![]() Publications of Robert M. Utley Since retiring from the federal government in 1980, I have devoted myself full time to historical research and writing, consulting, and speaking. Throughout my career, in addition to my position with the National Park Service, I have written 22 books, 14 brochures, 30 introductions or forewords to books, more than 80 articles in magazines and professional journals, and uncounted book reviews. Eight books have been selections of the Book of the Month Club, ten History Book Club, two Quality Paperback Book Club, and two Military Book Club. They have won numerous awards and prizes, including five Wranglers from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, three Spurs from the Western Writers of America, and the prestigious Caughey Award of the Western History Association. Before retiring, I wrote on my own time, not on the government's. By contrast, professors are expected to research and write on the university's time. Several publications I did write on government time: brochures (called "historical handbooks") relating to individual parks that I was asked to do in addition to my normal duties. One, for (then) Custer Battlefield National Monument, provoked an internal controversy. The National Park Service publications chief contracted with artist Leonard Baskin to provide the artwork. His drawings, which I considered bizarre, repelled me, both because I believe the illustrations in park publications should be literal and because his portrayal of a slain Custer lying naked on the battlefield was certain to anger my friends in the Custer family. I demanded that my name be removed, but the Park Service Director strong-armed me to relent. I did, on condition that the especially offensive drawing be removed. It was, leaving a blank page. I discovered that in later printings, unknown to me, it found its way back. Fortunately, later versions of the park historical handbook, which I wrote in retirement, returned to more acceptable format. So eager was I to write that I plunged into it long before I should have. ![]() Although my first real book was Custer and the Great Controversy, a mediocre revision of my master's ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I faced the same challenge in working on a biography of Geronimo, published by Yale University Press in October 2012. His culture is amply documented, but in contrast to Sitting Bull almost no evidence shapes the person until he reached his fifties. Moreover, Sitting Bull lived consistently within the bounds of his culture. Geronimo did not. The biography of Geronimo now qualifies as the toughest project I ever took on. As a young man obsessed with Custer and the 7th Cavalry, I wanted one day to write a comprehensive history of the frontier army. The opportunity arose early in the 1960s, before I was ready, when Macmillan created the "Wars of the United States" series, under the general editorship of Louis Morton of Dartmouth College. He selected me to write the volume on the f ![]() ![]() After completing Indian Frontier of the American West in 1984, I sought a fresh subject and found it in New Mexico's Lincoln County War of 1876-79. I was certain that this dramatic story would make me a big ![]() ![]() Utley and the Joint Chiefs of Staff On May 24, 1954, I graduated from Officers' Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was commissioned second lieutenant infantry. I remained at OCS as a "TAC officer," those who enforce severe discipline on candidates. I didn't like it, but the word was that once a TAC officer, one remained one. Liberation from this assignment was impossible. Good fortune intervened when a National Park Service historian, Roy Appleman, returned from a military assignment in Korea and learned about me from my old superintendent at Custer Battlefield National Monument, where I had worked during my college summers. This was Edward S. Luce. He urged Lieutenant Colonel Appleman to see if I couldn't be transferred to the army's Office of the Chief of Military History. That didn't work out, but one day Appleman visited the Pentagon and dropped by the Historical Section of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He mentioned my name to the old cavalry colonel who headed the section. ![]() One day in September 1954 I was summoned to the office of the commandant of OCS, Lieutenant Colonel Troutman. After I had reported, he handed me a set of orders and said, "Best wishes, Lieutenant, but how the hell did you do it?" The paper contained a brief order directing me to report to the Historical Section, Joint Chiefs of Staff, "by command of Matthew B. Ridgway, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army." The JCS section of the Pentagon is a tightly restricted area. In its corridors, I made an unusual spectacle--the only second lieutenant