It was 1876, The Black Hills, which overlap the boundary between South Dakota and Wyoming, had become the last important battleground of a tragic war against the Indians. The Indians were to be trapped in a three-pronged attack by General Crook, General Terry, and Colonel Custer, but the rugged country - where the temperature could often dip thirty to forty degrees in just a few hours - thwarted almost every foray.

By the time the campaign had ended, the army had suffered several major reversals: Custer and his troops were massacred at the Little Bighorn and General George Crook met with near-disaster at the Rosebud; the brilliant Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was dead; Sitting Bull and his band had been driven to Canada; and the military power of the Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes was broken.

The government achieved its aims, but the casualties both sides had suffered made these wars the most unnecessary ever fought between the federal government and the Indians. Much of the dramatic narrative is based on first-hand accounts of the participants, diaries and letters of American soldiers, and the oral histories of many of the Indians who fought them.