Atlas of The Sioux Wars

In June 1992, the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) conducted the first Sioux
Wars Staff Ride for Brigadier GeneralWilliam M. Steele, Deputy Commandant
of the US Army Command and General Staff College. In September 1992,
Dr.William Glenn Robertson, Dr. Jerold E. Brown, MajorWilliam M. Campsey,
and Major Scott R. McMeen published the first edition of the
. Their work represented a modest effort to rectify the omission of
the Indian Wars in the West Point atlas series by examining the Army’s
campaigns against the Sioux Indians, one of the greatest Indian tribes of the
American West. The atlas has since served as an educational reference for
hundreds of students of US Army campaigns against the Sioux during the
conduct of dozens of Sioux Wars staff rides.
In 1992, CSI and the authors believed that soldiers serving in the post-Cold
War Army could easily identify with the situation faced by soldiers of the post-
Civil War Army. In both cases, the most serious threat to the nation’s
security had suddenly vanished, and the Army’s very purpose was energetically
debated. Meanwhile, many in political life and in the US Congress saw the
change as an opportunity to reduce funding and other resources for a standing
army—a longstanding trend in American political life. The Army’s senior
leaders, therefore, coped with the twin problems of mission definition and
Draconian resource constraints. The Army’s junior leaders of that era struggled
to prescribe and execute proper training. Yet, conflict generated by civilian
encroachment on Indian lands as part of America’s rapid Westward expansion
increasingly dragged the Army into conflict with the Indian tribes.