in an organization boasting 250 generals and admirals. Most thought that strange enough to wave and laugh when they saw me. I was also the junior officer in the Historical Section, which consisted of an air force major (the executive officer who ran the section), an army captain, a marine major, a navy lieutenant (j.g.) who had been brought in like I, and several civilians. Most were talented historians, and from several I learned much that I should have been taught in graduate school. Ever since World War II, the Historical Section had confined its studies to that war--a sure prescription for extinction in any budget or personnel crisis. The current crisis, however, was the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, in Indo-China, which had roiled the Pentagon all summer. JCS chairman Admiral Arthur Radford vigorously advocated that the United States take over the French role in stopping the Communists in Southeast Asia. Although joined by Vice President Nixon, Radford failed in his quest because of the opposition of President Eisenhower and Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway. Even so, the US took up part of the French obligation, and Indo-China became a continuing issue for the JCS. Radford had been wondering whether the historians might contribute something to present problems rather than dwelling on the past. I had no sooner settled at my Pentagon desk than he asked for a documented, book-length study of the role of the JCS in the Indo-China debacle, from the formation of the JCS during the war to the present. We would have access to all the JCS top secret files; the army, navy, air force, and marine files; and those of the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency--a treasure-trove of basic sources for the historian. Radford wanted instant action, but settled for what seemed to us an impossible four-month deadline. Intense, high-pressure work night and day and weekends paid off in a completed study on February 1, 1955. I worked as hard as the rest and emerged a much better historian than I had been in September. Admiral Radford liked our study, and planners throughout the Joint Staff showered us with acclaim. They all proclaimed it a valuable tool in strategic planning. No more World War II. We were in the business of today, our budget and positions secure. Since 1955, the Historical Section has grown into a division and taken on new positions and stature, all dedicated to making history relevant to today's problems. Our study was top secret and thus never seen by the public or anyone who lacked that classification. In 1981, with Vietnam in the past, the study was declassified and made public online: http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Vietnam/Vietnam_1947-1954.pdf This was my first major work after getting my master's, but of course I was the junior one of the team--note the names of the participants in the acknowledgements section. Though, as previously noted, as a youth working at Custer Battlefield during my college years, I had written a very unprofessional pamphlet on the Custer Battle. The souvenir shop outside the battlefield sold it for 75 cents, the proprietor always pointing out that it was written by the "battlefield boy." The list of Robert M. Utley publications is also available as a .PDF file. Related file: CV. |
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Books Utley, Robert M. Custer and the Great Controversy: The Origin and Development of a ![]() Legend Press, 1998). In print. Utley, Robert M. The Last Days of the Sioux Nation: Second Edition Pratt, Richard Henry. Battlefield & Classroom: Four Decades With the American Indian, 1867-1904 Utley, Robert M. Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865 Utley, Robert M. Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 ![]() Utley, Robert M. and Wilcomb Washburn. The American Heritage History of the Indian Wars Barnitz, Albert and Jennie. Life in Custer's Cavalry: Diaries and Letters of Albert and Jennie Barnitz, 1867-1868 Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West,1846-1890 (Histories of the American Frontier Series, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984; revised edition, 2003, titled The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890). History Book Club. Book of the Month Club. In print. Salvant, J. U. (Paintings) and Robert M. Utley (Text). If These Walls Could Speak: Historic Forts of Texas Utley, Robert M. Four Fighters of Lincoln County, Calvin P. Horn Lecture Series of 1985 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986). OP ![]() Utley, Robert M. Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier Utley, Robert M. Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life ![]() Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull Utley, Robert M. A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific Utley, Robert M. Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers Oxford University Press, 2002). History Book Club main selection. Book of the Month Club. Paperback ed., 2003. In print. ![]() Utley, Robert M. Custer and Me: A Historian's Memoir Utley, Robert M. Lone Star Lawmen: The Second Century of the Texas Rangers Utley, Robert M. Geronimo (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012). Winner of a Western Heritage Award, the Wrangler for Outstanding Nonfiction of the National Cowboy Museum and Western Heritage Center. Winner of the Spur Award for Best Western Nonfiction-Biography of the Western Writers of America. In print. Utley, Robert M. (Ed. and annotations) An Army Doctor on the Western Frontier, Journals and Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, 1864-1890 (University of New Mexico Press, 2014). In print. Utley, Robert M. Wanted: The Outlaw Lives of Billy the Kidd and Ned Kelly (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015). In print. ![]() Utley, Robert M. The Commanders (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.) In print. Utley, Robert M. The Last Sovereigns: Sitting Bull and the Resistance of the Free Lakota (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020). Winner of the Spur Award for Best Historical Nonfiction of the Western Writers of America. In print. |
Available Now! Five Classics Reissued The historical works of Robert Utley read like well-spun novels. Don’t miss his bestselling classics, now featuring elegant new covers. ![]() Available on Amazon |
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Articles Utley, Robert M. "The Celebrated Peace Policy of General Grant." North Dakota History 20 (July 1953): 121-42. Utley, Robert M. "The Custer Battle in the Contemporary Press." North Dakota History 22 (January-April 1955): 75-88. Utley, Robert M. "The Legend of the Little Bighorn." Corral Dust (Potomac Westerners) 1 (June 1956): 9-12, 15-16. Utley, Robert M. and Norman Maclean. "Edward S. Luce, Commanding General (Retired), Department of the Little Bighorn." Montana the Magazine of Western History 6 (Summer 1956): 51-55. Utley, Robert M. "The Battle of the Little Bighorn." Great Western Indian Fights, by members of the Potomac Westerners (New York: Doubleday, 1960; 2d ed., Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 235-54. Utley, Robert M. "Fort Union and the Santa Fe Trail" New Mexico Historical Review 36 (January 1961): 36-48. Utley, Robert M. "The Reservation Trader in Navajo History." El Palacio 68 (Spring 1961): 5-27. Utley, Robert M. "The Dash to Promontory." Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (April 1961): 99-117. Utley, Robert M. "The Bascom Affair: A Reconstruction." Arizona and the West 3 (Spring 1961): 59-68. Utley, Robert M. "The Surrender of Geronimo." Arizoniana 4 (Spring 1963): 1-9. Utley, Robert M. 'The Past and the Future of Old Fort Bowie.' Arizoniana 5 (Winter 1964): 65-60. ![]() Utley, Robert M. "Captain John Pope's Plan of 1853 for the Frontier Defense of New Mexico." Arizona and the West 5 (Summer 1963): 49-63. Utley, Robert M. "Kit Carson and the Adobe Walls Campaign." American West 2 (Winter 1965): 4-11. Utley, Robert M. "The Range Cattle Industry in the Big Bend of Texas." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 69 (April 1966): 419-41. Utley, Robert M. "Pecos Bill on the Texas Frontier." American West 6 (January 1969): 4-13, 61-62. Utley, Robert M. "Arizona Vanquished: Impressions and Reflections Concerning the Quality of Life on a Military Frontier." American West 6 (November 1969): 16-21. Utley, Robert M. "Custer: Hero or Butcher?" American History Illustrated 5 (February 1971): 4-9, 43-48. Utley, Robert M. "But for Custer's Sins." Western Historical Quarterly 2 (October 1971): 357-62. (WHA presidential autobiographical essay.) Utley, Robert M. "Suicide Fight." American History Illustrated 6 (December 1971): 41-43. Utley, Robert M. "Echos of Little Bighorn: Epilogue, Twenty Years Later." American Heritage 22 (June 1971): 40-44. Utley, Robert M. "The Trooper." American History Illustrated 7 (June 1972): 6-17. Utley, Robert M. "Yellowstone and the National Park Concept, 1872-1972." In Daniel Tyler, ed., Western American History in the Seventies: Selected Papers Presented to the First Western History Conference, Colorado State University, August 10-12, 1972 (Fort Collins, Colo., 1972), 7-13. Utley, Robert M. "General Crook and the Paiutes." American History Illustrated 8 (July 1973): 38-42. Excerpt from Frontier Regulars. Utley, Robert M. "A Chained Dog: The Indian-Fighting Army. Military Strategy on the Western Frontier." American West 10 (July 1973): 18-24, 61. Excerpt from Frontier Regulars. Utley, Robert M. "Archeology and the National Register." Historical Archaelogy 7 (1973): 