"Popularized by Mari Sandoz's Cheyenne Autumn, the Northern Cheyennes' 1878 escape from their Indian Territory Reservation to their native homeland beyond the Platte River has recently been the subject of renewed academic interest. But unlike other books written about the exodus of the Northern Cheyennes, author Stan Hoig's Perilous Pursuit provides a full account of not only the determined flight of the Northern Cheyennes but also of the beleaguered U.S. cavalry ordered to pursue them.

In a well-paced dramatic narrative, Hoig tells the story of a betrayed people, an incompetent military leadership, a penurious Congress, a hard-pressed Indian Bureau, the suffering troops saddled with the task of stopping a foe far more prepared to fight than they, and an American nation almost totally insensitive to the welfare of its native people."--BOOK JACKET.