 400

Part 4

Chapter 22 A Clash of Visions 419

Chapter 23 The Place of the Big Killings 442

Acknowledgments 469

Notes 471

Bibliography 503

Index 525

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History
Winner of the Caroline Bancroft History Prize
Shortlisted for the Military History Magazine Book of the Year Award
Finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award in Best Western Historical Nonfiction

A Smithsonian Top History Book
A Times (UK) Book of the Year

"A detailed recounting of random carnage, bodies burned, treaties broken and treachery let loose across the land. . . . Cozzens admirably succeeds in framing the Indian Wars with acute historical accuracy. . . . [D]emonstrates vast knowledge of American military history." —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times Book Review

"[S]ets a new standard for Western Indian Wars history. . . . [T]he most comprehensive, insightful synthesis of the conflict between the Western tribes and the United States government and citizens published by a popular New York press in decades. . . . Like William Manchester’s The Glory and the Dream . . . [Cozzens’] brilliant thesis and detailed narrative will sustain the reader…from the prologue to the conclusion. . . . [S]uccinctly seeks a sharper understanding of the cause and effects of the American government’s policies, citizen relations with the tribes, intertribal history and warfare, and the United States’ massive immigration into the West during and after the Civil War." —Stuart Rosebrook, True West Magazine

“A] valuable contribution. . . .  [S]weeps across 25 years of U.S. Indian policy, gives clear accounts of battles and raids and introduces generals and chiefs, foot soldiers and warriors. While Cozzens doesn’t say he wrote The Earth Is Weeping to supplant [Bury My Heart at] Wounded Knee, he does express his hope that it will bring balance and better understanding of the Indian Wars of the American West. In that, he succeeds.” —John B. Saul, The Seattle Times

“[S]corching vividness. . . .  [C]risp, muscular prose that offers clear pictures of men at war. A sweeping work of narrative history that synthesizes the work of countless historians, the book . . . recognizes fragments of nobility and humanity amid epic tragedy. Without implying any false equivalence, Cozzens emphasizes history’s tangled complexity.” —Dan Cryer, The San Francisco Chronicle

"A comprehensive look. . . . A striking and thorough explanation. . . . The structure of the book allows the interweaving of timelines and historical context in a way that makes the heavy subject matter extremely readable and also thought provoking.  Cozzens . . . takes to heart his own words of warning about the myths that pervade pop culture. . . . This is a history book, but it is also a present-tense book, full of ironies about how we’re not so different from 19th century Westerners." —Erin H. Turner, Big Sky Journal

"[S]nappy prose, a strong narrative cadence, and admirable clarity. Cozzens is a gifted writer. . . .  It's one of the strengths of the book that Cozzens lets none of his cast of characters—Euro-Americans, Native Americans, political figures, military officers, and all the rest—off the hook for responsibility for what happened. Written briskly, it draws you in; its maps are unusually numerous and clear; its comprehensiveness, making it useful to anyone wishing to know the facts of the many, distinct Indian wars, is unlikely to be surpassed. For those wishing to learn the story of the Indian wars of the American West, this is the book to turn to." —James M. Banner Jr., The Weekly Standard

"An evenhanded and smoothly written volume that is no less ambitious in scope than Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." —Andrew Graybill, The American Scholar

"Cozzens does an exceptional job of examining the viewpoints of both sides, making heavy use of previously untapped primary sources. . . . This is a timely and thorough book, presenting the story without hyperbole or histrionics of this controversial chapter in American history, providing an excellent one-volume history of America’s actual longest and most tragic war." —Jerry Lenaburg, New York Journal of Books

"I've been waiting for an up-to-date, objective, and well-researched book on the Indian Wars, and Peter Cozzens' The Earth Is Weeping is all that and more—an elegantly written narrative of one of the great sagas in American history, and better than Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." —James Donovan, author of A Terrible Glory and The Blood of Heroes
 
"[A]magnificent single-volume account of the post-Civil War conflicts that shaped our history and the mythology of the frontier. . . . In examining the various Indian tribes and subgroupings within them, Cozzens does an admirable job of conveying their complexity and political divisions. This is a beautifully written work of understanding and compassion that will be a treasure for both general readers and specialists." —Jay Freeman, Booklist (STARRED review)
 
"[A]dds a missing perspective on the lives of ordinary people on both sides. Grand plans descended into confusion and cross purposes, alliances and loyalties shifted momentarily, and soldiers and warriors and their families spent most of that quarter-century tired, hungry, discouraged, trying just to survive the next drought or winter…No wonder their earth wept." —William C. Davis, author of Three Roads to the Alamo and An Honorable Defeat
 
"Peter Cozzens reminds us that tragedy, not melodrama, best characterizes the struggles for the American West. . . . The Earth Is Weeping is the most lucid and reliable history of the Indian Wars in recent memory." —Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture
 
"A comprehensive assessment of the wars for control of the American West. Highly recommended for the intertwined history of Native Americans and the post-Civil War frontier U.S. Army." —Nathan Bender, Library Journal
 
"Peter Cozzens, one of our finest working historians, has taken on a massive chunk of Native American history and delivered it with power, style, and insight. . . . There is much wisdom here, and much good writing." —S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon, and Rebel Yell

