The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend

Loved this book.

The book's title should also include, not for the faint hearted. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin don't mince words when describing the horrors of the battlefield, or maybe the mutilation field is a better term. I'm aware of the habits of the Sioux Indians, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, because I read the Dan Simmons novel,' Black Hills' . As a matter of fact, his main character was Paha Sapa, which means Black Hills. But for the life of me, I can't remember reading about Red Cloud, so this non-fiction work was a real eye opener for me. With all the violence around him and in him, it's hard to believe that he died a peaceful death at the age of 87 in 1909. The book's about Red Cloud's War, but focuses on the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands on 12/21/1866 in the Great Plains. Somehow Red Cloud was able to unite the Lakota (all seven Sioux tribes), Cheyenne, Arapaho, and others in an attempt to eradicate the White man from the Great Plains once and for all.A lot of things contributed to the all out war against the U.S. Army. The dribble of white settlers heading west became a flood of wagons after gold was discovered in California. Also the wholesale killing of the buffalos and the spreading of diseases that Indians had no immunity for didn't set well with the Great Plains tribes. During the mid 1860s, the white man would reduce the buffalo population from 30 million to 1,000 in the next forty years. The buffalo meat was important to the Indians, but worthless to the white man. Broken treaties and conniving Indian Agents added fuel to the fire. In 1856 all the tribes of Lakota met to form united front to stop the white threat. It is said that 10,000 Indians attended that meeting. The Lakota Indians are not farmers, nor do they stay in one place long. They are raiders of other Indian tribes, horse stealers, and buffalo hunters. They only tolerated the Cheyenne. The Lakota believe they are warriors and want to stay that way. They take pride in Counting Coup (touching an enemy with a coup stick during battle and leaving unharmed). They heavily attacked white wagons heading west with one wagon out of eleven never making it passed the Rockies. Things got worse for the pioneers in the west when the U.S. Army left the Great Plains to fight the Civil War in 1861.After the Civil War, many soldiers were released from duty, leaving very few to defend Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny, and Fort C.F. Smith, which were there to protect the migration of the Easterners, who were following the Bozeman Trail to Virginia City, Montana and then to the Oregon Trail . The U.S. Army was heavily outnumbered and were slaughtered and mutilated on many occasions. Red Cloud's battle with Captain Fetterman's 2nd Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment is epic. I thought the savagery of the book was a bit too much, but I guess the authors wanted to tell it like it was. The sidebar characters were strong. I enjoyed the Mountain man, Jim `Old Gabe' Bridger, a friend of the famous, Jedediah Smith. I admired the tactics Crazy Horse used to lure the U.S. Army into ambushes. Most of Red Cloud's thoughts were conveyed to a French Canadian fur trader named Sam Deon, who did the great chief's autobiography. Sam Deon was probably the only white man who was befriended and protected by Red Cloud. Some of the incidents in this book inspired other novels; such as, Nelson Gile, who drove a herd of 3,000 longhorns and a wagon train from Texas to Montana, while fighting thousands of hostile Indians. This episode became Larry McMurtry's famous novel, 'Lonesome Dove' .Finally, I thought the authors slightly favored the Lakota (whose favorite meal was boiled dog and buffalo tongue), but in retrospect, I guess the book was fair. The White man might of won the West, but he paid dearly for it in human life. This was a non-fiction history book, but Drury and Clavin put so much excitement in the chapters that I thought I was reading fiction. And that is exactly how I like to read history. This book is a must for the Wild West fans and history buffs. I highly recommend this enlightening narrative.

