Killing Crazy Horse by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

 

Killing Crazy Horse by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

 

The Indian Wars are almost forgotten by Americans, covered mostly by a blanket of fiction of how the west was won, and a few bits and pieces known only by their labels, such as The Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee.  Sure, we know some Indian names:  Crazy Horse, Cochise, and Geronimo, and a few Indian tribes: Apache, Comanche, Sioux.  We either forget, or never knew there were thousands of Indian tribes and thousands of years of those tribes controlling what we now call the United States of America.

 

O’Reilly and Dugard tell the exciting, bloody, and historic story of how the west was really won. And, it’s not a pretty story.  In a quest for land, and gold, gradually and persistently, the tribes were literally wiped out.  Yes, there are still Native American tribes, but now they are only faint shadows of what they were and how they ruled from sea to shining sea. While European Americans fought for land and gold, Native Americans fought for their very existence and their way of life.

 

Nevertheless, O’Reilly and Dugard’s book, in my opinion, is evenhanded. The most brutal massacres were perpetrated by both sides; acts so heinous as to be very difficult to read and even harder to comprehend.

 

Promises, compromises, treaties became mere words floating in the winds of war.  Meanwhile, the American Civil War cleaved the nation in two, and after the War Between the States settled its bloody dispute, the Indian wars took on a new vengeance. 

 

Killing Crazy Horse leads the reader not only through the Indian Wars, but through the making of America, the politics, the self-sacrifice of the Civil War, and the raging battle, not just for the west, but for all of what is now the United States.  The book is so clearly written and its bloody tale so exciting that even the slowest reader will be mesmerized and shocked and will come away with a new and more balanced view of America.  This book is history as it should be told, clearly, evenhandedly, without apology or bias.

 

There’s a deeper lesson here. We assume that the United States will always be as it is today. More likely, it will go the way of the Native American tribes, whose vast regions and civilizations now live only in memory, and the United States will be, like them, be relegated to the history books.

 

 

Never Mind the Facts, a new book by Derek Robinson

This is a review of a new book by Derek Robinson, one of my favorite authors.  The book’s title is Never Mind the Facts, and it’s a mind opener that explores common historical personages and events that go unchallenged.  But, before I dig into this enigmatic book that will spin your mind, I need to say a bit about this fabulous writer and his earlier works.

I have read all of Derek Robinson’s novels, the most famous of which are aviation thrillers that span both world wars.  His novels are appealing page-turners and it’s no secret why.  His stories, as he likes to say, are good cracking yarns, with indelible characters and stimulating plots.  Page-turner is not the right description.  In his novels, you don’t even know you’re turning pages.

I misspoke.  I’ve read all of his novel at least twice, and a few I’ve read more than that.  His protagonists float through my brain almost daily.

I was once an aviator in American Air Force fighter squadrons, so I view novels that incorporate the lives of fighter pilots with skepticism.  So often they just don’t ring true.  The dialogue is stilted or the terminology misdirected or the attitudes contrived.

None of that is true about Derek Robinson’s flying novels. Fighter pilots and fighter crews are dedicated participants in one of the world’s most dangerous professions, and their personalities laced with humor that pummels danger and allows them to focus on flying and fighting.  His descriptions are deadly accurate. He puts you in the cockpit, revs up your engine and takes you into the fickle storm of war.

But there’s more to Robinson’s talents and points of view than thrilling tales.  He’s also a careful and creative thinker, with an imagination and eye for detail that Earnest Hemingway called a built in bullshit detector.  His prior forays into history include Why 1914 and Invasion 1940, both of which investigate historical facts versus patently accepted myths.

The subtitle of Never Mind the Facts is Ten major myths and why they survive.  Prepare yourself to reopen your memories of high school history books and be astonished.  Take a fresh look at some very old and fairly recent pages of British history, the Armada and Dunkirk.  “Gosh,” you’re thinking, “I know all that.”  Do you?  Really?  Let Derek show you, as Paul Harvey used to call it, The Rest of the Story.  Or, how about Laurence of Arabia, or further back in the annals of time, the Nativity.

