Plainsmen Books in Order

This novel follows Crazy Horse after his surrender, as he struggles to live on a reservation under watchful officers and jealous rivals. Misunderstandings and betrayal close in until his fatal arrest, tracing the quiet, tragic end of a Lakota war leader.

Fleeing General Howard's columns, non-treaty Nez Perce bands lead their families and herds over the Lolo Trail toward Montana. At the "Place of the Ground Squirrels" they pause to rest, unaware that Colonel Gibbon's infantry is stalking them toward the slaughter at Big Hole.

When tensions in Idaho's Wallowa country erupt into the Nez Perce War, soldiers and settlers are caught unprepared. Johnston follows officers, scouts, and Nez Perce families through the opening clash at White Bird Canyon, where a small band humiliates a larger U.S. column.

Colonel Miles hopes one last peace mission will end the Great Sioux War, sending a Cheyenne woman and pony scout Johnny Bruguier to talk surrender along the Rosebud. When grudges inside the Army explode, the campaign hurtles toward the bitter Lame Deer fight.

Under Colonel Nelson Miles, Seamus Donegan pushes up the Tongue River into snow choked butte country. As Crazy Horse gathers a thousand Lakota warriors around Wolf Mountain, Donegan rides into the last great battle the famed war leader will ever fight.

With winter closing in, Seamus Donegan joins a harsh pursuit of Crazy Horse and Dull Knife across the northern plains. Ordered to strike village camps in snow and darkness, he wrestles with loyalty and survival during the punishing Dull Knife campaign.

After Custer falls at Little Bighorn, the Army unleashes a relentless 1876 campaign against Sioux and Cheyenne bands. Scout Seamus Donegan rides beside figures like Buffalo Bill as hunger, storms, ambush, and despair prove as deadly as any bullet.

As Sioux and Cheyenne warriors gather in the north, Seamus Donegan leaves his pregnant wife to scout for General Crook. On Rosebud Creek he rides into a drawn out fight with Crazy Horse's fighters, where shifting tactics and exhaustion may cost the army everything.

In the bitter winter of 1876, Seamus Donegan scouts for General George Crook on a strike into Powder River country. Their surprise attack on a Northern Cheyenne village ignites the Great Sioux War, binding him to a long, freezing campaign against fierce resistance.

Newly freed from cavalry service, Seamus Donegan signs on with buffalo hunters heading into Kiowa and Comanche country. Their presence sparks the siege of Adobe Walls and a later campaign to Palo Duro Canyon, where the Army dismantles the tribes' last stronghold.

When Chief White Bear leads his Kiowa followers off their reservation and back into ancestral Texas homelands, raids flare across the frontier. Seamus Donegan rides with Sheridan's columns into the Southern Plains uprising, where revenge, broken promises, and hard choices collide.

Following rumors of a long-lost uncle, Seamus Donegan rides into northern California just as the Modoc War explodes. Amid volcanic crags and lava beds, he joins a hard campaign against Captain Jack's small band fighting the U.S. Army to a standstill.

Working with the Kansas Pacific Railway and scout Buffalo Bill Cody, Seamus Donegan helps protect track crews from relentless Cheyenne Dog Soldier raids. The campaign drives both sides toward the surprise attack at Summit Springs, where a new Cheyenne war leader rises.

After years of skirmishing on the plains, Seamus Donegan joins fifty scouts under Colonel Forsyth hunting Cheyenne raiders along the Republican River. When hundreds of warriors pin them on a sandbar, he must help a shattered band endure the siege at Beecher Island.

At the close of the Civil War, Seamus Donegan scouts along the Bozeman Trail as soldiers and settlers push into sacred Sioux hunting grounds. When Red Cloud strikes back in the Fetterman fight of 1866, he witnesses a disastrous clash neither side can easily forget.

Seven months after the Fetterman disaster, Seamus Donegan rides back into Dakota Territory as tension hardens on both sides. When the Hayfield and Wagon Box fights erupt, he watches Red Cloud's warriors and the U.S. Army trade brutal, costly blows.