John's Reviews > The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America

The basic construct of the book is to describe the last campaign of the US military against the American Indians in the West once the Civil War had ended. It was basically a war of demographics, geography, and culture as there were only about 400,000 American Indians at that time as compared to about 30 million European Americans, many of whom were anxious to head West now that the Civil War was over. Brand marks Geronimo's surrender in 1886 as the end of the war against the American Indians (hence the title of his book). By then there only 250,000 American Indians as opposed to 60 million European Americans, giving an air of inevitability to the last campaign.

What makes this book a fascinating read is Brands' reliance on contemporary sources, as the book is peppered with dialogue from diaries or interviews of or with the key players and other commentators on both sides of the conflict. One thing that becomes clear is the sheer brutality on the part of both sides. War is hell indeed. Another is the degree of miscommunication between two wildly different cultures that simply did not understand each other. I found hearing these actual voices from the past made this history come alive. For example, at the end, To hear General Miles and Geronimo each describe the terms of his surrender in such wildly different ways was heartbreaking. Was one of them lying? Was the interpreter flawed? Did it matter? What I knew by then was that Geronimo's band was reduced to a group of eleven: he was utterly defeated.