Children of Grace: The Nez Perce War of 1877 (Military Frontier)
Comprehensively researched and well-written, this is a major history of a bleak episode in U.S.-Indian relations. The Nez Perce of Oregon had been peaceful and prosperous until white encroachment led to a unilateral government decision to remove the tribe to a remote reservation in Idaho. A handful of renegades killed 18 settlers, beginning a war that would pit some 300 warriors under Chief Joseph (c. 1840-1904) against the federal army. Still, the small band outfought and out-thought the bluecoats, inflicting one of the army's worst defeats of the Plains Indian Wars at White Bird Canyon. Hampton, an instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Wyoming, integrates the experiences of Nez Perce and army soldiers in a balanced depiction of the face of battle. He also makes sophisticated use of Nez Perce sources in analyzing leadership and decision making in a loose association of bands plunged into a war no one had wanted. Hampton's final chapter on the Nez Perce deportation to Indian Territory in violation of what they understood as the terms of their surrender is a grim coda. Photos not seen by PW .Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.