Bozeman Paymaster — Robert Lee Murphy

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR A TALE OF THE FETTERMAN MASSACRE As expected, Robert Lee Murphy combines his deep historical research and strong storytelling to deliver a fresh perspective on one of the key events of the post-Civil War Western frontier.-Johnny D. Boggs, Nine-times Spur Award winner on BOZEMAN PAYMASTER Reminiscent of the Taliban prevailing in Afghanistan, Bozeman Paymaster is the story of how in the nation's drive to advance Manifest Destiny it blundered into one of its most distressing reverses. Fighting to defend their favorite buffalo hunting grounds following the Civil War, Lakota Chief Red Cloud's coalition of Sioux, Northern Cheyennes, and Arapahos drove the military forces out of the Powder River country of modern-day Wyoming. On a bone-chilling day in December 1866, Captain William Fetterman led eighty men into the army's worst defeat at the hands of the Indians until Custer's Last Stand a decade later. Despite the turmoil of virtually constant Indian attacks at Fort Phil Kearny, a youthful paymaster clerk and a beautiful young schoolteacher fall in love. Their future is torn asunder when in the aftermath of the Fetterman Massacre the United States abandons the forts protecting the Bozeman Trail, closing the shortest route used by immigrants to reach Montana's goldfields. Red Cloud's War was the only war the American Indians won fighting the U.S. Army.