Scarce compilation of 44 maps illustrating important battles and theaters of operation during the American Revolution.
The book provides a systematic study of the major battles of the American Revolution, beginning with Bunker Hill, outlining the commanding officers, troop strength, casualties, and a brief summary of the battle, accompanied by a finely executed map of his own making.
Henry Beebee Carrington was a lawyer, professor, prolific author, and an officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and in the Old West during Red Cloud's War.
A noted engineer, Carrington constructed a series of forts to protect the Bozeman Trail, but suffered a major defeat at the hands of the war chief Red Cloud.
Following the Civil War, the 18th Infantry was stationed in the West. Carrington was then assigned as commander of the Mountain District, Department of the Missouri, in 1866 and moved his regimental headquarters to Colorado. Assigned to protect the Bozeman Trail, he built and personally manned the remote Fort Phil Kearny during Red Cloud's War. Carrington soon lost the respect of his officers due to his lack of aggressiveness in several Indian skirmishes. In December 1866, a force of up to fifteen hundred Indians attacked a wood-cutting detail, then overwhelmed a reaction force of eighty troops under Captain William J. Fetterman. Fetterman, one of Carrington's antagonists, disobeyed his order not to pursue the Indians too far from the fort. Fetterman's force was lured into an ambush and annihilated with no survivors.
Fetterman's popularity, coupled with existing distrust of the colonel's leadership, led to rumors that his men had been ordered into the tragedy. General Ulysses S. Grant moved to court-martial Carrington but, at the suggestion of General William T. Sherman, submitted the matter to a court of inquiry, which subsequently exonerated Carrington, as did a separate investigation by the Department of the Interior. Nevertheless, Carrington had been relieved of command immediately after the disaster, so that his military career was effectively ruined.