Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

The Gabaldon Effect

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There’s this thing called The Outlander Effect. It refers to the massive impact the Outlander series of books by Diana Gabaldon and the STARZ series based on the novels on the economy and culture of Scotland. Over the past quarter century, the books and show — largely set in the Highlands at the time of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, then moving to … [Read more...] about The Gabaldon Effect

A Fine Fandango

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I don’t read a whole lot of frontier fiction. As deeply immersed as I am in this stuff, it’s all too easy to get thrown out of the story by anachronism, historical errors and the like. A good Mountain Man novel is surprisingly hard to come by. The Big Sky and Fair Land, Fair Land by A.B. Guthrie; Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher; Lord Grizzly, by … [Read more...] about A Fine Fandango

The Bozeman Trail War — Part VII — Endgame

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The garrison at Fort Phil Kearny was numbed with shock, grief-striken and terrified. When Col. Henry Carrington led a detail out to recover the 81 bodies from the December 21, 1886, destruction of Captain William Fetterman’s command, he ordered that the women and children be gathered in the powder magazine of the fort. If the Lakota stormed the … [Read more...] about The Bozeman Trail War — Part VII — Endgame

The Bozeman Trail War — Part VI — A Scapegoat And A Crazy Horse

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Maybe it was the hat. Or maybe I bore the unmistakable stamp of a man riding an intense history high. When I walked through the door of the Fort Phil Kearny museum and visitors center, the lady on duty locked her radar on me. “So who would you say is most responsible for the Fetterman Disaster?” she queried as soon as I dropped my $5 donation in … [Read more...] about The Bozeman Trail War — Part VI — A Scapegoat And A Crazy Horse

The Bozeman Trail War — Part V — One Hundred In The Hands

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  The winkte rode his sorrel horse about frantically, zig-zagging among the hills near Peno Creek a few miles north of Fort Phil Kearny. The effeminate man — a “two-souled person” — blew on an eagle bone whistle, his head covered in a black cloth. The man/woman was seeking a vision that would guide the war leaders of a vast … [Read more...] about The Bozeman Trail War — Part V — One Hundred In The Hands

Working The Trapline — August 2019 — Mausers And Mayans

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  This just keeps happening. I am NOT a gun crank. A firearms enthusiast, yes. A shooter, definitely. I don’t obsess over ballistics tables and firearms specs. So I’m not just being a fussbudget when I run across egregious errors and bellow out cusswords to make Al Swearengen blush. Clay Risen, in his new book The Crowded Hour: … [Read more...] about Working The Trapline — August 2019 — Mausers And Mayans

The Bozeman Trail War — Part IV — Weapons And Combatants

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“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous and agile an enemy to come to grips with.” — Robert Taber Through the fall of 1866, the Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapaho insurgents in the Powder River Country made life miserable for the garrison of Fort Phil … [Read more...] about The Bozeman Trail War — Part IV — Weapons And Combatants

The Bozeman Trail War — Part III — Fort Phil Kearny

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A three-pronged summer 1865 expedition led by General Patrick Connor to punish the perpetrators of the Platte Bridge Station brawl and other attacks managed to smash up an Arapaho village at Tongue River, but the main militant force under the leadership of Red Cloud and Roman Nose generally evaded contact — except on their own terms. They harassed … [Read more...] about The Bozeman Trail War — Part III — Fort Phil Kearny