While reading Paul Hedren’s, “Great Sioux War Orders of Battle”, we have to ask why no one has produced such a reference before. We find bits and pieces of Mr. Hedren’s material in a small number of other works, but never have we seen this data comprised into one volume. Besides data, the author provides a reasonable and innovative analysis for why the frontier army was ably led and equipped to win the Sioux/Cheyenne War of 1876.
No matter one’s opinion on the subject of the U.S. Army during the Centennial Campaign, Mr. Hedren’s arguments are well made and supported from primary research. His check list of primary material includes but is not limited to 185 monthly Regimental Returns, official reports, and diaries. The war was made up of a complex maze of many columns of infantry and cavalry moving across a wide landscape over a period of almost two years. Making sense of it all is a huge challenge, but Mr. Hedren accomplishes it through a novel approach.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one “explores the doctrine, training, culture, and materiel” of the army that entered the campaign. Part two is exemplary in that the author has divided the entire campaign into 28 separate deployments starting with the relief of Fort Pease in February 1876, and ending with the establishment of Fort Custer in July 1877. Part three encompasses a well thought-out analysis for why a well trained army could lose on some of the campaigns’ battlefields. It also affirms why the war was not won because of luck; the army went into the field confident and rightfully so.
