"Evoking the spirit and danger of the early American West, this is the story of the Battle of Beecher Island, pitting an outnumbered United States Army patrol against six hundred Native warriors, where heroism on both sides of the conflict captures the vital themes at play on the American frontier"-- Provided by publisher.

In September 1868, the undermanned United States Army was struggling to address attacks by Cheyenne and Sioux warriors against the Kansas settlements, and stagecoach routes, and the transcontinental railroad.  General Sheridan fired fifty frontiersman and scouts to supplement the limited forces at his disposal.  He placed them under the command of Major George Forsyth and Lieutenant Frederick Beecher.  Their orders were to find the Cheyenne raiders and attack them.  The scouts left Fort Wallace, the westernmost post in Kansas, and headed northwest into Colorado.  After a week of fruitless searching and with their supplies almost exhausted, they camped along the narrow Arikaree Fork of the Republican River.  In the early morning they were attacked by a force of Cheyenne and Sioux warriors.  The scouts retreated to a small, sandy island in the shallow river and dug in.  Eventually, they were surrounded by as many as six hundred warriors, led by the famous Cheyenne, Roman Nose.  While the results of the ensuing battle were not strategically significant to either side in the greater Indian Wars, the fight was culturally and historically important to both the Cheyenne and the United States Army - as well as to the civilian society.  On the tiny battlefield of Beecher Island, the combatants represented the enormous historical and economical forces that were driving the settlement of the west. -- adapted from dust jacket