Fighting Indians in the 7th United States Cavalry

the long version

The smoke and dust had barely cleared from the Little Bighorn battlefield when, just shy of 90 days later, Frank Mulford joined the famous 7th Cavalry. The young Mulford met and fought alongside all of the survivors of the Little Bighorn: Captain Frederick Benteen, Captain Tucker French, Lieutenant Charles Varnum, Captain Edward Godfrey, and others whose names are now well-known to Custer students. Slightly one year after the Little Bighorn battle, Mulford was on the march with General Nelson Miles and Colonel Samuel Sturgis in pursuit of Chief Joseph. In this lively and humorous memoir, Mulford presents a real inside view of 7th Cavalry life. Not the glory or the heroic so much as the mud and the blood. "My bunkie and I bought some eggs—so we thought—from the steamboat Far West, and the eggs proved to be too far west." After surviving his first trial by fire in the battle with the Nez Perce, Mulford was seriously injured when his horse stumbled and fell on him. He eventually lost the use of both legs at the young age of 24 but somehow managed to retain his sense of humor to write this valuable addition to 7th Cavalry history. Like many Americans of his time, Mulford was a Custer worshiper and pined for the old commander whom he never met. But his account of cavalry life is a long-forgotten treasure of western history.