Thunder in the Mountains

The epic clash of two American legendsΓÇötheir brutal war and a battle of ideas that defined America after Reconstruction. Oliver Otis Howard thought he was a man of destiny. Chosen to lead the FreedmenΓÇÖs Bureau after the Civil War,the Union Army general was entrusted with the eraΓÇÖs most crucial task: helping millions of former slaves claim the rights of citizens. He was energized by the belief that abolition and Reconstructionthe countryΓÇÖs great struggles for liberty and equalitywere GodΓÇÖs plan for himself and the nation. To honor his righteous commitment to a new American freedomHoward University was named for him. But as the nationΓÇÖs politics curdled in the 1870sGeneral Howard exiled himself from WashingtonD.C.rejoined the armyand was sent across the continent to command forces in the Pacific Northwest. Shattered by ReconstructionΓÇÖs collapsehe assumed a new mission: forcing Native Americans to become Christian farmers on government reservations. HowardΓÇÖs plans for redemption in the West ran headlong into the resistance of Chief Josepha young Nez Perce leader in northeastern Oregon who refused to leave his ancestral land. Claiming equal rights for Native AmericansJoseph was determined to find his way to the center of American power and convince the government to acknowledge his peopleΓÇÖs humanity and capacity for citizenship. Although his words echoed the very ideas about liberty and equality that Howard had championed during Reconstructionin the summer of 1877 the general and his troops ruthlessly pursued hundreds of Nez Perce families through the stark and unforgiving Northern Rockies. An odyssey and a tragedytheir devastating war transfixed the nation and immortalized Chief Joseph as a hero to generations of Americans. Recreating the Nez Perce War through the voices of its survivorsDaniel J. SharfsteinΓÇÖs visionary history of the West casts HowardΓÇÖs turn away from civil rights alongside the nationΓÇÖs rejection of racial equality and embrace of empire. The conflict becomes a pivotal struggle over who gets to claim the American dream: a battle of ideas about the meaning of freedom and equalitythe mechanics of American powerand the limits of what the government can and should do for its people. The war that Howard and Joseph fought is one that Americans continue to fight today.