Warpath: The True Story of the Fighting Sioux Told in a Biography of Chief White Bull

By Stanley Vestal

Book Overview

Nephew to Sitting Bull, chief of the Sioux, Pte San Hunka (White Bull) was a famous warrior in his own right. He had been on the warpath against whites and other Indians for more than a decade when he fought the greatest battle of his life. On the afternoon of June 25, 1876, five troops of the U. S. Seventh Cavalry under the command of George Armstrong Custer rode into the valley of the Little Big Horn River, confidently expecting to rout the Indian encampments there. Instead, the cavalry met the gathered strength of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, who did not run as expected but turned the battle toward the soldiers. White Bull charged again and again, fighting until the last soldier was dead. The battle was Custer's Last Stand, and White Bull was later referred to as the warrior who killed Custer. In 1932 White Bull related his life story to Stanley Vestal, who corroborated the details, from other sources and prepared this biography. "All that I told him is straight and true," said White Bull. His story is a matchless account of the life of an Indian warrior.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803296010
• ISBN13: 9780803296015
• Release Date: June 1984
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Amazing Book

Very good book. I loved it all the way through. It's just sad what the whites did to the Sioux and all the Indians. The Spaniards were way better of treating them and they caused no wars unless the Indians started it and they also brought the Catholic Faith.

Very good!

It was great to read a book that actually came from the person that lived it; White Bull. He should have been as well known as Sitting Bull and many other warriors, because of his fierce attributes. He was a very brave leader of his people.

HISTORICAL & FUN READING

In the many books written about Native Americans Sioux that lived during the Great Sioux War as a hostile this is one of the best. A bit of a braggart, White Bull also is very revealing as far as what he was thinking at the time. E.i. There was an incident when his uncle, Sitting Bull, who decided to show the young braves how brave he was and asked who would like to walk out into the middle of a battlefield and sit down and have a smoke from his pipe with him. White Bull along with three other braves not wanting to look afraid volunteered. When they sat down in between the soldiers and their fellow Sioux with bullets zinging all around them, Sitting Bull put tobacco in his pipe, lit it, and took a long slow draw. When it got to White Bull he states "Except for Sitting Bull we smoked it as fast as we could." For those that wish an authentic flavor of what the Sioux thought during the Great Sioux War this book hits the spot.