No Survivors by Will Henry
The historical details of the battle of the Rosebud, Custer's last stand, Reno and Benteen's fight are excellent. - Library Journal. Henry has done some meticulous research. Incidents are accurately and ...excitingly recorded. - New York Times. Originally published in 1950, No Survivors was the first of Will Henry's many novels based on historic incident. In it he shows what General Custer's lonely stand and final moments at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn might have been like, militarily and emotionally. Though the history books say that only the horse Comanche escaped alive, Will Henry creates one other survivor, Colonel John Clayton - and he was doomed, too. The fictional Civil War officer who once saved Custer's life, Clayton leaves a journal describing his later career on the western frontier. As a civilian scout for the U.S. Army, he tries to head off the Fetterman Massacre. He is captured by Crazy Horse and taken into the Oglala Sioux tribe. For nine years he lives as an Indian - the adopted son of Crazy Horse, an intimate of Sitting Bull, and the husband of a medicine woman. He rides with the Indians against the white invaders, but by 1876 he has to make a choice about who he really is. Will Henry was one of the bylines used by Henry Wilson Allen; the other was Clay Fisher. He was a five-time winner of the Golden Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and a recipient of the Levi Strauss Award for lifetime achievement. His Will Henry novels are known for their basis in historical fact and their use of realistic American Indian characters.