Terry C. Johnston - Cry of the Hawk

Hook Family

Jonah Hook
Gritta (Moser) Hook
Hattie Hook
Jeremiah Hook
Ezekiel Hook

Hooks Mentor

Shadrach Sweete Toote Sweete/Shell Woman
Pipe Womandaughter
High-Backed Bullson

Danite Freebooters

Colonel Jubilee Usher
Major Lemuel Boothog Wiser
Captain Eloy Hastings
Riley Fordham
Laughing Jack
Healy Stamps
Sam Palmer

Major Military Characters

General William Tecumseh ShermanCommander, Military Division of the Missouri

Lieutenant-General Philip H. SheridanCommander, Military Dept. of the Platte

Lieutenant Caspar Collins

General Patrick E. ConnorCommander, Military Dept. of the Plains

Captain Henry LeefeldtCo. K (Camp Marshall)

Captain A. Smith Lybe

Sergeant Amos Custard11th Kansas Cavalry

First Sergeant William R. MoodyCo. I

Major Martin AndersonPlatte Bridge Station, post commander

Captain Henry Bretney11th Ohio Cavalry

Lieutenant George WalkerPlatte Station Adjutant

Corporal James Shrader11th Kansas Cavalry

Captain Henry E. PalmerPowder River Exped. Quartermaster

Colonel Henry E. MaynadierCommander, Fort Laramie

Dr. Henry R. Portersurgeon, 7th U. S. Cavalry, Ft. Hays

Captain Frederick W. Benteen7th U. S. Cavalry

Major Wycliffe Cooper7th U. S. Cavalry

Captain George W. Yates7th U. S. Cavalry

Lieutenant Myles W. Moylan7th U. S. Cavalry

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer7th U. S. Cavalry

Lieutenant Thomas Ward Custer7th U. S. Cavalry

Major Joel H. Elliott7th U. S. Cavalry

Captain Louis M. Hamilton7th U. S. Cavalry

Lieutenant Lyman S. Kidder2nd U. S. Cavalry

Lieutenant Edward Godfrey7th U. S. Cavalry

Pawnee Battalion

Major Indian Characters

Major Scouts

Jim Bridger

Captain E. W. NashOmaha and Winnebago scouts (Powder River)

California Joe (Moses) MilnerHancock Expedition

Jack CorbinHancock Expedition

James Butler HickokHancock Expedition

Will ComstockPlatte River Expedition

Major Civilian Characters

Nathan (Nate) Deideckernewsman, Omaha Bee

Artus Moser

Samuel Hosking

Eldon Boatwright

Major Edward W. Wynkoopgovernment agent to the Cheyenne

Colonel Jesse W. Leavenworthgovernment agent to the Sioux

Sidney Gouldmercantile sutler, Fort Larned

It is not easy to visualize the enormous spread of frontier where these 6,000 [galvanized Yankees] marched and fought and endured the tedium of garrison duties. From Fort Kearney to Julesburg. From Julesburg to Laramie and along the Sweetwater through South Pass to Utah. From Julesburg up the South Platte to Denver, by Cache la Poudre to the Laramie Plains and Fort Bridger . They made themselves a part of all the raw and racy names on that wild land of buffalo and IndiansCottonwood Springs and Three Crossings, Lodgepole and Alkali Station, Medicine Creek and Sleeping Water, Fort Zarah and White Earth River, St. Marys, Fort Wicked, Laughing Wood, Soldier Creek, Rabbit Ear Mound, Dead Mans Ranche, and Lightnings Nest.

Dee Brown
The Galvanized Yankees

Led by desperate men the guerillas, most of them only boys, fought a total war. West of the Mississippi they plunged a fairly stable society into intense partisan conflict that was felt by every man, woman and child. This was not a war of great armies and captains, this was bloody local insurrection, a war between friends and neighborsa civil war in the precise definition of that term. Here organized bands of men killed each other and the civil population hundreds of miles behind the recognized battlefronts. Here there was ambush, arson, execution and murder; warfare without rules, law or quarter.

Richard S. Brownlee
Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy

Late Summer, 1908

T HERE AINT TIME for you to make it back to town before dark, the old frontiersman said. I best make you comfortable here.

Nate Deidecker marveled at the old mans vitality. Something on the order of seventy-one years old now, and still the former plains scout stood as straight as a fresh-split fence rail. Only the careful, considered pace he gave to all things betrayed his true age.