The Apache Wars is a major work of history on a much-neglected subject ... Hutton, a Western historian and documentarian familiar to viewers of the History Channel, has put flesh and blood on a people known only as savages while giving us the true story, previously relegated to the vagaries of Hollywood. The Apache Wars is an epic tale filled with Homeric scenes and unforgettable characters. It's a quintessential American story that too few Americans know.
In this well-researched, engrossing book, Albuquerque author and cultural historian Paul Andrew Hutton argues compellingly that our longest war actually was fought in what is now the American Southwest, from 1861 to 1886, as the U.S. Army tried first to eradicate the Apache people and then struggled to force them onto reservations ... Hutton delves into some of the ugly politics that shaped the Apache Wars ... Hutton’s excellent book can help many readers get a much better understanding of a long, complicated and still-disturbing chapter in American history.
The tension between the two principles of coexistence or vengeance, embodied in Whitman and the Tucson militia, animates Paul Andrew Hutton’s compendious frontier history, The Apache Wars ... There is much to like in Mr. Hutton’s book. His prose is equal to the vastness of his landscape and the clash of so many era-defining personalities...Mr. Hutton is also terrier-like in his persistence in tracking and deconstructing every significant skirmish in the conflict, and there are plenty of them. In terms of colorful characters, there is an embarrassment of riches ... The weakness in Mr. Hutton’s book arises from one of its strengths: the very thoroughness of his researches into the long Apache war can sometimes make for tedious reading ... Where The Apache Wars really shines is in the richness of its details, well researched and deeply understood.
