"No. 7"—as Carpenter, the youngest of seven children, called himself—was born in Missouri in 1854 and moved west with his family, first to Kansas, then to the settlements near Pikes Peak, and finally, in 1872, to Texas with his elder brother. From the time he made his first cattle drive, he wanted no other life but that of herding longhorns across the free and flat grasslands of the West. His schooling was the trail, the campfire, the saddle. In 1900, after a full and active life, he retired ...

He was the greatest Indian warrior of the nineteenth century. His victory over General Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was the worst defeat inflicted on the frontier Army. And the death of Crazy Horse in federal custody has remained a controversy for more than a century.The Killing of Crazy Horse pieces together the many sources of fear and misunderstanding that resulted in an official killing hard to distinguish from a crime. A rich cast of characters, whit...

On 14 May 1804, one Captain Meriwether Lewis and his companion William Clark led a thirty-three-man expedition to the new lands of Louisiana. 8,000 miles and two years later, after rafting up the Missouri and crossing the Rocky Mountains, they reached the far side of the world, the Pacific Ocean.Fredrick Nolan explores the first US settlers of the American West, including the remarkable stories of unsung heroes and heroines, the bloody battles between settlers and the native Americ...

Little Bighorn is the beautifully written, uniquely American story of the coming-of-age of eighteen-year-old Allen Winslow during the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the fraught weeks immediately preceding it. The novel abounds with memorable characters, including Allen himself, his beautiful sixteen-year-old traveling companion, Addie, and the brave but monomaniacal Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Hough brings to life the American West and heartbreaking history, brilliantly portra...

Born into every generation are a few restless souls who long for adventure. In the early 1800s this wild breed became mountain men who headed up the Missouri, crossed the Rock-ies and continued west, hunting, trapping and exploring as they went.One mountainman,reflecting the general attitude of the day, wrote, 'We found the richest place for beaver we had yet come across, and it took us forty days to clean that section.' Valley by valley, stream by stream, the mountain men eliminat...

The latest addition to TouchWood Editions’ Classics West Collection, Klondike Cattle Drive is the colourful tale of a formidable trek undertaken by legendary Cariboo rancher Norman Lee.In 1898, Lee set out to drive 200 head of cattle from his home in the Chilcotin area of B.C. to the Klondike goldfields—a distance of 1,500 miles. He was gambling both his cattle and his life. This is his story, derived from the journal he kept, his letters and the loyal men who accompanied ...

Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926),also known as Charlie Russell, and "Kid" Russell, was an artist of the Old American West. Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western United States and in Alberta, Canada, in addition to bronze sculptures. Known as 'the cowboy artist',Russell was also a storyteller and author.Hugh Glass (1780–1833) was an American fur trapper and frontiersman who was mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by...

In this prize-winning portrait of a time and place—Montana in the 1930s—that at once inspires and fulfills a longing for an explicable past, Ivan Doig has created one of the most captivating families in American fiction, the McCaskills.The witty and haunting narration, a masterpiece of vernacular in the tradition of Twain, follows the events of the Two Medicine country's summer: the tide of sheep moving into the high country, the capering Fourth of July rodeo and c...

The movie Jeremiah Johnson introduced millions to the legendary mountain man, John Johnson. The real Johnson was a far cry from the Redford version. Standing 6'2" in his stocking feet and weighing nearly 250 pounds, he was a mountain man among mountain men, one of the toughest customers on the western frontier. As the story goes, one morning in 1847 Johnson returned to his Rocky Mountain trapper's cabin to find the remains of his murdered Indian wife and her unborn child. He vowed vengeanc...

The diaries and letters of women who braved the overland trails during the great nineteenth-century westward migration are treasured documents in the study of the American West. These eight firsthand accounts are among the best ever written. They were selected for the power with which they portray the hardship, adventure, and boundless love for friends and family that characterized the overland experience. Some were written with the skilled pens of educated women. Others bear the marks of ...

This is a story about how it might have been in 1877 when Charles Maybee moved his family from Kansas to Oregon. It is based a note passed down through the family from his oldest son. Supporting characters, events and personal interactions are fictional. But tracing the route that Charles took, and knowing the hazards he faced in those days before automobiles existed, is like being there with him.Charles is tired of scraping out a living in Kansas and believes a homestead in Oregon...

Through bravery, courage and strength of character these men and women stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries.They are our true Western American Heroes.