All Because of a Mormon Cow: Historical Accounts of the Grattan Massacre, 1854-1855

On August 19, 1854, U.S. Army lieutenant John L. Grattan led a detachment of twenty-nine soldiers and one civilian interpreter to a large Lakota encampment near Fort Laramie to arrest an Indian man accused of killing a Mormon emigrant's cow. The terrible series of events that followed, which became known as the Grattan Massacre, unleashed the opening volley in the First Sioux War--and marked the beginning of a generation of Indian warfare on the Great Plains. All Because of a Mormon Cow tells, for the first time, the full story of this seminal event in the history of the American West.

Where previous accounts of the Grattan Massacre have made do with limited primary sources, this volume includes eighty contemporary, annotated accounts of the fight and its aftermath, many newly discovered or recovered from obscurity. Recorded when the events were fresh in their narrators' memories, these documents bring a sense of immediacy to a story more than a century and a half old. Alongside the voices heard here--of the Indian leaders Little Thunder and Big Partisan, of Mormons from passing emigrant trains, and of government officials charged with investigating the massacre, among many others--the editors include a substantial and thorough introduction that underscores the significance of the Grattan Massacre in all its depth and detail.

All Because of a Mormon Cow offers a better understanding even as it evokes the drama of a highly controversial episode in the history of relations between Indians and non-Indians in the American West.


Author: John D. McDermott
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 11/22/2018
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.53h x 7.86w x 0.87d
ISBN: 9780806161532

About the Author
McDermott, John D.: -

John D. McDermott (1935-2016) was a historian and administrator with the National Park Service and the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. His numerous published books and articles on the American West include Red Cloud's War: The Bozeman Trail, 1866-1868.

Paul, R. Eli: - R. Eli Paul heads the Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of Blue Water Creek and the First Sioux War, 1854-1856, coauthor of Eyewitness at Wounded Knee, and editor of the Autobiography of Red Cloud: War Leader of the Oglalas.Lowry, Sandra J.: - Sandra J. Lowry (1943-2016) was a librarian for more than thirty years in the Research Library at the Fort Laramie National Historic Site.