63-77. Utley, Robert M. "Collector's Choice: The Gatlings Custer Left Behind." American West 11 (March 1974): 24-25. ![]() Utley, Robert M. "Historic Preservation and the Environment." Colorado Magazine 51 (Winter 1974): 1-12. Utley, Robert M. "The Ordeal of Plenty Horses." American Heritage 26 (December 1974): 15-19, 82-86. Utley, Robert M. "Historic Preservation and the Environment." Indiana University Arts and Science Review 18 (Winter 1975): 11. Utley, Robert M. "A Preservation Ideal." Historical Preservation 28 (April-June 1976): 40-44. Utley, Robert M. "The Enduring Custer Legend." American History Illustrated 11 (June 1976): 4-9, 42-49. Reprinted in Leonard Dinnerstein and Kenneth T. Jackson, eds., American Vistas: 1877 to the Present (3d ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 3-16. Utley, Robert M. "The Frontier Army: John Ford or Arthur Penn?" In Indian-White Relations: A Persistent Paradox, ed. Jane F. Smith and Robert M. Kvasnicka (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1976), 113-45. Papers and Proceedings of the National Archives Conference on Research in the History of Indian-White Relations. Utley, Robert M. "Good Guys and Bad: Changing Images of Soldier and Indian." Periodical (Journal of the Council on Abandoned Military Posts) 8 (Fall 1976): 30-41. Reprinted as a brochure by Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association, 1978. Utley, Robert M. and Barry Mackintosh. "Historic Preservation in a Democracy: The Partnership between Government and the Private Sector in the United States." Monumentum (Journal of the International Council on Monuments and Sites), 1976: 12-34. Utley, Robert M. "Campaigning with Custer." American West 14 (August 1977): 4-9, 58-60. Excerpt from Life in Custer's Cavalry. Utley, Robert M. "Beyond Pedagogy: History Out of School." Western Historical Quarterly 8 (October 1977): 397-404. Utley, Robert M. "Portrait for a Western Album [John Lorenzo Hubbell]." American West 15 (September-October 1978): 10. Utley, Robert M. "The Presence of the Past: Fort Bowie." American West 16 (March-April 1979): 14-15, 55. Utley, Robert M. "Wounded Knee and Other Dark Images: The West of Dewey Horn Cloud." American West 16 (May-June 1979): 5-11. Excerpt from Indian, Soldier, and Settler. Utley, Robert M. "The Bluecoats." American History Illustrated 14 (October 1979): 20-24, 32-34; (November 1979): 32-40. Utley, Robert M. "Presence of the Past: Promontory Summit." American West 17 (March-April 1980): 34-39. Utley, Robert M. "America's National Parks." American History Illustrated 17 (March 1982): 12-20. Utley, Robert M. "The Fall of Santa Fe." American History Illustrated 18 (September 1983): 40-47. Utley, Robert M. "Commentary on the Worthless Lands Thesis." Journal of Forest History 27 (July 1983): 142. Utley, Robert M. "The Buffalo Soldiers and Victorio." New Mexico Magazine 62 (March 1984): 47-54. Utley, Robert M. "War Houses in the Sioux Country: The Military Occupation of the Lower Yellowstone," Montana the Magazine of Western History 35 (Autumn 1985): 18-25. Utley, Robert M. "Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War," New Mexico Historical Review 61 (April 1986): 93-120. Utley, Robert M. "Historical Commentary: On Digging Up Custer Battlefield," Montana the Magazine of Western History 36 (Spring 1986): 80-82. Utley, Robert M. "Oliver Otis Howard," New Mexico Historical Review 62 (January 1987): 55-64. Utley, Robert M. "Nelson A. Miles," in Paul A. Hutton (ed.), Soldiers West: Biographies from the Military Frontier (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 213-27. ![]() Utley, Robert M. "Who Was Billy the Kid?" Montana the Magazine of Western History 37 (Summer 1987): 2-11. Utley, Robert M. "The Military Frontier on the Northern Plains, 1850-1900," in Larry Remele, ed., Fort Buford and the Military Frontier on the Northern Plains, 1850-1900 (Bismarck: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1987): 7-21. Utley, Robert M. "Last Stand." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 1 (Autumn 1988): 114-23. Sellars, Richard W. and Melody Webb, "An Interview with Robert M. Utley on the History of Historic Preservation in the National Park Service, 1947-1980, September 24, 1985 - December 27, 1985," Southwest Cultural Resource Center Professional Papers No. 26 (1988), 103 pages. Utley, Robert M. "Crook and Miles: Fighting and Feuding on the Indian Frontier." