Red Cloud�the only Native American leader ever to win a war against the United States Army. In the 1860s he destroyed Captain William J. Fetterman�s command, closed the Bozeman Trail, and forced the United States to a peace conference. A brilliant military strategist, Red Cloud honed his skills against his tribes� traditional enemies�the Pawnees, Shoshones, Arikaras, and Crows�long before he fought to close the Bozeman Trail.
Here, for the first time in print, is the story of Red Cloud�s early years as he told it to a white friend in the 1890s. This manuscript�which has rested ignored for decades at the Nebraska State Historical Society�brings us closer than the historical record ever has before to understanding the life of the Lakotas� greatest war leader until the rise of Crazy Horse.
