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77 books match the query 'Wars' and 2 start with i

cover of Illinois in the War of 1812

Illinois in the War of 1812

Gillum Ferguson

University of Illinois Press, 2012

 Russell P. Strange "Book of the Year" Award from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2012.

On the eve of the War of 1812, the Illinois Territory was a new land of bright promise. Split off from Indiana Territory in 1809, the new territory ran from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers north to the U.S. border with Canada, embracing the current states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and a part of Michigan. The extreme southern part of the region was rich in timber, but the dominant feature of the landscape was the vast tall grass prairie that stretched without major interruption from Lake Michigan for more than three hundred miles to the south. The territory was largely inhabited by Indians: Sauk, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and others. By 1812, however, pioneer farmers had gathered in the wooded fringes around prime agricultural land, looking out over the prairies with longing and trepidation.
 
Six years later, a populous Illinois was confident enough to seek and receive admission as a state in the Union. What had intervened was the War of 1812, in which white settlers faced both Indians resistant to their encroachments and British forces poised to seize control of the upper Mississippi and Great Lakes. The war ultimately broke the power and morale of the Indian tribes and deprived them of the support of their ally, Great Britain. Sometimes led by skillful tacticians, at other times by blundering looters who got lost in the tall grass, the combatants showed each other little mercy. Until and even after the war was concluded by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, there were massacres by both sides, laying the groundwork for later betrayal of friendly and hostile tribes alike and for ultimate expulsion of the Indians from the new state of Illinois.
 
In this engrossing new history, published upon the war's bicentennial, Gillum Ferguson underlines the crucial importance of the War of 1812 in the development of Illinois as a state. The history of Illinois in the War of 1812 has never before been told with so much attention to the personalities who fought it, the events that defined it, and its lasting consequences.
 
Endorsed by the Illinois Society of the War of 1812 and the Illinois War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission.
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cover of Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West

Indian Wars

The Campaign for the American West

Bill Yenne

Westholme Publishing, 2006

A Chronicle of the Longest Military Action in American History

"Splendid. . . .a book that has the rare quality of being both an excellent reference work and a pleasure to read."—Wall Street Journal

"As complete and balanced an overview of nearly a century of fighting between the U.S. Army and dozens of Indian nations as there is." —Martin Naparsteck, Salt Lake Tribune

"Excellent. . . . Indian Wars is an outstanding introduction to the 'longest campaign ever waged by any of the United States armed forces.' It also has the virtue of speaking eloquently to the past while offering valuable guidance for the future."—Military.com

The Indian wars remain the most misunderstood campaign ever waged by the U. S. Army. From the first sustained skirmishes west of the Mississippi River in the 1850s to the sweeping clashes of hundreds of soldiers and warriors along the upper plains decades later, these wars consumed most of the active duty resources of the army for the greater part of the nineteenth century and resulted in the disruption of nearly all of the native cultures in the West. Yet the popular understanding of the Indian wars is marred by stereotypes and misinformation as well as a tendency to view these individual wars—the battles against the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Nez Perce, the Apache, and other groups—as distinct incidents rather than parts of a single overarching campaign. Dispelling notions that American Indians were simply attempting to stop encroachment on their homelands or that they shared common views on how to approach the Europeans, Bill Yenne explains in Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West, that these wars, fought for more than five decades across a landscape the size of continental Europe, were part of a general long-term strategy by the U. S. Army to control the West as well as extensions of conflicts among native peoples that predated European contact.

Complete with a general history of Indian and European relations from the earliest encounters to the opening of the west, and featuring legendary figures from both sides, including Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, George Custer, Kit Carson, and George Crook, Indian Wars allows the reader to better understand the sequence of events that transformed the West and helped define the American temperament.
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