The Apache Wars

In the tradition of Empire of the Summer Moon, a stunningly vivid historical account of the manhunt for Geronimo and the 25-year Apache struggle for their homeland.

They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides—the Apaches and the white invaders—blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout, Apache Kid.

In this sprawling, monumental work, Paul Hutton unfolds over two decades of the last war for the West through the eyes of the people who lived it. This is Mickey Free's story, but also the story of his contemporaries: the great Apache leaders Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Victorio; the soldiers Kit Carson, O. O. Howard, George Crook, and Nelson Miles; the scouts and frontiersmen Al Sieber, Tom Horn, Tom Jeffords, and Texas John Slaughter; the great White Mountain scout Alchesay and the Apache female warrior Lozen; the fierce Apache warrior Geronimo; and the Apache Kid. These lives shaped the violent history of the deserts and mountains of the Southwestern borderlands—a bleak and unforgiving world where a people would make a final, bloody stand against an American war machine bent on their destruction.

"[A] sprawling, fascinating tale of conflict in the late 19th-century American southwest...Hutton moves beyond standard descriptions of battles between Apache warriors and American troops (though there are plenty of those) to paint a larger, more detailed picture of Southwestern life... Hutton provides an unexpected twist that keeps the story fresh until the end." —Publishers Weekly

"[A] major work of history on a much-neglected subject... 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."—Chicago Tribune

• ISBN-13: 9780770435837
• Genre: Native American History
• Format: Paperback
• Trim: 5.2" x 8"
• Page count: 528 pages
• Published by Crown in 2017
• Written by Paul Andrew Hutton
• Audience: Adult