The first major battle between the US army and the Cheyenne Indians took place on the south fork of the Solomon River in present-day northwest Kansas. In this stirring account, William Y.Chalfant recreates the human dimensions of what was probably the only large-unit sabre charge against the Plains tribes, in a battle that was as much a clash of cultures as of cavalry and Cheyenne warriors. In May 1857 the US first cavalry, under Col. E.V.Sumner, had marched out of Fort Leavenworth to find and severely punish the Cheyennes for their attacks on immigrants and other travelers during the previous year - attacks precipitated largely by the army's earlier assaults on the Cheyennes. Two columns of soldiers moved westward, penetrating the territory of the southern bands of Cheyennes between the Santa Fe and Oregon - California trails, where few whites had been before. When the cavalry columns were reunited, early in July, the combined forces left their supply train behind and marched southeast across the plains. They were braving the extreme heat of summer with limited rations and little water when they finally met their quarry on the south fork of the Solomon. Resplendent in war finery, the Cheyennes had formed a grand line of battle such as was never seen in the Plains Indian wars. In terms of history, the first cavalry's campaign against the Cheyennes was a microcosm of relations between white civilization and the Plains Indians. This narrative penetrates the Indian and white cultures to show how the battle marked the end of one era in Indian-white relations and the beginning of another.