"[A] thorough history of the 1860-1890 Indian Wars." —The Week
 
"The uninterrupted succession of armed conflicts between the U. S. army and Indians on the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains from the 1860s to 1890, with fatalities mounting into the thousands, were truly America's longest and most tragic war.  In sobering detail, Peter Cozzens has chronicled this dark chapter in our history." —James M. McPherson, author of The War That Forged a Nation and Battle Cry of Freedom

"A valuable panoramic view…  Treachery on such an epic scale can bear many retellings, and this account stands out for its impressive detail and scope." —Priyanka Kumar, The Washington Post

"[S]cores of fascinating characters… [V]ivid descriptions of ordinary people on both sides. . . . [A] sweeping, sharp and stylish history of the Indian Wars of the second half of the 19th century—and their tragic consequences for the native people. Cozzens retells familiar stories . . . with panache." —Glenn C. Altschuler, Star Tribune

"In this comprehensive, well-researched and beautifully written book, Peter Cozzens weaves together the many particular histories of the Indian Wars to present a multifaceted view of the era." —Foreign Service Journal

"[V]eteran historian Cozzens brings verve and a mastery of the era as the chronicles the personalities, politics and bloody clashes. . . . [D]oes full justice to the complexities of this history." —Matthew Price, Newsday

From the Publisher

…Peter Cozzens counters [Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee] with The Earth Is Weeping—a largely chronological march with an Army viewpoint of the same era, a work reminiscent in scope and approach to James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom (about the Civil War). Cozzens is determined to debunk the main thrust of Brown's one-sided book—that the government's response to the so-called "Indian problem" was genocide. He documents a string of gratuitous massacres of Native Americans, much to be deeply regretted, but insists that official Washington never contemplated genocide…Balance is what Cozzens is seeking in this detailed recounting of random carnage, bodies burned, treaties broken and treachery let loose across the land. Although the book is not a seamless narrative…Cozzens admirably succeeds in framing the Indian Wars with acute historical accuracy. Whether discussing the chaotic Battle of Washita in present-day Oklahoma or Custer's skirmishes with Sitting Bull's Lakota coalition or the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé, Cozzens demonstrates vast knowledge of American military history.

The New York Times Book Review - Douglas Brinkley

11/14/2016
In this sweeping narrative, Cozzens (Shenandoah 1862), an expert on 19th-century warfare, confronts Dee Brown's classic text, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Cozzens finds it too reductive in its treatment of the various Native American tribes involved in the bloody contests over land that raged from the 1860s until 1890. He persuasively argues that those who allied with the U.S. government and took up arms against other tribes can't be dismissed as simply greedy, and he zeroes in on issues that motivated each tribe to choose sides. After opening on the plains of Wyoming with Red Cloud's War of the 1860s, the first half of the book builds to the crescendo of Custer's "last stand" at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Cozzens tucks into this section an insightful chapter on how Native Americans and the U.S. Army both trained men to fight. The second half ranges from the betrayal of the Nez Perce in the Northwest to the bitter conflicts in Apacheria in the Southwest, concluding with the 1890 slaughter at Wounded Knee. Cozzens excels in describing battles and the people who orchestrated and participated in them, expertly weaving in the relevant politics and never shying away from the role racism played in this destructive warfare. Maps & illus. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2016
In the 16 books he has authored or edited, Cozzens has written about both the Civil War and the Indian Wars of the American West. Here he focuses on the latter, gathering up events transpiring over three-plus decades to produce a sweeping account of savage fighting that ranged from Kansas to the Dakotas, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest. See a related essay this fall in the Smithsonian.

Library Journal

2016-08-03
A sturdy overview of the Indian Wars.Cozzens (Battlefields of the Civil War: The Battles that Shaped America, 2011, etc.) turns his attention westward to the combat between invading whites and Natives along the frontier. Traditional histories set the beginnings of that conflict with the Sioux Uprising of 1862, but Cozzens starts in 1866 with the better-studied war of resistance mounted by Red Cloud. His long narrative continues to the shameful massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee a generation later, a compressed period with many set pieces, from the Battle of Little Bighorn to the murder of Crazy Horse and the Geronimo Campaign. The author covers all the ground dutifully if without much flair; this is a narrative of facts more than ideas, and it sometimes plods. Still, Cozzens is not without insight—“the Indians who had gone to war against the government had usually done so reluctantly,” he writes, “and they had lost their land and their way of life anyway”—and there is much merit in having a readable history of the Indian Wars in one volume. Cozzens promises to “bring historical balance” to the story, and he does, but this mostly means demonstrating to readers that not all whites were devils and not all tribes that were not wholeheartedly in resistance were sellouts, the view we have been accustomed to since Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970). As Cozzens notes on the latter score, many Native groups saw the federal government as a reliable protector against rival tribes, and regardless, instances were few where there was monolithic opposition to the whites even within a group. Still, as Gen. George Crook noted of the Indians, “all the tribes tell the same story. They are surrounded on all sides, the game is destroyed or driven away, they are left to starve, and there remains but one thing for them to do—fight while they can.” A useful one-volume history refreshingly without many bones to pick but also without much fire.

Kirkus Review