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 2 (Autumn 1989): 81-91. (Color porfolio of Remington paintings, 92-99.) Reprinted in Robert Cowley, ed., Experience of War (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992), 242-52. Utley, Robert M. "Billy the Kid Country," American Heritage 42 (April 1991): 65-78. Utley, Robert M. "La Guerre des Sioux dans l'Ouest Americain," in Philippe Jacquin, Terre Indienne: Un Peuple Ecrase, une Culture Retrouvee (Paris: Autrement, 1991), 46-66. Utley, Robert M. "Geronimo," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 4 (Winter 1992): 42-51. ![]() "Whose Shrine Is It? The Ideological Struggle for Custer Battlefield." Montana the Magazine of Western History 42 (Winter 1992): 70-74. Utley, Robert M. "The Little Big Horn," in Paul A. Hutton, ed., The Custer Reader (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 239-56. Utley, Robert M. "Origins of the Great Sioux War: The Brown-Anderson Controversy Revisited." Montana the Magazine of Western History 42 (Autumn 1992): 48-52. Utley, Robert M. "Sitting Bull." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 5 (Summer 1993): 48-59. Utley, Robert M. "Professor Maclean and General Custer," Montana the Magazine of Western History 43 (Summer 1993): 75-77. Utley, Robert M. "On the Outlaw Trail: Are Bad Men Worthy of Serious Study?" Wyoming History News 41 (October 1994): 1, 4-5, 8. [Address at annual meeting of Wyoming Historical Society, Riverton, September 10, 1994.] Utley, Robert M. "Remarks at the Symposium 'The Way West,' Lincoln, Nebraska," Nebraska History 77 (Summer 1996): 62-66. Utley, Robert M. "An Indian Before Breakfast: Kit Carson Then and Now," in R. C. Gordon-McCutchan, ed., Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer? (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1997), 91-98. Utley, Robert M. "Custer: How Today Historians Rate Him." American History, November/December 1997: 28. Utley, Robert M. "George Drouillard: Mountain Man," in Susan Ware, ed., Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring American Portraits from Our Leading Historians (New York: Free Press for Society of American Historians: 1998), 85-94. Utley, Robert M. "Forgotten Rangers: Governor Edmund J. Davis's Frontier Forces, 1870-71," Ranger Dispatch, Issue No. 1 (September 2000), Online: www.texasranger.org/dispatch/Backissues/Dispatch_Issue_01.pdf Utley, Robert M. "Custer and Me," True West 48 (May/June 2001). ![]() Utley, Robert M. "Los Diablos Tejanos," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History Quarterly 14 (Spring 2002): 86-95. Utley, Robert M. "The Texas Ranger Tradition Established: Jack Hays and Walker Creek," Montana the Magazine of Western History 52 (Spring 2002): 2-11. Foppes, Ellen K., "Present at the Creation: Robert M. Utley Recalls the Beginnings of the National Historic Preservation Program," Public History 24 (Spring 2002): 60-82. Utley, Robert M. "Texas Ranger Tales," American Heritage 53 (June/July 2002): 40-47. Utley, Robert M. "The Bozeman Trail before John Bozeman: A Busy Land," Montana the Magazine of Western History 53 (Summer 2003): 20-31. Utley, Robert M. "The West," in "America Unabridged: The Definitive Guide to the Greatest Books about Our Past," American Heritage (November-December 2004): 35-38. Utley, Robert M. "Rangers, Regulars, and Comanches," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 17 (Winter 2005): 6-15. Utley, Robert M. "Images of the Texas Rangers," in James A. Crutchfield, ed., The Way West: True Stories of the American Frontier (Forge/Western Writers of America, 2005), 257-64. Utley, Robert M. "The Red River War: Last Uprising in the Texas Panhandle," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 20 (Autumn 2007): 74-83. Utley, Robert M. "Writing the West: History, Geography, and Culture," in W. C. Jameson, ed., Hot Coffee and Cold Truth: Living and Writing the West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 169-82. Utley, Robert M. "The Texas Rangers Then and Now," Heritage 3 (2007): 12-15. (Texas Historical Foundation) Utley, Robert M. "Peace on Paper, War on the Plains, Wild West 21 (October 2008): 30-37. Utley, Robert M. "Victorio's War," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 21 (Autumn 2008): 20-29. Utley, Robert M. "Chiricahua Apache Leaders: A Comparison." Paul Andrew Hutton, ed., Roundup: Western Writers of America Present Great Stories of the West from Today's Leading Western Writers (Western Writers of America; Cheyenne: La Frontera Publishing, 2010), 49-61. Utley, Robert M. "Chiricahua Apache Leaders: A Comparison." in Paul Andrew Hutton, ed., Roundup: Western Writers of America Present Great Stories of the West from Today's Leading Western Writers (Western Writers of America; Cheyenne: La Frontera Publishing, 2010), 49-61. Utley, Robert M. "Border Showdown," MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 23 (Spring 2011): 98-104. (Note: this appears as a bonus selection only in the subscriber issues.) "The Sioux Wars: An Interview with Robert M. Utley," in Deborah and Jon Lawrence, Violent Encounters: Interviews on Western Massacres (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 117-38. |
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