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The first major battle between the U.S. Army and the Cheyenne Indians took place on the south fork of the Solomon River in present-day northwest Kansas. In this stirring account, William Y. Chalfant recreates the human dimensions of what was probably the only large-unit sabre charge against the Plains tribes, in a battle that was as much a clash of cultures as of cavalry and Cheyenne warriors.In May 1857 the U. S. First Cavalry, under Col. E. V. Summer, had marched out of Fort Leavenworth to find and "severely punish" the Cheyennes for their attacks on immigrants and other travelers during the previous year-attacks precipitated largely by the army's earlier assaults on the Cheyennes. Two columns of soldiers moved westward, penetrating the territory of the southern bands of Cheyennes between the Santa Fe and Oregon-California trails, where few whites had been before.