I took a while to read this book. While it was a little slow for me to get into this was also compounded by having visitors and affecting my reading time.

The book is set in 1864 and those of us who know our history may wonder this is an unusual year for such a military campaign - in 1864 the US Civil War raged on but this didn't stop the Union devoting considerable military resources to the "west". The story takes place in Nebraska and Colorado and around the Platte. The author was an adjutant which might be why the content seems so detailed even about the daily goings-on. Also, he was a man of his age, his feelings about the "savages" are hardly PC. He freely relishes the idea of killing them and other white ne'er do wells! The more I got into the book the more interesting it got and I feel I did learn a lot about the times and place and the hardships and hard to accept deviations the soldiers endured. The weather, flies, the almost unimaginable cold and the miles they rode in the weather are mind-boggling. In one patrol it was something like 360 miles in 11 days in temps of -20F!

Not for all but I found it consuming. ( )

Ware called himself a rhymer, not a poet, and he was on the whole right. But he was a very clever rhymer, and sometimes he outdid himself. Ir was said of Coleridge that all the poems he wrote that were worth reading could be printed on five pages; but those five pages would have to be bound in gold. Something of the same is true of Ware. ( )