Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion that Opened the West

Writing with dual purposes in mind, historian Hogeland (Founding Finance) grippingly relates the battles over the Ohio Valley between the fledgling U.S. and a coalition of the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware nations. Hogeland’s principal aim is to relate the circumstances under which the fledging U.S. created a national army after the American Revolution in the face of deep apprehension about a standing military force. Well-known Revolutionary characters (Washington and Hamilton, for instance) fill Hogeland’s pages; so too do colorful, little-known, and impressively skilled British military figures and Native Americans. Hogeland’s second aim is to rescue an American general, “Mad Anthony” Wayne, and his Native American adversaries from undeserved obscurity. In this he succeeds fully, though Wayne, Blue Jacket, and Little Turtle are unlikely to become household names. The story’s outcome, ending in a treaty after the Army’s victory in the critical 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio, secured the Old Northwest for American settlers and accelerated the epochal, tragic eviction of native tribes from their original lands across the continent. Stuffed with detail, Hogeland’s solid and distinctive book fills a significant gap in the narrative history of the United States. Maps. (May)