As hard as the Native Americans fought to retain their land against white settlers, they did not win many military victories against white settlers. Most of us have at least vaguely heard of Custer's Last Stand, but before that, a battle in Wyoming called Fetterman's Fight led to the deaths of 81 soldiers of the US Army and the (temporary) withdrawal of troops from Indian territory. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's The Heart of Everything That Is takes a deep dive the battle, from its roots in the inter-tribal warfare among the Plains Indians to the rise of Red Cloud as a leader among the Lakota to his (ultimately short-lived) martial triumph. It has significant biographical detail about Red Cloud, but it's not trying to be a comprehensive look at him in particular. Rather, it uses Fetterman's Fight as a microcosm of the greater struggle of the Plains and Western tribes against the changes to their lifestyles wrought by white Americans driving further and further west.Drury and Clavin strive to present a straightforward, unvarnished look at their subjects and push back against the idea that before protracted contact with whites, Native Americans lived as idyllic pacifists. Tribes had allies and enemies and some of them were very comfortable inflicting violence against the latter. Red Cloud was brought up among his mother's people, the Oglala Lakota, one of the more aggressive branches of the greater Lakota nation, and was groomed for leadership by his mother's uncle. As he grew up, his people were pushed farther and farther from their traditional territory and he fought against enemy tribes in his youth, gaining renown, before turning his attention to the threats posed by the continually promise-breaking whites.After a series of skirmishes, things came to a head at Fort Phil Kearney. It was a perfect storm: angry at yet another incursion into their land, the Lakota were able to ally with other tribes. The leadership at the fort was both arrogant and foolhardy. Red Cloud was a smarter tactician than his opponents. And the United States was forced to retreat, to abandon its forts. But it lasted less than a decade. The book covers the immediate aftermath of the battle, but only touches on the long run: Red Cloud, taking a trip to Washington, DC, realized the scale of the threat to his people and the ultimate hopelessness of continuing the fight, and led those that would follow him onto the reservation.Pretty much any book about Native American history is inevitably compared to Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee simply because of that book's prominence. And I'd say this book is an excellent companion. It doesn't have, and honestly doesn't try for, the scope of Bury of My Heart, which covers more tribes over a longer time period. Instead, it takes a little known episode (I'd never heard of the Fetterman Fight) and explains it, placing its people and events into a larger context. And the book succeeds at this task, developing not only Red Cloud and to a lesser extent, his young protege Crazy Horse, as compelling and sympathetic characters, but also presenting the life of the Army fort, populated not just with soldiers but with families. No one is a cardboard cutout villain.That being said, this book does occasionally get a little dry. I know some people are fascinated with military history and can happily read about tactics and battles for hours, but I am not one of those people. I find it deeply boring to read about attack techniques, and so I did experience waning interest when I think I was supposed to be the most engaged, during the climactic battle itself. I also found myself wanting more of the aftermath, more of Red Cloud's long life after this particular point. Overall, though, it's an interesting look at a part of history that's not well-understood by most potential readers, and I'd definitely recommend it as a way of broadening one's knowledge base about the formation of the United States as we know it today.

Fairly well written, but has a profound white American - oriented view of American Indian life and way of thinking. It mis-represents Red Cloud as some sort of all-powerful Chinnggis Khan figure. Indians had no 'chiefs' but leaders/elders who did not have traditional power over others; they followed leaders voluntarily. Red Cloud had no empire as implied and many Oglala Lakota followed Crazy Horse instead. Read 'The Journey of Crazy Horse' 2004 Joseph M. Marshall III, a Lakota author. This covers the same history and is refreshing to get an Indian POV.

I've read a lot on Native American history and have a deep empathy for there mistreatment and I believe genocide. The first book I read on the subject like most people was dee browns bury my heart at wounded knee which cut deep which my perception on the creation of modern cultures worldwide. Red cloud and his fight is featured in the book but the depth explored in this book is brutally honest. If you have a romantic view of the Wild West then this book will test that, red cloud comes across has an intelligent but fierce warrior and his guerrilla type group the ' bad faces' who stood in the way of the colonising machine. Acts committed on both sides are unimaginable, using never released material it portrays red cloud as a great military tactician but also cruel, read the chapter on the fetter man massacre and your romantic view will be tested , not in seeing them as savages (which they weren't) but as a people with a different outlook and perception, but to justify there scalping is impossible. Red cloud won the only war against the white man , but still with is intelligence and awareness saw victory was impossible so became the greatest Indian diplomat. If you want the truth, buy this, it's a story which as said has been untold until now .

I really enjoyed the book. Gave me a great insight into the make-up of the various Sioux bands and how they eventually came together under the great man's leadership. I did think the authors allowed a little " Hollywood " to creep into the telling, perhaps they had ambitions for a film. As a matter of fact, Red Clouds story should be a film or tv series. He was without doubt, a great leader and somewhat of a genuine orator.

Gift for my husband at Christmas. He’s enjoying reading it and says it’s interesting.

Native Americans should write books about Native Americans..They are the indigenous peoples of North America..