“But,” you say, “I’m no fan of history, and don’t try to tell me anything about religion.  I know what I believe.”

Never Mind the Facts is not an attempt to treat you to yet another conspiracy theory, or hit religion with a wrecking ball; it’s about tossing aside your preconceptions and examining what you think you know.  How about the abolitionist, John Brown?  You probably know about the famous raid on Harper’s Ferry, but do you know John Brown, the man?

I’ve only just scratched the cover of this short, but fabulously interesting book.  Never Mind the Facts is about opening your mind and once again, Derek Robinson opens it wide.

This book was self-published by the author and is available on his web site:  http://www.derekrobinson.info

Besides Never Mind the Facts, a new book is on the horizon:  Odds and Sods.

My three faithful readers may have noticed I’ve written about Derek Robinson’s novel many times.  Here are some links to my blog entries.  These books are available on Amazon:

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-good-clean-fight-by-derek-robinson.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/03/another-gem-from-derek-robinson-piece.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/01/goshawk-squadron-novel-of-breakneck.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-splendid-little-war.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-eldorado-series-derek-robinson.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2017/05/holy-moke-by-derek-robinson.html

Why read Killing Lincoln, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard?  We already know the story, right?   No, we don’t.    Mostly what we know came from a short paragraph in a middle school history book that summed up the entire American Civil War in one page.  We memorized enough clichés to answer three multiple questions on the test, and moved on to the next chapter.

If you want to know American history, you’ve got to dig deeper.  Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard have done that for you. And, my prejudice is that every American should be able to recount America’s major events, with depth and understanding.

Killing Lincoln is history, couched in a thriller that brings the story to life.  The characters involved in this drama were flesh and blood, with families, fears, hopes, dreams, and often dreadful shortcomings.

This is not the history you remember, but a well-told tale that has the pages flapping and new questions running as fast as deer through a dark forest.

Picture the bloodiest war in American history coming to an end on Virginia’s bloody battlefields.  Lee’s army is finally defeated, the south subjugated, the slaves freed. 

Yet, Lincoln still cannot rest.  There’s a nation to rebuild.  His cold-blooded murder by a southern sympathizer will lead the United States in a different direction than the one Mr. Lincoln imaged.  The starting point will be marked in blood in Ford’s Theater, within walking distance of the White House. What followed left a deeper wound that even impacts today’s America.

What was America like on the day of the fatal shot?  Lincoln’s America is one you and I would not recognize.  The District of Columbia is a sprawl of dirt streets, galloping horses, and saloons on every corner.  Want to talk to President Lincoln?  Stroll into the White House and wait your turn, or spend the night in a hallway and catch him in the morning.  If you want to hear him speak, just gather with the multitudes on the White House lawn.  Get as close as the crowds will allow.  Security?  Well, sure, but let’s not let it interfere with strolling to the closest bar and tipping a cool one.

The war is over.  Why not celebrate with a little gunfire and a lot of whiskey.  And what about John Wilkes Booth?  What was he like and how did he think he could possibly get away with killing a victorious President?  What did he hope to accomplish?

Just in case you have strong Liberal leanings, and flinch at the mention of Bill O’Reilly’s name, have no fear.  Killing Lincoln, written in the style of a novelist telling a story, is straight with the facts, including an array of colorful asides that bring the characters to you in brilliant, living color.

This is no ideologue’s slanted, slash and burn, feeble attempt at a rewrite.  It’s a dynamic retelling of events leading to the first American President being assassinated, couched in his life and times, and adorned with the hopes and dreams that all ended with the crack of a pistol shot.

Part thriller and all history, just pour yourself a glass of your favorite, pick up Killing Lincoln, and you’ll be drawn into an America you never knew, and an event that changed the shape of America forever.