The Most Promising Young Officer

Unlike the flashy and self-promoting George Armstrong Custer, Civil War veteran and Indian fighter Ranald Slidell Mackenzie is not well known today. In the late nineteenth century, however, Mackenzie ranked among the best known and most effective of a group of young army colonels who led in the defeat of the Plains Indians and the opening of the West to white settlement, as Michael D. Pierce shows in this compelling and poignant biography. A rather shy and sometimes distant personality, Mackenzie, following his graduation from West Point in 1862, showed early promise in Civil War service. After peace was won, he moved west to command the Fourth Cavalry. Mackenzie lost no time in bringing the Fourth Cavalry to first rank among the frontier horse regiments, and the Fourth became troubleshooters for President Grant and Generals Sherman and Sheridan throughout Texas. Mackenzie was most notable for leading forays into Mexico to subdue border raiders and bandits and for his part in the defea