OLD DUFFER'S BOOK CORNER:

Scalp Dance

Thomas Goodrich for Stackpole

"Indian Warfare on The High Plains 1865-1879" is the subtitle and the result is an excellent account from eye-witnesses of just what fighting the noble savage meant. Mr Goodrich is a Kansan and for the natives of that state the only good Indian is a dead one, after a hundred pages of mutilation, torture and rape you too will have learnt to weep for those other than the indios bravos. America then as now had an incredible ability to wound itself. Failing to provide the sort of numbers (or kinds of troops) that allowed the Indian Army to fight on the North-West Frontier, or the French Armee d'Afrique to get on with slaughtering Africans the Yanks then added the high-pitched whine of the Morally Outraged Easterner. One can argue the toss about who started the brutality between the males of the two "tribes", but the splendid testimony of the brave women who endured the sight of the slaughter of the male relatives, beatings, repeated rapes and often the casual slaughter of their children is very moving. I imagine it was all their own faults though.... white bitches!

However, moral contempt aside the analysis and chronology of the campaigns is much poorer. The US Cavalry are being whupped on one page and on the next it turns out that the Indians have chucked in the towel. Too much attention to what is going on on one side of the hill (in this case the bluebellies) means that the effect of having to avoid the ponderous Cavalry columns is not being fully stated. In fairness, battles is what we wants, and battles is what we gets, rather as in Douglas Porch's splendid Conquest of the Sahara where after many an exciting tussle you realise the natives are beaten because for all they dodge the Frenchies, the Frenchies are drinking the water-table alive!

Victory is as ever a matter of logistics. I thought S.L.A.Marshalls's Crimsoned Prairie better on that topic, and it takes a less fulsome view of frontiersmen. (This remains a very partisan topic). Mr Goodrich and Sir Harry Flashman are of like mind on the topic of the Native Americans. A worthy topic for a Joe Miranda Sun Never Sets game.

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