On March 17, 1876, against the backdrop of the frenzied gold rush to the Black Hills, Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds led a now obscure attack on a Cheyenne Indian village. Although it was considered a military failure and lacked the renown of the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn battles, the engagement marked the decision of the U.S. government to force a final showdown with the Indians.
The author scoured the battlefield with a metal detector and examined the thousand pages of testimony in the court-martial proceedings that followed the retreat. He has reconstructed the battle in detail and...