Fear, fatigue, poor rations and little appreciation from his countrymen - that was the lot of the U.S. soldier whose job it was to enforce the nation's arrogant and often muddleheaded Indian policies. In the latter half of the nineteenth century the U.S. Army and the Western Indian tribes battled over the land. Each side had its motives, its heroes, its victories and defeats. Recent books have described their confrontations - Sand Creek, the Fetterman fight, Washita, Little Bighorn - from the standpoint of the Indians. This volume tells the story from the soldiers' point of view.