Osprey:
US Cavalry on the Plains
1850-1890

book

By Paul Koch

Osprey "Men-at-Arms 168" $7.95. It is always difficult to review a product that is already established and has a reputation for excellence in the hobby. The Osprey "Men-at-Arms" series of books is a case in point. Wives and girlfriends know it to be the one safe gift for the military hobbyist, be he collector, uniformologist, diorainist, gamer or whatever. These wonderful little books have been combat manuals and painting guides to us all at one time or another over the years.

There is a new and timely addition to this series in the form of the U.S. Cavalry on the Plains. The text by Phillip Kratcher gives an excellent shorthand history of the running Forty Year Fight with the great tribes of the American prairies. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Comanche wars are all briefly but excellently discussed and in a fairly evenhanded manner of what has become a most controversial period. My only real complaint is that "Old Yellow Hair" is once more given a really bad time. He was the youngest Major General in American history, you know. The plates also are uniformly excellent and diverse, albeit no mention is given to racial identity of the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry.

All in all, however, the best just keeps getting better, with improved coverage of American subjects. Now if they will just do one on the Sikh Wars.

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© Copyright 1983 by The Courier Publishing Company.

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