Autumn of the Black Snake:Creation of the US Army & the Invasion that Opened the West by W. Hogeland

The forgotten story of how the U.S. Army was created to fight a crucial Indian war

In 1783, with the signing of the Peace of Paris, the American Revolution was complete. And yet even as the newly independent United States secured peace with Great Britain, it found itself losing an escalating military conflict on its borderlands. The enemy was the indigenous people of the Ohio Valley, who rightly saw the new nation as a threat to their existence. In 1791, years of skirmishes, raids, and quagmires climaxed in the grisly defeat of a motley collection of irregular American militiamen by a brilliantly organized confederation of Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware Indians—with nearly one thousand U.S. casualties, the worst defeat the nation would ever suffer at native hands. Americans were shocked, perhaps none more so than their commander in chief, George Washington, who came to a fateful conclusion: the United States needed an army.

Autumn of the Black Snake tells how the early republic battled the coalition of Indians that came closer than any adversary, before or since, to halting the nation’s expansion. His memorable portraits of soldiers and leaders on both sides—from the daring war chiefs Blue Jacket and Little Turtle to the doomed Richard Butler and a steely, even ruthless Washington—drive a tale of horrific violence, brilliant strategizing, stupendous blunders, and valorous deeds. This sweeping account, at once exciting and dark, builds to a crescendo as Washington and Alexander Hamilton, at enormous risk, outmaneuver Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other skeptics of standing armies—and Washington appoints General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to lead the Legion. Wayne marches into the forests of the Old Northwest, where the very Indians he is charged with defeating will bestow on him, with grudging admiration, a new name: Black Snake.

Autumn of the Black Snake is a dramatic work of military and political history. It is also an original interpretation of how greed, honor, political beliefs, and vivid personalities converged on the killing fields of the Ohio Valley, where the U.S. Army’s first victory opened the way to western settlement and established the precedent that the new nation would possess a military to reckon with.

It’s been hard enough recently to feel any sort of pride in what the US is doing...or has done. This book didn’t do me any favors as far as helping that in any way. The American leaders, especially Washington and Hamilton, are portrayed as greedy land speculators, who were more concerned with the British not allowing them to take more of the Natives’ land, rather than being too terribly concerned with “taxation without representation.” His analysis is backed up by notes at the back of the book, but they aren’t terribly detailed.

The Native Americans biggest blunders seemed to have been to believe anything an white man told them, and then not completely joining together to halt the threat, rather being more concerned with their gripes against each other. They didn’t come off in a very good light.

But my biggest problem with the book is how Hogeland creates conversations between people that no one else could possibly have heard. Perhaps more padding? Because he does quite a bit of that. Also, his jumping back and forth in time can be disconcerting.

It’s an interesting book, but I couldn’t help being put off by the author’s writing style.





Mount TBR 2018 Book Links

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.


1. ReDeus: Divine Tales
2. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
3. The Exodus Quest
4. Troy: Shield Of Thunder
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
6. Hyperion
7. Thin Air
8. Gods and Generals
9. White Seed
10. The Killer Angels
11. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
12. Troy: Fall of Kings
13. The Last Full Measure
14. Gwendy's Button Box
15. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
16. Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
17. The Mists of Avalon
18. In The Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama
19. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
20. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #2)
21. The Lost Labyrinth
22. Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West