Al Sieber Chief of Scouts - by Dan L Thrapp (Paperback)

About the Book

General Crook relied on Al Sieber to lead Apache scouts against renegade Apaches, who were adept at hiding and raiding from within their native terrain. In this carefully researched biography, Dan L. Thrapp gives extensive evidence for Sieber's expertise, nothing that the expeditions he accompanied were highly successful whereas those from which he was absent met with few triumphs.

Book Synopsis

General George Crook planned and organized the principal Apache campaign in Arizona, and General Nelson Miles took credit for its successful conclusion in the 1880s, but the men who won it were rugged frontiersmen such as Al Sieber, the renowned Chief of Scouts. Crook relied on Sieber to lead Apache scouts against renegade Apaches, who were adept at hiding and raiding from within their native terrain. In this carefully researched biography, Dan L. Thrapp gives estensive evidence for Sieber's expertise, noting that the expeditions he accompanied were highly successful whereas those from which he was absent met with few triumphs. Perhaps the greatest tribute to his abilities was paid by a San Carlos Apache who, although strongly contemplating it, decided against bolting the reservation, no matter how miserable life might become, because, he said, Sieber would find him even if he left no tracks. "[An] exhaustively researched and well-told biography of Sieber. . . . This is a notable book, recommended for the serious student as well as the casual reader."-Robert M. Utley, New Mexico Historical Review "[The book] represents an excellent close-up picture of the action taken in the post-Civil War decades to rid Arizona of hostile Indians."-Francis Paul Prucha, Colorado Magazine Dan L. Thrapp, author of six books on the Apache wars, was a leading authority on the subject. Two of his most highly praised works are the present volume and The Conquest of Apachera [University of Oklahoma Press]. His final work was the monumental Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography. Donald E. Worcester is the author of The Apaches: Eagles of the Southwest published by the University of Oklahoma Press. On the cover: A Crooked Trail-Arizona, 1885 by Frank C. McCarthy, (c)1978. Frank C. McCarthy. Courtesy of the Greenwich Workshop Inc., One Greenwich Place, Shelton, CT 06484-4675.

Review Quotes

"[An] exhaustively researched and well-told biography of Sieber....This is a notable book, recommended for the serious student as well as the casual reader."--Robert M. Utley, New Mexico Historical Review


"[The book] presents an excellent close-up picture of the action taken in the post-Civil War decades to rid Arizona of hostile Indians."--Francis Paul Prucha, Colorado Magazine