Battle of Beecher Island
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2021
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
September 1868, 3 years after the Civil War, saw an outnumbered United States Army patrol against six hundred Native warriors on the American Frontier. In this episode, we explore the heroism displayed by the soldiers on both sides of the fight. James is joined by author Terry Mort, as he explains in great detail the Battle of Beecher Island, otherwise known as the Battle of Arikaree Fork.
Terry Mort is the author of "Cheyenne Summer: The Battle of Beecher Island: A History", published by Pegasus Books.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone welcome back to the history hit warfare podcast I'm your host James Rogers and every week I bring you two |
| 0:06.2 | Brand new original episodes on military history. We love having our ever growing family as part of this podcast. So please keep on sending us in your emails on the email address which is warfare at history hit.com. Get in touch. Send us your ideas for episodes. Send us your military |
| 0:25.6 | histories. You can also follow us on Twitter at History Hit W.W.2 and on Instagram at James |
| 0:32.3 | Rogers History. Now this episode takes us back to |
| 0:35.8 | 1868 and evokes the spirit and danger of the early American West. It's the story of the Battle of Beecher Island, as told by author and historian |
| 0:47.4 | Terry Mort. It's a story of outnumbered U.S. Army patrolmen who were pitted against 600 Native warriors. |
| 0:56.0 | As Terry explains, the heroism displayed on both sides of the conflict |
| 1:01.0 | captures the vital themes at play on the American frontier. So here is |
| 1:06.2 | Terry on the Battle of Beecher Island. Hi Terry, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? |
| 1:25.0 | Thank you. I'm doing very well. Thanks for having you. |
| 1:28.0 | No, not a problem at all. How's your summer going? |
| 1:30.0 | Just fine, thank you. We're in the rainy season down here in Arizona and that is a good thing. |
| 1:36.3 | We need it. |
| 1:37.3 | The grass is greening up and everything is beautiful. |
| 1:40.8 | Looks like Ireland here. |
| 1:41.8 | Oh, very nice. A welcome respite from a hot summer. Yes indeed. We're here today to talk about a very specific part of American history about its more internal domestic wars as opposed to its foreign |
| 1:58.4 | interventions that we usually focus on. But I've got a query to start us off because like I say we're here specifically to talk about the |
| 2:05.6 | war on the American plains or perhaps it's called the American frontier wars but this is my |
| 2:10.9 | question what is the right way to label these American wars against Native Americans? |
| 2:17.0 | Because it's stretched over such a long period. |
| 2:20.0 | I suppose since the moment the English colonists in Jamestown in 1607 through to the 1920s. |
| 2:28.0 | So is there an overarching term that is useful that we should focus on or should we have more specific terms for the specific periods? |
... |
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