John Gregory Bourke kept a monumental set of diaries beginning as a young cavalry lieutenant in Arizona in 1872, and ending the evening before his death in 1896. As aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook, he had an insider's view of the early Apache campaigns, the Great Sioux War, the Cheyenne Outbreak, and the Geronimo War. Bourke's writings reveal much about military life on the western frontier, but he also was a noted ethnologist, writing extensive descriptions of American Indian civilization and illustrating his diaries with sketches and photographs. Previously, researchers could consult only a small part of Bourke's diary material in various publications, or else take a research trip to the archive and microfilm housed at West Point. Now, for the first time, the 124 manuscript volumes of the Bourke diaries are being compiled, edited, and annotated by Charles M. Robinson III, in a planned set of six books easily accessible to the modern researcher. Volume 1 begins with Bourke's years as aide-de-camp to General Crook during the Apache campaigns and in dealings with Cochise. Bourke's ethnographic notes on the Apaches continued with further observations on the Hopis in 1874. The next year he turned his pen on the Sioux and Cheyenne during the 1875 Black Hills Expedition, writing some of his most jingoistic comments in favor of Manifest Destiny. This volume culminates with the momentous events of the Great Sioux War and vivid descriptions of the Powder River fight and the Battle of the Rosebud. Extensively annotated and with a biographical appendix on Indians, civilians, and military personnel named in the diaries, this book will appeal to western and military historians, students of American Indian life and culture, and to anyone interested in the development of the American West.
CHARLES M. ROBINSON III is a history instructor at South Texas College. He has written more than fifteen books, including Bad Hand: A Biography of General Ranald S. Mackenzie and The Court Martial of Lieutenant Henry Flipper. He lives in San Benito, Texas.
"Bourke includes firsthand reports on Crook's battles with the Sioux at the Powder River Fight (March 1876) and the Battle of the Rosebud (June 1876). Despite Army claims to the contrary, neither of these encounters was a victory for the troops, and at the Rosebud, historians generally agree that Crook was defeated. The Custer disaster took place a week after the Rosebud battle. . . . This reviewer is pleased to return once more to Robinson's intelligently edited and annotated version of Bourke's diaries. As a reporter, Bourke was unsurpassed in his attention to detail and his ability to remember and repeat anecdotes."--Journal of America's Military Past "This is an enormous contribution to our understanding of the American West."--Robert Wooster, author of The Military and United States Indian Policy, 1865-1903 "Bourke's writings are keenly insightful, filled with color, and replete with a Who's Who of the American West and Old Army."--Paul L. Hedren, author of Fort Laramie and the Great Sioux War "The Bourke diaries are of great significance to the fields of Western American history and of Native American Studies. They are an unparalleled source on the internal operations of the Indian-fighting army and on ethnohistorical information on the tribes that Bourke came to know."--Joseph Porter, author of Paper Medicine Man "This is a must for the library of everyone interested in the Indians and the military frontier."--Paul A. Hutton, author of Phil Sheridan and His Army
