Modoc Vengeance

 In 1873, the Modoc War in Northern California was big news - international aswell as national.  Historians have written that were it not for Custer's shocking defeat at the Little Big Horn three years later, it would stand out as the most significant Indian war in America's western history.  It is a spell-binding story of how a small band ofrenegade Modocs defended their lava bed stronghold against over 600 troops for almost four months.

 Modoc Vengeance is unique from all other books on the Modoc War in that it is composed of 1873 newspaper reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Call-Bulletin, New York Herald, New York Times, Yreka Journal and Yreka Union.  These reports alone, without interpretive interruption, tell the story of the war.  Each page is a day in the life of the Modoc War giving you, the reader, a "you are there feel" for what is happening between Captain Jack's Modocs and the army at the Tule Lake lava beds.

 Complementing 244 pages of newspaper reports is an impressive, 86 page array of photographs, sketches and maps - arguably more than will be found in all other Modoc War books combined.  Included are photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, "father of the motion picture," and sketches by the equally-famous British reporter/artist, William Simpson, noted for his sketches of the Crimean War.

 Modoc Vengeance also features several human interest stories, which bring a grassroots reality to the story being told by the newspaper reports - e.g. little boys across the nation playing Modoc War games and a mother journeying from Philadelphia to Tule Lake to see her dying soldier son.

 Modoc Vengeance is a wonderful information source on the 1873 Modoc War and an entertaining must for anyone interested in one of the most intriguing stories in America's western history.