Fort Robinson and the American West, 1874-1899 (review)

Frontier army forts stand as unique landmarks in the development and evolution of the American West. They are signposts demarcating time and place, windows on events long past, scenes of tragedy and triumph, symbols of emerging American hegemony. Fort Robinson embodies all these elements. Located in the panhandle of northwestern Nebraska and in continuous operation by the U.S. Army between 1874 and 1948, Fort Robinson amassed the second-longest span of service of all the Indian wars posts built on the upper Plains and, in terms of the campaigns in which it was involved, ranked as one of the most important. This volume documents the fort's first quarter century and the author is currently compiling a second book that will cover the remaining years.

Following the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, Fort Robinson was established to protect the newly authorized Red Cloud Indian Agency. Its crucial location just south of the Black Hills, however, assured a future of greater purpose. Assuming an ongoing role in what proved to be the contentious pacification of the upper Plains, Fort Robinson was at the center of some of the most unforgettable, and heartrending, confrontations in frontier history. Thomas Buecker, a superb storyteller, masterfully transports the reader through these. He describes the initial exhilaration and the slow demoralization that characterized the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, and presents the tragic murder of Chief Crazy Horse in a Fort Robinson guardhouse. He brings his readers along on the epic flight of the Northern Cheyenne under chiefs Little Wolf and Dull Knife, reveals the catastrophic poverty and haunting desperation surrounding the Ghost Dance Religion, and documents the U.S. Army's crushing response at Wounded Knee.

The military significance of those events notwithstanding, Fort Robinson is much more than a catalog of the Army's campaigns. In fact, if the author had confined himself to that aspect of the fort's history, he would have produced a book of considerably less value. Buecker has crafted a sweeping, richly informative, deeply personal narrative of army life on the frontier. The image is far from the typically glamorized depictions of fiction and Hollywood, presenting soldiers as ordinary human beings—some flawed, others heroic, a few truly gifted—but a majority struggling to perform their duties and survive in a foreign and largely inhospitable land. Buecker shows in meticulous detail how garrisoned troops spent most of their lives on the Plains, monitoring the Indian peoples, patrolling the prairies, deterring raiding parties, guarding wagon trains, hunting down deserters, drilling on the parade ground, and making the brick which they used in turn to construct post buildings. The author's gift lies in his ability to intrigue his readers and convince them that every aspect of life at Fort Robinson was relevant, from the explosive exhilaration of combat to the infinitely more monotonous and less dangerous nature of fatigue duty. While Buecker possesses a depth of knowledge and command of his subject capable of overwhelming his audience, he employs an engaging, relaxed style that is sure to invite a wide readership.

Fort Robinson is a definitive treatment worthy of the attention of all students of the American West. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to reading Buecker's forthcoming companion volume.