Robert M. Utley is recognized as one of the leading historians of the American West. He is the author of the much-acclaimed Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1989, and of the award-winning books Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (1988) and High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier (1987), as well as the authoritative Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (also a Bison Book).
"One of [the book's] several impressive features is the author's talent for drawing from the indispensable detail of campaigns those significant trends in frontier military policy. Certainly Utley has applied creative management to a great mass of military minutiae and given it a meaningful, readable format."-Arrell M. Gibson, American Historical Review -- Arrell M. Gibson * American Historical Review * "Along with his analysis of the general situation, Utley writes an excellent description of the frontier soldier and the army. . . . His style is unobtrusive, entertaining, and objective to an extent rarely encountered today. It is refreshing to find a history of the frontier, the army, and particularly the Indian without the present-day mawkish sentimentalism."-Journal of American History * Journal of American History *