Outpost of the Sioux Wars: A History of Fort Robinson

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“It is fine social as well as military history, and offers valuable insights into fort and town-the army’s equivalent of town and gown. The triumphs and trials of black soldiers in the frontier period also receive important illumination.”-Robert M. Utley, author of Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891. “To my knowledge, Schubert’s thoughtful research in community records goes beyond the work of any other post historian. Indeed, this is an outstanding post history.”-Edward M. Coffman, author of The Old Army and The War to End All Wars. In 1874, Fort Robinson was founded amid the piney ridges of northwest Nebraska to stem the attacks of the Sioux, angered by settlers encroaching on the High Plains and by gold prospectors invading their sacred Black Hills. Fort Robinson’s residents-including black troops, members of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments-were divided by rank and sometimes by race. Schubert makes clear the vital importance of Fort Robinson during the Sioux wars, including the Ghost Dance Uprisings of 1890, and he blends social analysis with military history in his concern for the families of soldiers and civilians. Frank N. Schubert has been a historian for the U.S. Army for over fifteen years. He is the author of Vanguard of Expansion: Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819-1879.